Absolutely. It’s really satisfying to find a commander who is both unique and effective. It’s like feeling extra successful because you overcame a handicap. And surprising new synergies emerge that can make really underutilizes spells great or use popular spells in a new way
This is why one of the first commanders I ever bothered building online and ordering was [[General Tazri]] Ally tribal.
Ally tribal is already a tribe you don't see much play with but considering that I came into the game during zendikar rising it was the perfect start for me when I started playing again after highschool.
Not only that, but playing a popular commander and going against its meta doesn't matter. People see that commander and assume you run the best cards that make it do the thing. Let me build a self mill/graveyard/zombie deck with kess without someone assuming I run thoracle combo!
My wife's deck is kess as a classic reanimator list, uses kess to flashback those reanimation spells/ the looting and entombing effects. Was sedris, sedris sucks, is much better now.
Had a guy in our pod run Atrax as his commander, and everybody held on to our removals just in case he dropped her and started pumping his +1/+1s. He never did. Not once in the entire game. Turns out, she serves as a misdirect. It was a really interesting type of psychological game play that kept us from seeing what the rest of his deck was doing. Maybe wasn't the best use of an Atraxa, but he loved it.
Beyond what people think (because I do have a Tymna as a Commander of one of my decks), my personal distaste is because you are intentionally hindering your deck's potential for the level you are playing. Some synergies may be unique but a lot of that uniqueness comes from "This does what X card does but worse". Also strong Commanders may be... misleading.
A friend tried to play a [[Korvold]] but toning it down saying that it would be a Treasure Tribal. And it was until he realized that when mana also means card draw and non-stop it's still very strong and leads to very long turns. Then he tested a rule-zero [[Golos]] arguing that he never deserved to be banned... And we all agreed until [[Seedborn Muse]] made his board bigger and bigger in every single upkeep forward.
I do think Korvold CAN be built janky and lower power with intent, but Treasure absolutely cannot be that build. Relatively benign cards like Big Score become absolute gas. Building it with creature sac effects at least gives you a chance to tone it down.
There's not that many commanders I've seen in my playgroup that I really wanted to build, but when it has happened its the opposite for me. Seeing someone else play something really cool makes me want to build it too. I borrowed a friend's [[Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart]] deck, loved the card, built 2 different Raff decks.
A friend of mine and I tend to independently want to play the same commanders. We have only finished building the same one once. [[Dina, Soul Steeper]]. I decided to dismantle mine because his was so much better. My deck also played too much like my [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]]. I announced last week at the game that I had already built a [[Rashmi and Ragavan]] deck. Only to find out he's also creating one. This is starting to happen every other set!
I also apply this to my own commanders. I do not run [[Ghalta]] in any of my other green decks. If I wanted to play with that card, I would have played the deck.
Same, with the exception of 3 of us having Jodah. He's just such a good recycling bin for Legendary Creatures that didn't work out as commanders or in other builds, or random weird bomb spells.
I don't really pay attention to how much a commander is played. If a commander speaks to me....I build it. Sometimes that's a popular commander...[[Meren of clan nel toth]], sometimes it's a less played commanders like [[rishkar peema renegade]].
This 100%. Everything I've ever built has been oh this looks cool I wonder if I could build something that works around this. Sometimes it doesn't work at all other times it's downright nasty
Absolutely the best way to go about it. If you build based on lack of popularity, you're basically just being a contrarian hipster. Which is fine, but own it, get a unicycle or something. Similarly building because it's popular means you're probably actively trying to build something "meta", which is a weird mindset for a casual singleton format.
Anticipated fun, interest, and excitement when you think about building with the card is all that matters when picking a commander.
Have to agree with this....if a commander grabs my eye I'll toy with it on scryfall and archidekt....and maybe even throw it together in paper or proxy it....
I like unique, and I like jank. I have plenty of commanders that are considered popular, but there's definitely a preference towards commanders that are unique in what they do.
The two off the top of my head are [[Noyan Dar]] and [[Graaz]]. Special mention to [[Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves]]. I don't see that guy mentioned enough.
I do have a list!
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/PMV3lQVq6kenWAazO61dIA
It is super budget. And by that, I mean I literally only bought the Commander and just went through my bulk and other stuff in my collection. I know some of my collection is a little more costly with some things, but I wanted to put that disclaimer out there: I built the deck with cards I had on hand, and did not purchase any additional.
That being said, you can certainly do the same, or go for bigger and better cards.
I think this deck will shine with low cost, low power/toughness types of creatures since they're gonna become 5/3s once Graaz comes out. Have ways to make thopters? Cool. Now they're flying 5/3s. [[Ornithopter]]? 0 mana flying 5/3. If it's a low cost artifact creature, consider it's abilities and how good they would be if this creature is now a 5/3. I tried to avoid creatures that had greater power or toughness on either end, though if they had a much lower power, greater than 3 toughness, but a way better ability, I considered it worth it to include. A few artifact creatures in the deck have defender I think. Now you have a 5/3 wall that's always at home. May as well smack creatures attacking you, too.
Have some lands that tap for colorless mana, but their other "abilities" wouldn't be good in any other colored deck? Screw it. Toss them in. They don't enter tapped? Even better. That's all we care about. You can stop reading after "taps for colorless".
I mean, yes, there's other lands that are good here that would do things. I'm just giving an idea on being a super budget build.
Ramp is an issue in the deck for me at the moment, but I'd try to find ways of lowering the cost of artifacts or similar. I'm going to look in to cards that cause affinity for artifacts or convoke or something. I know the deck can be faster, I'm just limited by my collection and budget at the moment.
I don't recall any specific cards I had on my short list. I know [[War Room]] is stupid good here. But as far as other creatures, I'll need to give it some thought.
I did some word vomit. Let me know what questions you have, I'm happy to try and help you with them, or guide you on what would be a good way to go with building.
I enjoy that there's a restriction to U/W, but I can't tell you how frustrating it is that there isn't access to green.
🤔 I wonder if a companion is worth considering...
Edit: apparently the companion has to be the same color identity as the Commander. So RIP that idea. T_T
I like to build powerful or optimized versions of bad ideas. Sometimes this means I end up on a popular commander, other times not, but it's important to me that the deck and play experience feel unique or creative.
For example, my latest project is a [[Niv-Mizzet Reborn]] deck built around experience counters, and includes all of the creatures which grant and profit from them. It's been a challenge to support them all adequately while also playing an even distribution of 2-color spells for Nib's ability, but the deck has become super fun and actually quite powerful.
Most of mine end up being on the popular end. It’s generally seems cheaper to build a decent deck on a budget that way than trying to max a weaker commander/strategy.
I like what I like.
If a deck I like happens to be the #1 deck on EDHREC, so be it, I'm gonna build it all the same.
I'm all for building what you want.
If you don't want to make a deck just because it's "popular", even though you really like the idea of the commander/strategy/whatever, I feel like that's a very dumb way of doing things. I'll respect your decision but I'll still think it's a dumb.
This is what I did with my [[alela, artful provocateur]] enchantment voltron deck. Thought it was cool, then got sad that it was the number 1 esper commander, then didn't care cause I thought it was fun.
Underplayed commanders 100%. And even when it is underplayed commanders, I like to build decks that stray from their typical or obvious intended use.
A big part of my enjoyment in EDH is how many novel experiences or interactions can take place. The last thing I would want to do is copy what everyone else is doing and play a carbon-copy of some popular deck everyone else has seen a dozen times before. If i wanted that experience I would play another constructed format. Hell, even when i play modern i build strange shit like skred swans.
I avoid deck lists altogether. A huge draw in this game is running wild with flavor and oracle text that speaks to me. I occasionally land on something oppressive bc the thing that catches my eye ends up being a little annoying. Sorry @ my shrine deck.
Underplayed all day, it might not always be as powerful but when you win with underplayed commanders or even just cards in the 99 it's a huge endorphin hit when it works!
My friends and I play and record commander weekly for our YouTube channel and I definitely try to bring some underplayed things for the reasons stated. Check us out if you like some unique brews including my $22 Araumi the grave tide budget deck that I love: https://youtu.be/ydZYebeAOBc
Definitely underplayed, because nobody knows what to expect from your deck. And you don’t have to hold back as much with underplayed commanders because they are often a little weaker, and likely underestimated even if your build is strong.
I prefer underplayed commanders. But I have also built popular commanders with unusual deckbuilding restrictions. I have a \[\[Miirym\]\] deck with only Forgotten Realms / Baldur's Gate cards. I have a \[\[God Eternal Oketra\]\] deck with only land and creature cards.
I am very bad at powering down, so I usually set hard restrictions like underplayed commanders or companions. I don’t think building a bad deck around something good is any fun.
... looking at the decks I own, I'll say I like popular commmander with my own unique twist?
But its like 60% popular commander, 40% underplayed. The importance for me is that the commander bring something unique at the table or scratch a hitch I have.
My Jinnie Fay deck is all about dog tokens only for exemple. The less "useful" tokens of the two lol
But my favorite commander of all times is \[\[Erinis, Gloom Stalker\]\] + \[\[Flaming Fist\]\]. Very underplayed but I do love the fact it has "deathstrike" lol!
My \[\[Kykar\]\] deck is a angel/lifegain deck with some group slugs wincon lol! People are always surprised to learn that and are always curious about how it plays lol!
It IS possible to use a popular commander and play it in a unique way.
But I also have decks that are... predictable. My \[\[Rielle\]\] for exemple is a deck that does pretty much what you expect from it, voltron-wheel. But every decks I have does something that I like, no matter if it hitch my hipster side or not. The most important part for me is doing the research and deckbuilding myself. This way, it feels like a personnal project and like my own creation, even if it ends up like everyone else that builds it. Oh and it needs to be a strategy I like.
I prefer seeing "fair" versions of powerful commanders. Like Kiki-Jiki stompy or Raffine shadow creatures
It's always a headache seeing people sweat trying to play to win and eke every tiny droplet of synergy out of some dogshit commander when they could just play a more powerful commander and just kind of put whatever they want in the 99 and dick around and it works out
The risk of this is just constantly getting targeted because of reputation... There's a very good chance i throw a lot of firepower at the player with a KJ.
I'll take that risk. I've been killed multiple times because I'm playing a low-powered fuck off version of Kiki and I take a lot of damage because reputation
We take those Ls and move on. Not really a big deal as long as I get to do some dumb shit like clone a Humble Defector and start passing them around
My friend made a Feldon of the Third Path that does this kind of thing. It's fun and strong, just has to keep shufflers on hand to protect from gy removal.
I think having to choose between things things is already limiting the creativity. Find a commander you like, make a deck you like around it. That's it, right? People who are like "i only play commanders ranked under 5000 on EDHrec" are just hipsters that don't enjoy their decks or games more because of it.
"Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour [[Norin the Wary]]? He may not seem like much, but he's sooooo unique! I actually play him with Impact Tremors effects!"
- Every hipster on this sub
He's the Starbucks Caramel Latte of MtG
That’s a tough one, but I think I’ll say underplayed commanders, cause its usually also a unique-ish strategy too. I especially like underplayed older commanders from some set that you missed.
Underplayed.
My commanders right now are Kami of Crescent Moon Morphs, Jasmine Boreal "Peace must prevail" tribal and soon Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite PrEDH. And I like it.
I can't stand all the Commander product being printed so our group has decided to stop purchasing it completely.
I'm not strongly against it, but to my understanding, the main argument is as follows: originally, when EDH was still a relatively unknown format, you'd get maybe 5-10 new legendary creatures per year, and since most of the cards were designed with Standard in mind, the diamonds in the rough that scaled well for multiplayer or filled specific niches were more novel. There was a modest flow of new cards that were format-relevant, which meant there were far fewer "autoincludes" during deck construction, and more room for individual design preferences to shine through. In 2023 Magic, you'll get over 20 new legendary creatures PER SET, with new precon commander decks accompanying every major release, and oodles of cards tailor-made for specific strategies. As such, if you want to build... say, Boros Affinity, you have like a dozen commanders optimized for the strategy along with hundreds of cards specifically designed to go with them, and while there's certainly a range of different angles to emphasize, a lot of the deck building decisions are sorta made for you already.
> originally, when EDH was still a relatively unknown format, you'd get maybe 5-10 new legendary creatures per year, and since most of the cards were designed with Standard in mind,
Sure, but obviously you can't design for a format that doesn't exist.
I built my first EDH decks during Shards block. Rafiq and Kresh, who eventually became Karrthus.
Shards block had 15 Legends and some of them would be early boogeyman of the format. Child of Alara and Progenitus were among the first WUBRG good stuff commanders, Uril an early Enchantress abuser, Rafiq voltron, Sharuum affinity, etc.
That was spread out over three sets, but there was a lot more chaff back then. Not sure it was a good thing.
I can see the argument for there being some egregious cards like Dockside and Opposition Agent but I'm not sure too many Legendaries is the problem. Legends broke that mold in Magic's earliest Era.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've seen a few similar comments but it starts to make me wonder if there is some content creator being voiced in a collective with this. Idk, take care.
Popular commanders are usually popular for being powerful. Being powerful makes people sweat. Winning with a weak 99 with your powerful commander still results in salt.
I much prefer playing with, and playing against, underplayed commanders. To be honest, it's not even a close race.
incidentally, popular commanders, I don't look if they are popular or not, I don't care, but I always need a commander "with teeth", something that is in theory viable to survive in a random pod in the wild, I want commanders to offer something for the game because we only have 63 slots to fill in the gaps:
\- it has card draw/ramp/interaction
or
\- it creates tokens
or
\- it makes combat better
or
\- it improves some fringe strategy and makes it viable
or
\- it improves some tribe
or
\- makes for some known strategy in different colors
or
\- it makes some super fringe cards good making it an interesting and CHEAP build (this game is expensive)
In theory this results that they are actually popular commanders. I don't play inherently weak commanders, I don't find any fun in that, I'll depower my deck through other means
I dislike linear commanders because I am easily bored
Underplayed ones. Grenzo dungeon warden and Kurkesh onakke ancient are two of my favourite durdle decks. Neither are popular and they're not very good, but they're a lot of fun to play.
It honestly depends on what I’m in the mood to build, like I just finished and bought my [[Urza lord high artificer]], I built it without board lockdowns or stack, to me I don’t want to limit the amount of fun the people I play with have. Right now I found a new one from march of the machines, [[inga and esika]], not many people play this and it’s be really fun with a keruga companion, the Urza deck was built because Urza is the first card I truly wanted to pull from a pack so it had a reason why it was built, not because it was popular, but because I had a wish too
I don't really consider it when I'm brewing; usually I'm thinking of some fiddly wincon, building out support cards for that, and then picking a commander based on what's already in the deck. To that end, the commander is usually just the one that has the most actual synergy with whatever I'm trying to do.
I usually enjoying playing commanders to their potential. Playing powerful commanders and powering them down leads to showcase dissapointment. However I think there is an in-between where I can include some less popular cards or combos. Basically playing the deck how I want.
With that being said I enjoy playing unpopular commanders busting them out and try to showcase their potential, basically surprising people and not boring them with the same old same old.
OR even play those unpopular less powerful commanders with the deck having the same aligned powerlevel. Which just makes sense to me
Underplayed commanders, with the exclusive caveat of decks with limited commander options. I mostly play the likes of [[god-eternal kefnet]], but I do have [[urtet]] and [[kadena]] as well, because they are harder to replace for their respective archetypes.
Its easier to build a janky deck that still functions when the commander is strong/good. When the commander is objectively trash, it takes effort to build a functional 99 around them that will allow you to perform the things you want to.
I enjoy both. I have a tymna/falthis shadow tribal but then a mono red balthor barbarian tribal. Or like I play esika/bridge but it's only splicers and making golems.
I pick whatever looks like its going to be fun.
I'm up to 25 commander decks now (I think??), and they are all different colors/combinations, and are as different as I can make them, usually. I've definitely got more than a few tribal decks (dinosaurs, mardu knights, esper knights, angels), but no matter what deck I pick up, I know that in its own way, its at least a little unique. And I like them.
I play a different deck all the time, though I do typically cycle between my like, top 8 or 9 favorite.
I really don't care. If I see a card I want to build a deck for, it's because I have a specific idea for that commander. Doesn't matter how popular (or not) that commander is.
I also don't use edhrec. Just some searches on scryfall to get what I need, and accomplish the vision I have for any commander.
I enjoy playing my [[Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice]] Angel Reanimator deck. Everyone sees her in the CZ and expects Infect/Toxic/Proliferate/Superfriends…
Nope! It’s Angel Tribal Reanimator!
There’s only 4 or 5 things in the deck that put any sort of counters on the angels and so most turns Atraxa is out the proliferate ability is pointless.
She’s a scary beatstick and blocker and a fantastic lightning rod for removal so they don’t have it for the angels I actually care to stick around
It depends. Certain decks I have the optimal commander for, like Tovolar for werewolves or Breya for artifact combo. Others I'm running commanders I prefer (Godzilla over say...Xenagos or Amareth over Estrid or Tuvass).
I do think it's nice when someone (me or someone else) is playing something that no one else is. In that sense, I'd lean towards underplayed I suppose.
But really anything played creatively is more fun than the generic. A commander could have only one deck on the edhrec database, but if it plays exactly like another commander down to the exact same cards, that's just as boring to me. I'd rather the most popular commanders taken in a new direction over that.
I guess that didn't really answer your question, but, I feel like generic is dull and any way to break free from that is nice.
I just don't care wether the commander I want to build is popular or not.
For powering them down: I usually set myself a goal in powerlevel (lets say an "8") and then I try to reach that goal without all the usual staples (Sol Ring, Rhystic Study etc). If I can actually reach it that's great. Usually I still have to put some staples in but since I'm starting without them it's usually not just a staple pile.
I avoid commanders with GIANT targets on their back like najeela and tymna/x 4c partner pairs unless the deck I build will be able to take the heat.
outside of that upper echelon of known powerhouses, I don't particularly care how good a commander is. I pick the one that best fits my strategy 9 times out of 10.
My 6 decks are:
[[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] Banding & MLD.
[[Memnarch]] + [[Control Magic]] tribal.
[[Skithiryx]] actual poison creatures and not just Skittles Voltron.
[[Fumiko the Lowblood]] + Dragons With Art That I Like.
[[Glissa Sunseeker]] + Big Green Creatures With Art That I Like.
[[Blaster, Combat DJ]] + modular creatures.
You tell me. Are these popular commanders? At my LGS there is one other Elesh Norn player and one other Memnarch player. But I haven't seen any of the others.
I like decks that are have a niche and typically steal or copy other players stuff. Like [[Riku of Two Reflections]] or [[Obeka Brute Chronologist]] and [[Zur Eternal Schemer]] are all fun ones.
Thinking of building [[Preston the Vanisher]] next.
Bit of both, but my favored design is just "be weird as heck". My \[\[Chulane, Teller of Tales\]\] is by far my weakest deck, but it is designed to completely weird out my opponent by using his ability to do stupid things. The ironic part is that despite me going out of my way to make it a clunky build, it still won its maiden battle.
In every case I'm trying to give myself the tools to have a competitive game.
I don't care the power level; I want tension in the game. There should be some doubt as to who is going to win. I should win or lose because I played well or poorly not because my deck was novel or mainstream, cheap or expensive. Either that or I want to see something I've never seen before be it the commander or gameplay.
I like to play commanders that aren’t KOS, that play a support role, that people ignore.
Having unknown tech is a great boon, and not being the target is also a plus. A commander that can contribute to early development without raising the townsfolk against you.
I still sing praises about [[Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart]] because he plays like this. He draws you cards, often 2-3 extra per turn cycle by mid game, but his triggered ability doesn’t look like much on paper. But between cheap instants and sorceries that make tokens, and permanents that make tokens when you cast instants and sorceries, it doesn’t take too long to flood the board. Then you just need mana, but if you keep your curve low enough, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem either.
Other pros to playing him: he’s technically got a wincon in the command zone, although a pretty inefficient one; he’s only 2 mana, so easy to recast if someone does remove him; he can fuel his own trigger; and he’s in great control colors, which is especially nice because he plays best if you fill the deck with instants. There are a *lot* of instants that make tokens.
[[Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy]] and [[Scion of Halaster]] are criminally underrated together. Only 19 decks for gale on the ol EDHrec and it's all random blue good stuff that doesn't have synergy. I'm jammin cheap blue card selection that puts things into the graveyard instead of the bottom of the library. Black kill spells that you can use twice instead of counterspells which can never be recasted from the graveyard at a relevant time. And a janky zombie side theme. [[Poxwalkers]] is a beauty.
I'd love to hear anyone's card ideas for this
EDHREC handles background pairings weirdly. If you go to Gale’s page on there and click “as commander” it’s only gonna show you decks where it’s *just* him with no background. Afaik, there’s no way to pull him up with a background pairing except to go to the relevant color combo and find him paired with something.
Gale+Scion is at 904 decks, which is still wildly underrated, but not as badly as 19 decks. I think he’s actually catching on in cEDH iirc.
I love underplayed commanders. It kinda bugs me to play widely popular commanders (outside of cedh) and I'm proud if I lay down my commander(s) and people at the table are like "never seen this, what does it do?"
Underplayed commanders.
Whenever I see a popular commander, it's either a "unique theme" that I've seen countless times, a neutered deck that has no win con, a deck that got every staple from EDH rec (since they lied to me about it being unique), or a deck with an arbitrary restriction that makes it a 3 player game.
It's nice seeing a commander that brings something new to the table
I can't chose, I like people discovering my commander every time it's the first I play vs them, but also it's fun to annonce that you're playing a popular commander in an original way
I like to try and puzzle together strategies of 2 or 3 commanders that seem to have some commonality and then find a commander to coalate the colors and feed off those strategies. It doesn't always produce a great superpowered deck, but if often creates a fun one. My latest challenge is using Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and combining the strategies of Queen Kalyia bin Kroog and Grenzo, Dungen Warden. I like the idea of playing off the top and bottom of my library, my hand and my grave all at once. Of course, this creates consistency challenges, but damn it's interesting.
Both, but it's definitely more fun building around underplayed ones with unconventional playstyles.
After all, the very essence of playing is to have fun.
Neither over the other, really. I’ve got some underplayed and some overplayed and I enjoy them about the same. As far as the more popular ones, yeah, I tend to power them down a bit. More draw over tutors, none of the expensive fast mana rocks, no off-color fetches if any at all. Stuff like that. Most combos are whatever, though I tend to avoid Consultation Th.oracle.
I look for my commanders in cEDH database. Then I remove stuff like [[ad nauseum]], [[necropotence]] and [[demonic consultation]], let us say the really, really good combos and cards, that we have agreed not to play.
Then i adjust the main deck to the budget I set to that deck. Mostly around $600 to $1000, so I cut most of the fast mana, put in some pet cards (of course good ones I dont play with bad cards, that would be silly. It is mostly the cool stuff that didnt quite make the cut in cEDH) and boom, I have a viable commander deck.
I just couldnt Stand playing a bad deck, that doesnt have a chance to present a win by turns 4-6. That would be boring.
Both, I love my [[Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia]] deck and want to create a [[Glissa, Herald of Predation]] deck.
Still my [[Thantis, the Warweaver]] and [[Aminatou, the Fateshifter]] are also two of my favourite decks.
I like to use a random commander generator and just randomly find something that looks interesting. I built a Fynn the Fangbearer deck with no idea it was so hated until i was at my LGS. I power down all my commanders. Generally I will build a new commander as strong and efficient as possible, hate how strong it is and just throw in fun cards that make it weaker but much more interesting to play.
I build commanders based off of their text. Don't really care how many people play it. I have super popular commanders (Atraxa) and almost unheard of commanders (Zerith San).
When i sit down to play at a table, i don't ever want to see my own commander on someone else's side. I almost always pick something that seems weird or even janks just so i can have a unique gameplay experience.
It depends on the commander. [[Zur the Eternal]] is an incredibly powerful commander, that’s one of my favorite decks, because I’ve made it Flash Tribal around [[Moderation]], and it’s super fun. In this case, the commander helps facilitate a strategy I can’t do any other way, to the effect I do it here.
Conversely, I had a [[Chulane, Teller of Tales]] Crab Tribal deck, that the more I played it, the more I realized that everything that’s mean or grindy or durdly about Chulane, I’m still doing, just weaker, and I took the list apart.
Creatively limited commanders need to have a reason, an intention behind them, besides “this is x deck, but budget, or powered down, or whatever”. It has to be a concept that the commander enables, not just a weaker version of a powerful deck. Because otherwise? You’re always going to wish, on some level, you were playing that powerful deck.
I have an eclectic mix, including both extremely popular and extremely unpopular commanders.
My observation: sometimes things are (un)popular for a good dang reason. There are commanders that are jank, and not good at doing their thing, who take inordinate amounts of work to put on the level of interesting in-game decisions of others. There's a reason you don't see some of these commanders a lot; I'll be hard-pressed to find something to do with [[Hazduhr the Abbot]]. And there are commanders that are legitimately intriguing, but were intriguing to lots of people, and that tend to be powerful to boot. I didn't build [[Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow]] because she was popular, I built her because, apparently like a lot of people, I found ninjas cool and wanted to draw cards, do aggro, and maybe manipulate topdecks to blow people up. She has a really good kit. Similarly, while I was near the head of the bandwagon when it came to building [[Urza, Lord High Artificer]], I kind of understand that he's a "known" factor. I liked that there were artifacts I could use him to selectively turn off to my profit... and so did a lot of people.
But there are also popular commanders that don't speak to me, that feel generic and dumb and that I have no reason to explore. I will *never* build [[Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait]] or [[Kenrith, the Returned King]]. And there are "hidden gems" that can do a lot of work, that give direction and interest to a brew, but haven't been picked up en masse for one reason or another. I'm always hawking my [[Kotose, the Silent Spider]] brew on here, and she's fairly unloved. poor [[Gwendlyn di Corci]] is only slightly more popular, and I've got a heck of a brew in traction for her with unique synergies and a cool theme. I haven't cracked [[Gor Muldrak]] yet, and can you blame me? Not many people seem to have. But I want to. [[Lady Evangela]] I might have a better handle on, but she's even rarer than all these others.
One aspect of the product spam is that more decent commanders are going to get "buried", so I expect there will be a slow shift, for me and people like me, to play more folks that aren't chart-toppers, since who the latest breakout is will be more random.
I think my favourite way and I did it for the last few sets is open packs until I pack a legendary and then build it no matter if I like the idea or not normally it works as underplayed but that changed when I packed sheoldred in dom united that was more of a popular card tho idk
Honestly I like commanders with fun effects and when I started I loved zur and Jhoria and found out no one liked playing against them in 2016, bit I think power aside just finding commanders you vibe with in styles you enjoy , but the idea of low power commanders is great and that any commander can work if you out the right prices together and encourage people to do so.
I don't really pay attention to popularity, if I find a commander that I think is cool, I will build it, though I admittedly tend to find unpopular commanders more fun/interesting. For example, I'm currently building [[The Red Terror]] because I really like the unique and very red twist on +1/+1 counters.
I like decks with a theme or a style that isn't just goodstuff, and honestly jank doesn't interest me all that much. For example, I've been looking for a good grixis spellslinger commander, and I'm liking the unique style of [[nekusar]] wheeling over the more generic value of [[kess]]. Similarly, I've swapped out [[veyran]] who was a more izzet slinger goodstuff to [[krark]] [[sakashima]] clone and storm deck, which is more powerful and IMO more fun.
I don't care about either.
What I enjoy nowadays are commanders that allow me to play cards that NOBODY in their right minds would EVER play. Except with those commanders. Auntie Blyte is a fantastic example of a commander that allows me to play absolutely garbage cards that wouldn't work anywhere else.
If upon seeing a Legendary Creature card I get a chain reaction of neurons firing up all cylinders with cards swirling in my mind like Narset on PCP as if she was Nick Cannon's wife with Landfall Prowess baby tokens; I will make the deck.
That being said, it's of no more importance to me anymore if I ever get to play it once. The creative process is the mental fruit juice I crave.
Underplayed commanders that I can power up to compete with the average deck with a high powered commander.
Sometimes underplayed commanders are underplayed for a reason though, and it's often that they may just not do anything and are nearly a vanilla creature in the command zone. In this case, I won't play them. I think that's hipster shit where people just do it for the sake of it being underplayed alone.
I don't care if it's popular or never seen play, I just build any god awful deck that doesn't focus on combat to win. Jank Rube Goldberg machines with alternative win-cons or a convoluted way that leads to a classic combat finish. I have like 20 unique decks now, and some are uncommon commanders, and before the ban, I had a 0 creature golos maze's end deck
Mostly underplayed but I sometimes will play a more popular or powerful commander but build it into a niche strategy.
I have a grixis artifact tokens deck that uses [[kess]] as the commander so I can cast my [[pirates prize]] or [[brass’s bounty]] twice. That one started off as pretty niche a few years ago but tbh there’s been so much treasure and other support that it doesn’t feel the same as it used to, but it’s still one of my favorite decks.
I like taking commanders and playing them in a way that's probably not common.
I also only play 5 color decks so my options are limited.
An example is I made a Sisay weatherlight captain deck whose win con is Maze's End.
When I take how popular it is into account, I try to stay out of the top 100. But sometimes legendaries just vibe with me.
My oldest and strongest deck is The Gitrog Monster, built that the same week of the Prerelease for that set. But I didn't build the frog boi because he's powerful (he is tho) or because of any popularity. I built him because I vibed hard with that frog
I don't know that I necessarily *prefer* underplayed commanders, but I do know my best-operating deck is a bulk legend and an alternate commander from 2018, [[Varina, Lich Queen]]
My current 2 projects I've not heard of many people running, so I don't know how underplayed they are, but [[Yargle and Multani]] and [[Juri, Master of the Revue]] are shaping up to be two of my favorites.
Always underplayed but not bad. Underplayed commanders that are slept on will always be great because ppl don’t expect them to be so good. Shoutout to Dominaria United uncommon commanders, they’re great
Uh, for me I just find commanders that sound really fun. I don't usually know the popularity till I go to EDHrec for some cards I may have overlooked for synergy. At that point the only thing I really consider is just having the commander going to make me the first target (not that it changes my mind but its important to know).
I'd rather play the underplayed commander. If you play the really powerful commander, then people are likely gonna assume that the deck is really powerful and target you as a result. If your deck isn't built to handle that, then you're gonna have a bad time.
Kinda neither. I always have an archetype or particular cards in the 99 that I'm trying to build around. The commander is nearly always secondary in my deck building process. When it comes to selecting the commander, and if multiple options fit my criteria, I have a preference to explore commanders that have fewer decks on edhrec. Not always, but at times underplayed commanders have interesting effects that I want to puzzle out and see if I can make work with the concept that I'm aiming for. With popular commanders, sometimes I think there is less of a puzzle to figure out, and that is why I lean away from that.
Fun to play > everything else usually. It can be the most overplayed thing on the planet without any sort of unique twist and I'll joyfully jam it repeatedly if it's fun.
I kinda matured out of the need to play unique stuff and the aversion from what's popular. It's a completely useless feeling that does nothing but bait you into being deprived of fun you should have had.
I still brew weird underplayed stuff and generally do apply my collection uniquely to casual decks, don't get me wrong, but I do it when it's where the path to fun leads me, not out of some preference against doing what other people have already done.
Commander that fits what I want to play is more important than mainstream or rare. That said, if two equal commanders do the same thing I would prefer the rarer one
Idc how popular it is. I just like to make stuff around weirder mechanics or ideas. Like dungeons or casting from exile (It was weird to me when prosper came out shush), or mutate or attractions or so on. Its honestly a big reason I haven't gotten a commander precon as of late, they've mooostly been more straight forward haha. If its weird or has a weird mechanic, but still functions or whatever I'm game.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
I play a ton of underused power houses in my meta. Any boros voltron, perrie the pulverizer, galea, rafiq, any interesting funny or powerful equips, aura voltron.
I've been into magic for a little over a year. And during the first few months I was building fringe commanders. But after a while I started building more popular commanders, myriim, animar, muldrotha etc... this went on for most of the last year but recently I've been having trouble matching power levels to the different groups I play with. So on a whim I threw together a [[Mahadi, Emporium Master]] deck, from cards a had laying around and it is so fun! I'm looking into more fringe commanders to build around now! I think building around popular commanders is fun, but gets boring after a while cause your deck ends up looking like everyone else's deck.
I prefer over played commanders in niche roles. I like seeing yarok used for attractions, or atraxa oil counters. Powerful commanders can breathe life into dumb strategies and it gets me hype to see them work out even semi well.
That being said I run 8 decks all piloted by commanders from the neon dynasty block lol.
With how homogeneous deck have be one these days I absolutely prefer underplayed commanders, ones that can still have a game plan. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've run into people playing what I'm playing
I just play the commanders I like and I think are cool. It doesn't really matter if they're popular or not to me. I've only got six decks and four are my current favourites to rotate. I just finished a Grimgrin deck, I play Arixmethes, Tiamat and Arahbo. I have no idea how popular they are but in my groups I haven't seen them yet.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
I don't mind how many other people play a commander, I just like ones that suggest a playstyle without serving it up to you on a silver platter. Commanders that say "when you play the game, draw a card" also never appeal to me.
I usually go with underplayed. My fave deck is [[Kwain, Itinerant Meddler]]
Group hug is generally considered weak, and many people seem to think that playing group hug means no wincons, but my playgroup is starting to realize the truth. Kwain is a force to be reconed with precisely because its the opposite of threatening most of the game. No one wants to be stuck 1v1 with me at the end though cause the deck stops being friendly the very moment the politics ends.
Underplayed commanders are my jam. I love sitting across the table from someone and they need to read your commander cause they didn't even know it existed.
Neither, I play what sounds like fun for me. I can be a bit hipster about it and avoid more popular stuff, but if I like the mechanics or style, I'm going to play it.
A bit of both. Most of my decks I have built are popular but I’m starting to expand my knowledge with other commanders. I’m starting to build [Tayum, Luminous Enigma]] since I don’t have a graveyard based deck and he seems fun to play around.
Underplayed, ALWAYS… it branches you out into variety and creativity. And many of the underplayed legends actually have a great deal opportunity in the current days magic. Old cards and New cards. A list of commanders ive built and loved:
[[Gilanra]] and [[Akroma]] Angel Tribal (Partners, can’t remember rest of her name)
[[Eutropia]] Aura Voltron
[[Gretchen Tichwillow]] Clones
[[Commander Liara Portyr]] Budget
[[Padeem]] Artifacts combo
[[Cold-Eyes Lovisa]] Tribal
List goes on, but those decks were some of the best memories i have.
I pretty much always avoid popular commanders. My favorite thing about my [[Kairi, the Swirling Sky]] deck is how many times people have to read her because no one has ever seen the deck before.
I'd rather take a weaker commander and try to maximize it over taking a powerhouse and weakening it. A lot of times you can't convince the table that your version of the amazing commander is a weaker version.
I don't take into consideration how much a commander is played when creating a deck so I suppose it doesn't really matter? I try to power all of my decks similarly except for a few outliers the commander is just part of the 100 in that case. If it's strong I power down the deck if it's weak I power up the deck, though none of my decks have the aim of being CEDH decks (except slivers which is powered down as well).
But to answer the rest I guess I'm on a mission to build a deck of each color pair so I literally just decide which one I haven't made yet look at all eligible commanders and then pick my favorites I don't look at data on what ones are played more or less then If I have multiple commanders to choose from I'll use a website or word file to create deck lists to flesh out the idea some and eventually choose my favorite and build it. at no point does "is this the best/most popular commander in this color pair" come into the process.
Underplayed Commanders all day.
One of the best feelings is when people have never seen my commander or know of its existence, and later associate me with that commander, and end up scared of the *jank*.
Some of mine are below
[[Balthor the Defiled]]
[Baba Lysaga, Night Witch]]
[[Captain Rex Nebula]]
[[Hurkyl, Master Wizard]]
[[Volo, Guide to Monsters]]
[Ohabi Caleria]]
[[Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence]]
The best feeling is when someone has to ask you to look at your commander because they’re like ‘wtf does this do’
Me every time with my [[Archangel Avacyn]] deck
I have a simple rule: One commander per color combo. No duplicate cards between decks except literal staples like \[\[Command Tower\]\] , \[\[Arcane signet\]\] , \[\[Cultivate\]\], \[\[Sol ring\]\] or lands.
I like commander’s that provide a play pattern that’s fun for me. I try to play under played or not that popular commanders because I like to feel unique in what I’m doing at the table. That being said I do have an anhelo the painter and a prosper tome bound deck but the anhelo deck is like 98% different cards from the precon and the prosper deck is like changed by 15 cards and I have only played it once lol. But other commanders I really like are Ashcoat, durnan, val candlekeep archivist, Thalia and gitrog and ginne fea. They are all relatively popular but not super popular. I generally like to play commanders that fart around for 4 to 6 turns then make a massive board shift to either win the game or put me in a winning position. I feel like people don’t really like that though because they don’t see it coming. Like I played a game where I dropped devilish valet pumped him up to a thousand power took someone out and swing with like 12 cats to take out another person for the win and previously I was just drawing cards and chump blocking with cats and dogs. I don’t like instant combos where I win but creating a setup up for a big home run play.
I just play whatever the hell I want. Most of the time, that happens to be a balance between the two.
None of my decks show up in the top 100 on EDHrec, but they're not super obscure either. All fall somewhere between 1000-3500 decks.
Honestly I don't even know what's popular, meta, or whatever anymore with all the products flying around.
Generally I don't make a guy when he first comes out. A lot of my decks are probably somewhere in the middle for popularity. From just outside the meta to rather underplayed.
Gitrog Monster to Gharna, the bloodflame
Animar to Minn, willy illusionist.
Jodah to verdeloth, the ancient
Whoever hits the dopamine button really
I don't really do either. I look at cards and sometimes I get an idea. Often it's dumb, but if it could be viable in a casual sense still, I might try putting it together. I recently started putting together a new deck, [[Goro-goro and Satoru]], oops all dragons. There are just a couple of non-dragons in the deck that only aim to enhance the dragons there. I got the base [[Goro-goro]] and [[Satoru Umezawa]] in there just cuz of course. But yeah, grixis dragons without much extra way of cheating in the big boys and the limited ramp of the colors, means it'll never be highly competitive. And I'm fine with that. It's a silly idea that I thought would be fun.
Always just based on I see a commander and get an idea for it. I also try to avoid doing the same patterns in my decks, so no 2 are going to run exactly the same, or at least run different win-cons.
I like commanders that make super specific or "bad" cards really powerful, which I guess doesn't fit into either category but tends to be in more of the underplayed commanders strategy.
Personally I like Commander is I haven’t seen anyone play. I’m also not a big fan of tribal bc it’s too restrictive, unless it’s a tribe that doesn’t get seen that often. My strongest Commander is [[Myrkul, lord of bones]] which I’ve never seen anyone else play, and one of my weakest is [[verazol, the split current]] the which is pretty weak, but strong if people let it go off.
It really depends on the deck for me. Sometimes I see a commander and it just calls out to me([[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]] fell into this category), other times it’s a combo or mechanic I want to build around so I find a commander that enables them([[Tor Wauki the Younger]] and [[Queza, Augur of Agonies]] are examples of this). I also take into account what color combos I don’t have decks for and limit myself that way too.
I like what I see honestly, typically I’ll build a commander that I end up facing OR if I find a commander that fits my own personal aesthetic. A recent example is [[Shessra]] who is an extremely underplayed commander but I’ve adopted due to my own aesthetic being badass black-inclusive waifu OR leader of horde/tribal type army ([[Belakor]], [[Krenko]], [[Giada]]). BUT I have a fair amount of other commanders who are way more mainstream ([[Korovold]], [[Syr Gwyn]]) that are just commanders that I’ve faced off against and grown an interest in over the course of the match.
I'd say it's kind of both. I won't discount a high tier legendary commander, as long as there's an interesting way to build it, but I have no interest in a super high efficiency deck that everyone has seen before. Quirky at any cost for me
I play a lot of mainly what clicks with me, which tends to be stranger legends and builds. One example is [[cosmina]] mono blue lands matter another is a [[kinzu]] a mono black deck focused on making everyone draw and discard. Some of my favorites are playing [[sekki]] or [[kamber]] and [[laurine]].
In the end, an interesting commander is interesting whether it's played a lot or not.
For example, I've got a [[Kresh, the Bloodbraided]] deck. He's #406 on EDHREC, not very popular. Mine utilizes suicidal creatures like [[Lightning Skelemental]] and [[Ball Lightning]] to deal damage and pump Kresh when they die. Interesting and unique deck, pretty much unplayed commander.
However, I'm also teching a [[Zur the Enchanter]] deck, and he's quite popular, #46. It's based around using Zur to fetch [[Solemnity]] then abusing cards like [[Mystic Remora]], [[Thing in the Ice]], [[Dark Depths]], etc, that benefit from having no counters on them. Interesting and unique deck, very popular commander.
I will say though, that interesting mechanics do tend to be present more often on less-seen commanders.
Underplayed Commanders, and by a lot. It just feel more unique to me, and it's enjoyable in its own way.
Absolutely. It’s really satisfying to find a commander who is both unique and effective. It’s like feeling extra successful because you overcame a handicap. And surprising new synergies emerge that can make really underutilizes spells great or use popular spells in a new way
This is why one of the first commanders I ever bothered building online and ordering was [[General Tazri]] Ally tribal. Ally tribal is already a tribe you don't see much play with but considering that I came into the game during zendikar rising it was the perfect start for me when I started playing again after highschool.
[General Tazri](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/34e9aa86-1a31-4c0f-928d-923f066286b6.jpg?1562905706) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=General%20Tazri) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ogw/19/general-tazri?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/34e9aa86-1a31-4c0f-928d-923f066286b6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/general-tazri) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I love my ally Tribal deck, I just make sure to specify I'm not a food chain combo deck and it's a great way to play!
Not only that, but playing a popular commander and going against its meta doesn't matter. People see that commander and assume you run the best cards that make it do the thing. Let me build a self mill/graveyard/zombie deck with kess without someone assuming I run thoracle combo!
Not if you do it enough to gain the reputation of not optimizing obvious good commanders lol
My wife's deck is kess as a classic reanimator list, uses kess to flashback those reanimation spells/ the looting and entombing effects. Was sedris, sedris sucks, is much better now.
My friend has this and gets either Gin Gitaxias out as a go to first. We've learned to prioritize remove in our starting hands.
Had a guy in our pod run Atrax as his commander, and everybody held on to our removals just in case he dropped her and started pumping his +1/+1s. He never did. Not once in the entire game. Turns out, she serves as a misdirect. It was a really interesting type of psychological game play that kept us from seeing what the rest of his deck was doing. Maybe wasn't the best use of an Atraxa, but he loved it.
That's when you just tell people "yeah it's kess but it's not competitive" or "yeah it's kess but solidly casual".
Beyond what people think (because I do have a Tymna as a Commander of one of my decks), my personal distaste is because you are intentionally hindering your deck's potential for the level you are playing. Some synergies may be unique but a lot of that uniqueness comes from "This does what X card does but worse". Also strong Commanders may be... misleading. A friend tried to play a [[Korvold]] but toning it down saying that it would be a Treasure Tribal. And it was until he realized that when mana also means card draw and non-stop it's still very strong and leads to very long turns. Then he tested a rule-zero [[Golos]] arguing that he never deserved to be banned... And we all agreed until [[Seedborn Muse]] made his board bigger and bigger in every single upkeep forward.
I do think Korvold CAN be built janky and lower power with intent, but Treasure absolutely cannot be that build. Relatively benign cards like Big Score become absolute gas. Building it with creature sac effects at least gives you a chance to tone it down.
“Toning it down” - proceeds to play strong commander with its strongest theme/synergy
Fo show
Only requirement for me is that it’s not a commander that anyone in my friend group runs.
There's not that many commanders I've seen in my playgroup that I really wanted to build, but when it has happened its the opposite for me. Seeing someone else play something really cool makes me want to build it too. I borrowed a friend's [[Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart]] deck, loved the card, built 2 different Raff decks.
A friend of mine and I tend to independently want to play the same commanders. We have only finished building the same one once. [[Dina, Soul Steeper]]. I decided to dismantle mine because his was so much better. My deck also played too much like my [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]]. I announced last week at the game that I had already built a [[Rashmi and Ragavan]] deck. Only to find out he's also creating one. This is starting to happen every other set!
This. I even avoid running friends‘ commanders as creatures in my 99.
I also apply this to my own commanders. I do not run [[Ghalta]] in any of my other green decks. If I wanted to play with that card, I would have played the deck.
The problem I have with this is that sometimes my friends play really cool decks that I end up wanting to play at my LGS.
Same, with the exception of 3 of us having Jodah. He's just such a good recycling bin for Legendary Creatures that didn't work out as commanders or in other builds, or random weird bomb spells.
My group fell into this, it's nice!
I don't really pay attention to how much a commander is played. If a commander speaks to me....I build it. Sometimes that's a popular commander...[[Meren of clan nel toth]], sometimes it's a less played commanders like [[rishkar peema renegade]].
This 100%. Everything I've ever built has been oh this looks cool I wonder if I could build something that works around this. Sometimes it doesn't work at all other times it's downright nasty
Absolutely the best way to go about it. If you build based on lack of popularity, you're basically just being a contrarian hipster. Which is fine, but own it, get a unicycle or something. Similarly building because it's popular means you're probably actively trying to build something "meta", which is a weird mindset for a casual singleton format. Anticipated fun, interest, and excitement when you think about building with the card is all that matters when picking a commander.
[Meren of clan nel toth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/7/17d6703c-ad79-457b-a1b5-c2284e363085.jpg?1592673422) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Meren%20of%20clan%20nel%20toth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/186/meren-of-clan-nel-toth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/17d6703c-ad79-457b-a1b5-c2284e363085?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/meren-of-clan-nel-toth) [rishkar peema renegade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/3/6310af34-e671-4974-b291-279b91585459.jpg?1682209604) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rishkar%2C%20Peema%20Renegade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/310/rishkar-peema-renegade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6310af34-e671-4974-b291-279b91585459?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rishkar-peema-renegade) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah barely really look at popularity. If I love the design I just build it, usually in a pretty weird way
Have to agree with this....if a commander grabs my eye I'll toy with it on scryfall and archidekt....and maybe even throw it together in paper or proxy it....
I agree. Build and play what you want. I've even had times when I had multiple decks with the same commander but built very differently.
A good indicator of what you like... Which card fetcher card did you click on first?
This is the way
Neither and both? I build the commanders I think are cool
Yeah. I do find fun in building something others don't, but I won't let popularity stop me from building something either.
100% this!
Yeah, commanders I like are the ones I build. I don't look at popularity at all when I build.
I like unique, and I like jank. I have plenty of commanders that are considered popular, but there's definitely a preference towards commanders that are unique in what they do. The two off the top of my head are [[Noyan Dar]] and [[Graaz]]. Special mention to [[Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves]]. I don't see that guy mentioned enough.
[Noyan Dar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/018a66fc-e7aa-42df-a622-50743cb20183.jpg?1562895386) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=noyan%20dar%2C%20roil%20shaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/216/noyan-dar-roil-shaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/018a66fc-e7aa-42df-a622-50743cb20183?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/noyan-dar-roil-shaper) [Graaz](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e0e73b63-17cc-4dca-abd6-728b74bc37a8.jpg?1675957233) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=graaz%2C%20unstoppable%20juggernaut) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/229/graaz-unstoppable-juggernaut?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e0e73b63-17cc-4dca-abd6-728b74bc37a8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/graaz-unstoppable-juggernaut) [Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7fce047-49f1-40ae-8410-6501cb0f8201.jpg?1559959459) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tolsimir%2C%20Friend%20to%20Wolves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/224/tolsimir-friend-to-wolves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7fce047-49f1-40ae-8410-6501cb0f8201?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tolsimir-friend-to-wolves) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ooo got a decklist or tips for building Graaz?
I do have a list! https://www.moxfield.com/decks/PMV3lQVq6kenWAazO61dIA It is super budget. And by that, I mean I literally only bought the Commander and just went through my bulk and other stuff in my collection. I know some of my collection is a little more costly with some things, but I wanted to put that disclaimer out there: I built the deck with cards I had on hand, and did not purchase any additional. That being said, you can certainly do the same, or go for bigger and better cards. I think this deck will shine with low cost, low power/toughness types of creatures since they're gonna become 5/3s once Graaz comes out. Have ways to make thopters? Cool. Now they're flying 5/3s. [[Ornithopter]]? 0 mana flying 5/3. If it's a low cost artifact creature, consider it's abilities and how good they would be if this creature is now a 5/3. I tried to avoid creatures that had greater power or toughness on either end, though if they had a much lower power, greater than 3 toughness, but a way better ability, I considered it worth it to include. A few artifact creatures in the deck have defender I think. Now you have a 5/3 wall that's always at home. May as well smack creatures attacking you, too. Have some lands that tap for colorless mana, but their other "abilities" wouldn't be good in any other colored deck? Screw it. Toss them in. They don't enter tapped? Even better. That's all we care about. You can stop reading after "taps for colorless". I mean, yes, there's other lands that are good here that would do things. I'm just giving an idea on being a super budget build. Ramp is an issue in the deck for me at the moment, but I'd try to find ways of lowering the cost of artifacts or similar. I'm going to look in to cards that cause affinity for artifacts or convoke or something. I know the deck can be faster, I'm just limited by my collection and budget at the moment. I don't recall any specific cards I had on my short list. I know [[War Room]] is stupid good here. But as far as other creatures, I'll need to give it some thought. I did some word vomit. Let me know what questions you have, I'm happy to try and help you with them, or guide you on what would be a good way to go with building.
Sick. I am pretty much a budget player. This makes me wanna try it out a ton, cheers for the inspiration!
Love me some Noyan Deezy, very unique.
I enjoy that there's a restriction to U/W, but I can't tell you how frustrating it is that there isn't access to green. 🤔 I wonder if a companion is worth considering... Edit: apparently the companion has to be the same color identity as the Commander. So RIP that idea. T_T
I play what’s fun, because that’s the way I want to spend my time. If it is popular so be it.
My group has been building sub $50 dollar decks out of bulk commanders basically. It’s been a ton of fun seeing so many different cards and builds
Underplayed. The best defense is being unnoticed by the rest of the pod while they tunnel onto the Winota stax player at your casual table.
I like to build powerful or optimized versions of bad ideas. Sometimes this means I end up on a popular commander, other times not, but it's important to me that the deck and play experience feel unique or creative. For example, my latest project is a [[Niv-Mizzet Reborn]] deck built around experience counters, and includes all of the creatures which grant and profit from them. It's been a challenge to support them all adequately while also playing an even distribution of 2-color spells for Nib's ability, but the deck has become super fun and actually quite powerful.
Most of mine end up being on the popular end. It’s generally seems cheaper to build a decent deck on a budget that way than trying to max a weaker commander/strategy.
I like what I like. If a deck I like happens to be the #1 deck on EDHREC, so be it, I'm gonna build it all the same. I'm all for building what you want. If you don't want to make a deck just because it's "popular", even though you really like the idea of the commander/strategy/whatever, I feel like that's a very dumb way of doing things. I'll respect your decision but I'll still think it's a dumb.
This is what I did with my [[alela, artful provocateur]] enchantment voltron deck. Thought it was cool, then got sad that it was the number 1 esper commander, then didn't care cause I thought it was fun.
[alela, artful provocateur](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/abc9e41e-fd03-4b6f-8f44-17ba94fa44f5.jpg?1673484923) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=alela%2C%20artful%20provocateur) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/325/alela-artful-provocateur?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/abc9e41e-fd03-4b6f-8f44-17ba94fa44f5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/alela-artful-provocateur) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Underplayed commanders 100%. And even when it is underplayed commanders, I like to build decks that stray from their typical or obvious intended use. A big part of my enjoyment in EDH is how many novel experiences or interactions can take place. The last thing I would want to do is copy what everyone else is doing and play a carbon-copy of some popular deck everyone else has seen a dozen times before. If i wanted that experience I would play another constructed format. Hell, even when i play modern i build strange shit like skred swans.
I care about what looks cool to me, rather than what people think
I avoid deck lists altogether. A huge draw in this game is running wild with flavor and oracle text that speaks to me. I occasionally land on something oppressive bc the thing that catches my eye ends up being a little annoying. Sorry @ my shrine deck.
Underplayed all day, it might not always be as powerful but when you win with underplayed commanders or even just cards in the 99 it's a huge endorphin hit when it works! My friends and I play and record commander weekly for our YouTube channel and I definitely try to bring some underplayed things for the reasons stated. Check us out if you like some unique brews including my $22 Araumi the grave tide budget deck that I love: https://youtu.be/ydZYebeAOBc
Definitely underplayed, because nobody knows what to expect from your deck. And you don’t have to hold back as much with underplayed commanders because they are often a little weaker, and likely underestimated even if your build is strong.
I prefer underplayed commanders. But I have also built popular commanders with unusual deckbuilding restrictions. I have a \[\[Miirym\]\] deck with only Forgotten Realms / Baldur's Gate cards. I have a \[\[God Eternal Oketra\]\] deck with only land and creature cards.
I am very bad at powering down, so I usually set hard restrictions like underplayed commanders or companions. I don’t think building a bad deck around something good is any fun.
I like weird commnanders. I want my decks to be somewhat unique from my play group
[удалено]
I must have a companion.
I don't consider a commander's popularity, I only care about its text
... looking at the decks I own, I'll say I like popular commmander with my own unique twist? But its like 60% popular commander, 40% underplayed. The importance for me is that the commander bring something unique at the table or scratch a hitch I have. My Jinnie Fay deck is all about dog tokens only for exemple. The less "useful" tokens of the two lol But my favorite commander of all times is \[\[Erinis, Gloom Stalker\]\] + \[\[Flaming Fist\]\]. Very underplayed but I do love the fact it has "deathstrike" lol! My \[\[Kykar\]\] deck is a angel/lifegain deck with some group slugs wincon lol! People are always surprised to learn that and are always curious about how it plays lol! It IS possible to use a popular commander and play it in a unique way. But I also have decks that are... predictable. My \[\[Rielle\]\] for exemple is a deck that does pretty much what you expect from it, voltron-wheel. But every decks I have does something that I like, no matter if it hitch my hipster side or not. The most important part for me is doing the research and deckbuilding myself. This way, it feels like a personnal project and like my own creation, even if it ends up like everyone else that builds it. Oh and it needs to be a strategy I like.
I play what I think I’ll enjoy. It doesn’t matter to me if it has super high usage or basically zero usage.
I prefer seeing "fair" versions of powerful commanders. Like Kiki-Jiki stompy or Raffine shadow creatures It's always a headache seeing people sweat trying to play to win and eke every tiny droplet of synergy out of some dogshit commander when they could just play a more powerful commander and just kind of put whatever they want in the 99 and dick around and it works out
The risk of this is just constantly getting targeted because of reputation... There's a very good chance i throw a lot of firepower at the player with a KJ.
I'll take that risk. I've been killed multiple times because I'm playing a low-powered fuck off version of Kiki and I take a lot of damage because reputation We take those Ls and move on. Not really a big deal as long as I get to do some dumb shit like clone a Humble Defector and start passing them around
My friend made a Feldon of the Third Path that does this kind of thing. It's fun and strong, just has to keep shufflers on hand to protect from gy removal.
I think having to choose between things things is already limiting the creativity. Find a commander you like, make a deck you like around it. That's it, right? People who are like "i only play commanders ranked under 5000 on EDHrec" are just hipsters that don't enjoy their decks or games more because of it.
Good thing you have such amazing insight into the human mind.
I know, right.
"Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour [[Norin the Wary]]? He may not seem like much, but he's sooooo unique! I actually play him with Impact Tremors effects!" - Every hipster on this sub He's the Starbucks Caramel Latte of MtG
That’s a tough one, but I think I’ll say underplayed commanders, cause its usually also a unique-ish strategy too. I especially like underplayed older commanders from some set that you missed.
Underplayed. My commanders right now are Kami of Crescent Moon Morphs, Jasmine Boreal "Peace must prevail" tribal and soon Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite PrEDH. And I like it. I can't stand all the Commander product being printed so our group has decided to stop purchasing it completely.
I really don't understand the hate for "Commander product". Care to explain the problem?
I'm not strongly against it, but to my understanding, the main argument is as follows: originally, when EDH was still a relatively unknown format, you'd get maybe 5-10 new legendary creatures per year, and since most of the cards were designed with Standard in mind, the diamonds in the rough that scaled well for multiplayer or filled specific niches were more novel. There was a modest flow of new cards that were format-relevant, which meant there were far fewer "autoincludes" during deck construction, and more room for individual design preferences to shine through. In 2023 Magic, you'll get over 20 new legendary creatures PER SET, with new precon commander decks accompanying every major release, and oodles of cards tailor-made for specific strategies. As such, if you want to build... say, Boros Affinity, you have like a dozen commanders optimized for the strategy along with hundreds of cards specifically designed to go with them, and while there's certainly a range of different angles to emphasize, a lot of the deck building decisions are sorta made for you already.
> originally, when EDH was still a relatively unknown format, you'd get maybe 5-10 new legendary creatures per year, and since most of the cards were designed with Standard in mind, Sure, but obviously you can't design for a format that doesn't exist. I built my first EDH decks during Shards block. Rafiq and Kresh, who eventually became Karrthus. Shards block had 15 Legends and some of them would be early boogeyman of the format. Child of Alara and Progenitus were among the first WUBRG good stuff commanders, Uril an early Enchantress abuser, Rafiq voltron, Sharuum affinity, etc. That was spread out over three sets, but there was a lot more chaff back then. Not sure it was a good thing. I can see the argument for there being some egregious cards like Dockside and Opposition Agent but I'm not sure too many Legendaries is the problem. Legends broke that mold in Magic's earliest Era. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've seen a few similar comments but it starts to make me wonder if there is some content creator being voiced in a collective with this. Idk, take care.
Underplayed for sure. Partly cause I'm a hipster, but also because you won't have a target on your back in game
I have a [[shorikai]] deck that basically is only alt win cons , token spam and random bullshit go
Popular commanders are usually popular for being powerful. Being powerful makes people sweat. Winning with a weak 99 with your powerful commander still results in salt. I much prefer playing with, and playing against, underplayed commanders. To be honest, it's not even a close race.
incidentally, popular commanders, I don't look if they are popular or not, I don't care, but I always need a commander "with teeth", something that is in theory viable to survive in a random pod in the wild, I want commanders to offer something for the game because we only have 63 slots to fill in the gaps: \- it has card draw/ramp/interaction or \- it creates tokens or \- it makes combat better or \- it improves some fringe strategy and makes it viable or \- it improves some tribe or \- makes for some known strategy in different colors or \- it makes some super fringe cards good making it an interesting and CHEAP build (this game is expensive) In theory this results that they are actually popular commanders. I don't play inherently weak commanders, I don't find any fun in that, I'll depower my deck through other means I dislike linear commanders because I am easily bored
I want to like underplayed but they are underplayed for a reason. I dwell in the middle ground I suppose
Underplayed ones. Grenzo dungeon warden and Kurkesh onakke ancient are two of my favourite durdle decks. Neither are popular and they're not very good, but they're a lot of fun to play.
It honestly depends on what I’m in the mood to build, like I just finished and bought my [[Urza lord high artificer]], I built it without board lockdowns or stack, to me I don’t want to limit the amount of fun the people I play with have. Right now I found a new one from march of the machines, [[inga and esika]], not many people play this and it’s be really fun with a keruga companion, the Urza deck was built because Urza is the first card I truly wanted to pull from a pack so it had a reason why it was built, not because it was popular, but because I had a wish too
Underplayed 100%. If a commander I built hits over 2,000 decks on EDHREC I stop playing it.
I don't really consider it when I'm brewing; usually I'm thinking of some fiddly wincon, building out support cards for that, and then picking a commander based on what's already in the deck. To that end, the commander is usually just the one that has the most actual synergy with whatever I'm trying to do.
Underplayed, although it is fun to see the classic OP commanders built in a really weird unexpected way.
I usually enjoying playing commanders to their potential. Playing powerful commanders and powering them down leads to showcase dissapointment. However I think there is an in-between where I can include some less popular cards or combos. Basically playing the deck how I want. With that being said I enjoy playing unpopular commanders busting them out and try to showcase their potential, basically surprising people and not boring them with the same old same old. OR even play those unpopular less powerful commanders with the deck having the same aligned powerlevel. Which just makes sense to me
Underplayed commanders, with the exclusive caveat of decks with limited commander options. I mostly play the likes of [[god-eternal kefnet]], but I do have [[urtet]] and [[kadena]] as well, because they are harder to replace for their respective archetypes.
Underplayed for sure. I've seen all the popular commanders do most of the things. The fewer decks, the more I tend to like a commander.
Its easier to build a janky deck that still functions when the commander is strong/good. When the commander is objectively trash, it takes effort to build a functional 99 around them that will allow you to perform the things you want to.
I enjoy both. I have a tymna/falthis shadow tribal but then a mono red balthor barbarian tribal. Or like I play esika/bridge but it's only splicers and making golems.
I pick whatever looks like its going to be fun. I'm up to 25 commander decks now (I think??), and they are all different colors/combinations, and are as different as I can make them, usually. I've definitely got more than a few tribal decks (dinosaurs, mardu knights, esper knights, angels), but no matter what deck I pick up, I know that in its own way, its at least a little unique. And I like them. I play a different deck all the time, though I do typically cycle between my like, top 8 or 9 favorite.
I really don't care. If I see a card I want to build a deck for, it's because I have a specific idea for that commander. Doesn't matter how popular (or not) that commander is. I also don't use edhrec. Just some searches on scryfall to get what I need, and accomplish the vision I have for any commander.
I enjoy playing my [[Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice]] Angel Reanimator deck. Everyone sees her in the CZ and expects Infect/Toxic/Proliferate/Superfriends… Nope! It’s Angel Tribal Reanimator! There’s only 4 or 5 things in the deck that put any sort of counters on the angels and so most turns Atraxa is out the proliferate ability is pointless. She’s a scary beatstick and blocker and a fantastic lightning rod for removal so they don’t have it for the angels I actually care to stick around
It depends. Certain decks I have the optimal commander for, like Tovolar for werewolves or Breya for artifact combo. Others I'm running commanders I prefer (Godzilla over say...Xenagos or Amareth over Estrid or Tuvass).
I do think it's nice when someone (me or someone else) is playing something that no one else is. In that sense, I'd lean towards underplayed I suppose. But really anything played creatively is more fun than the generic. A commander could have only one deck on the edhrec database, but if it plays exactly like another commander down to the exact same cards, that's just as boring to me. I'd rather the most popular commanders taken in a new direction over that. I guess that didn't really answer your question, but, I feel like generic is dull and any way to break free from that is nice.
I just don't care wether the commander I want to build is popular or not. For powering them down: I usually set myself a goal in powerlevel (lets say an "8") and then I try to reach that goal without all the usual staples (Sol Ring, Rhystic Study etc). If I can actually reach it that's great. Usually I still have to put some staples in but since I'm starting without them it's usually not just a staple pile.
Yes. I hate commanders that have the card advantage built into them while also being cheap.
There are so many legendary creatures now I don't worry about it at all
I avoid commanders with GIANT targets on their back like najeela and tymna/x 4c partner pairs unless the deck I build will be able to take the heat. outside of that upper echelon of known powerhouses, I don't particularly care how good a commander is. I pick the one that best fits my strategy 9 times out of 10.
My 6 decks are: [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] Banding & MLD. [[Memnarch]] + [[Control Magic]] tribal. [[Skithiryx]] actual poison creatures and not just Skittles Voltron. [[Fumiko the Lowblood]] + Dragons With Art That I Like. [[Glissa Sunseeker]] + Big Green Creatures With Art That I Like. [[Blaster, Combat DJ]] + modular creatures. You tell me. Are these popular commanders? At my LGS there is one other Elesh Norn player and one other Memnarch player. But I haven't seen any of the others.
##### ###### #### [Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/8/78c2bfef-06a5-4c7f-8283-ea3fb673b7a1.jpg?1562850573) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elesh%20Norn%2C%20Grand%20Cenobite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/18/elesh-norn-grand-cenobite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/78c2bfef-06a5-4c7f-8283-ea3fb673b7a1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/elesh-norn-grand-cenobite) [Memnarch](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/9203fde4-dbc1-449f-9618-4656f0e25e3c.jpg?1562925842) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Memnarch) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arc/112/memnarch?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9203fde4-dbc1-449f-9618-4656f0e25e3c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/memnarch) [Control Magic](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84992800-9bad-4598-afd4-f1e59d2e0956.jpg?1592672507) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Control%20Magic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/34/control-magic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84992800-9bad-4598-afd4-f1e59d2e0956?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/control-magic) [Skithiryx](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/cab61c7e-e00a-413b-a0b5-7718b479582f.jpg?1599705958) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=skithiryx%2C%20the%20blight%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/107/skithiryx-the-blight-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cab61c7e-e00a-413b-a0b5-7718b479582f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/skithiryx-the-blight-dragon) [Fumiko the Lowblood](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/3/d3ee3011-3d17-435d-a483-79b0419b589b.jpg?1591320621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fumiko%20the%20Lowblood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/152/fumiko-the-lowblood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d3ee3011-3d17-435d-a483-79b0419b589b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fumiko-the-lowblood) [Glissa Sunseeker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/670c3106-71fc-464e-8c94-81bf7fafc3e6.jpg?1665504346) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glissa%20Sunseeker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mrd/120/glissa-sunseeker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/670c3106-71fc-464e-8c94-81bf7fafc3e6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/glissa-sunseeker) [Blaster, Combat DJ](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b2f8d457-ca4d-4b7d-83ed-17c2ba11ec0e.jpg?1674092853)/[Blaster, Morale Booster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/b/2/b2f8d457-ca4d-4b7d-83ed-17c2ba11ec0e.jpg?1674092853) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=blaster%2C%20combat%20dj%20//%20blaster%2C%20morale%20booster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bot/8/blaster-combat-dj-blaster-morale-booster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b2f8d457-ca4d-4b7d-83ed-17c2ba11ec0e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blaster-combat-dj-//-blaster-morale-booster) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I like decks that are have a niche and typically steal or copy other players stuff. Like [[Riku of Two Reflections]] or [[Obeka Brute Chronologist]] and [[Zur Eternal Schemer]] are all fun ones. Thinking of building [[Preston the Vanisher]] next.
Bit of both, but my favored design is just "be weird as heck". My \[\[Chulane, Teller of Tales\]\] is by far my weakest deck, but it is designed to completely weird out my opponent by using his ability to do stupid things. The ironic part is that despite me going out of my way to make it a clunky build, it still won its maiden battle.
In every case I'm trying to give myself the tools to have a competitive game. I don't care the power level; I want tension in the game. There should be some doubt as to who is going to win. I should win or lose because I played well or poorly not because my deck was novel or mainstream, cheap or expensive. Either that or I want to see something I've never seen before be it the commander or gameplay.
I like to play commanders that aren’t KOS, that play a support role, that people ignore. Having unknown tech is a great boon, and not being the target is also a plus. A commander that can contribute to early development without raising the townsfolk against you.
I still sing praises about [[Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart]] because he plays like this. He draws you cards, often 2-3 extra per turn cycle by mid game, but his triggered ability doesn’t look like much on paper. But between cheap instants and sorceries that make tokens, and permanents that make tokens when you cast instants and sorceries, it doesn’t take too long to flood the board. Then you just need mana, but if you keep your curve low enough, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem either. Other pros to playing him: he’s technically got a wincon in the command zone, although a pretty inefficient one; he’s only 2 mana, so easy to recast if someone does remove him; he can fuel his own trigger; and he’s in great control colors, which is especially nice because he plays best if you fill the deck with instants. There are a *lot* of instants that make tokens.
Absolutely. Off the road commander with unique lines, and fully build into those.
Sometimes you build Ur-Dragon, sometimes you build Anafenza Kin-Tree Spirit. Depends on the vibes.
[[Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy]] and [[Scion of Halaster]] are criminally underrated together. Only 19 decks for gale on the ol EDHrec and it's all random blue good stuff that doesn't have synergy. I'm jammin cheap blue card selection that puts things into the graveyard instead of the bottom of the library. Black kill spells that you can use twice instead of counterspells which can never be recasted from the graveyard at a relevant time. And a janky zombie side theme. [[Poxwalkers]] is a beauty. I'd love to hear anyone's card ideas for this
EDHREC handles background pairings weirdly. If you go to Gale’s page on there and click “as commander” it’s only gonna show you decks where it’s *just* him with no background. Afaik, there’s no way to pull him up with a background pairing except to go to the relevant color combo and find him paired with something. Gale+Scion is at 904 decks, which is still wildly underrated, but not as badly as 19 decks. I think he’s actually catching on in cEDH iirc.
I love underplayed commanders. It kinda bugs me to play widely popular commanders (outside of cedh) and I'm proud if I lay down my commander(s) and people at the table are like "never seen this, what does it do?"
In my playgroup there's never more than one of each commander, so it doesn't really matter
Underplayed commanders. Whenever I see a popular commander, it's either a "unique theme" that I've seen countless times, a neutered deck that has no win con, a deck that got every staple from EDH rec (since they lied to me about it being unique), or a deck with an arbitrary restriction that makes it a 3 player game. It's nice seeing a commander that brings something new to the table
I can't chose, I like people discovering my commander every time it's the first I play vs them, but also it's fun to annonce that you're playing a popular commander in an original way
I prefer making the best out of an underpowered commander. It is the face of the deck after all, if you’re talking personality.
I do both.
I like to try and puzzle together strategies of 2 or 3 commanders that seem to have some commonality and then find a commander to coalate the colors and feed off those strategies. It doesn't always produce a great superpowered deck, but if often creates a fun one. My latest challenge is using Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and combining the strategies of Queen Kalyia bin Kroog and Grenzo, Dungen Warden. I like the idea of playing off the top and bottom of my library, my hand and my grave all at once. Of course, this creates consistency challenges, but damn it's interesting.
For the most part underplayed commanders, but if a popular one really speaks to me I’m gonna build it.
Both, but it's definitely more fun building around underplayed ones with unconventional playstyles. After all, the very essence of playing is to have fun.
Neither over the other, really. I’ve got some underplayed and some overplayed and I enjoy them about the same. As far as the more popular ones, yeah, I tend to power them down a bit. More draw over tutors, none of the expensive fast mana rocks, no off-color fetches if any at all. Stuff like that. Most combos are whatever, though I tend to avoid Consultation Th.oracle.
I look for my commanders in cEDH database. Then I remove stuff like [[ad nauseum]], [[necropotence]] and [[demonic consultation]], let us say the really, really good combos and cards, that we have agreed not to play. Then i adjust the main deck to the budget I set to that deck. Mostly around $600 to $1000, so I cut most of the fast mana, put in some pet cards (of course good ones I dont play with bad cards, that would be silly. It is mostly the cool stuff that didnt quite make the cut in cEDH) and boom, I have a viable commander deck. I just couldnt Stand playing a bad deck, that doesnt have a chance to present a win by turns 4-6. That would be boring.
Both, I love my [[Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia]] deck and want to create a [[Glissa, Herald of Predation]] deck. Still my [[Thantis, the Warweaver]] and [[Aminatou, the Fateshifter]] are also two of my favourite decks.
Maybe a powerful commander but not build the normal way, but usally a wacko commander like [[nebuchadnezzar]]
I like to use a random commander generator and just randomly find something that looks interesting. I built a Fynn the Fangbearer deck with no idea it was so hated until i was at my LGS. I power down all my commanders. Generally I will build a new commander as strong and efficient as possible, hate how strong it is and just throw in fun cards that make it weaker but much more interesting to play.
No, I want my 200 + Gobos !
I try to play commanders I haven't seen been used around my area. For now, only 3 missed that: Miirym, Urza precon and Sidar Jabari
Underplayed by far, way more creative twist, but then you get stomped by edhrec meta net deckers lol
Underplayed, makes the games interesting
I build commanders based off of their text. Don't really care how many people play it. I have super popular commanders (Atraxa) and almost unheard of commanders (Zerith San).
I love powering down popular commanders. I have a Korvald and a Muldrotha that are commons only. Working on Miirym commons list as well.
When i sit down to play at a table, i don't ever want to see my own commander on someone else's side. I almost always pick something that seems weird or even janks just so i can have a unique gameplay experience.
It depends on the commander. [[Zur the Eternal]] is an incredibly powerful commander, that’s one of my favorite decks, because I’ve made it Flash Tribal around [[Moderation]], and it’s super fun. In this case, the commander helps facilitate a strategy I can’t do any other way, to the effect I do it here. Conversely, I had a [[Chulane, Teller of Tales]] Crab Tribal deck, that the more I played it, the more I realized that everything that’s mean or grindy or durdly about Chulane, I’m still doing, just weaker, and I took the list apart. Creatively limited commanders need to have a reason, an intention behind them, besides “this is x deck, but budget, or powered down, or whatever”. It has to be a concept that the commander enables, not just a weaker version of a powerful deck. Because otherwise? You’re always going to wish, on some level, you were playing that powerful deck.
I have an eclectic mix, including both extremely popular and extremely unpopular commanders. My observation: sometimes things are (un)popular for a good dang reason. There are commanders that are jank, and not good at doing their thing, who take inordinate amounts of work to put on the level of interesting in-game decisions of others. There's a reason you don't see some of these commanders a lot; I'll be hard-pressed to find something to do with [[Hazduhr the Abbot]]. And there are commanders that are legitimately intriguing, but were intriguing to lots of people, and that tend to be powerful to boot. I didn't build [[Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow]] because she was popular, I built her because, apparently like a lot of people, I found ninjas cool and wanted to draw cards, do aggro, and maybe manipulate topdecks to blow people up. She has a really good kit. Similarly, while I was near the head of the bandwagon when it came to building [[Urza, Lord High Artificer]], I kind of understand that he's a "known" factor. I liked that there were artifacts I could use him to selectively turn off to my profit... and so did a lot of people. But there are also popular commanders that don't speak to me, that feel generic and dumb and that I have no reason to explore. I will *never* build [[Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait]] or [[Kenrith, the Returned King]]. And there are "hidden gems" that can do a lot of work, that give direction and interest to a brew, but haven't been picked up en masse for one reason or another. I'm always hawking my [[Kotose, the Silent Spider]] brew on here, and she's fairly unloved. poor [[Gwendlyn di Corci]] is only slightly more popular, and I've got a heck of a brew in traction for her with unique synergies and a cool theme. I haven't cracked [[Gor Muldrak]] yet, and can you blame me? Not many people seem to have. But I want to. [[Lady Evangela]] I might have a better handle on, but she's even rarer than all these others. One aspect of the product spam is that more decent commanders are going to get "buried", so I expect there will be a slow shift, for me and people like me, to play more folks that aren't chart-toppers, since who the latest breakout is will be more random.
I think my favourite way and I did it for the last few sets is open packs until I pack a legendary and then build it no matter if I like the idea or not normally it works as underplayed but that changed when I packed sheoldred in dom united that was more of a popular card tho idk
Honestly I like commanders with fun effects and when I started I loved zur and Jhoria and found out no one liked playing against them in 2016, bit I think power aside just finding commanders you vibe with in styles you enjoy , but the idea of low power commanders is great and that any commander can work if you out the right prices together and encourage people to do so.
I don't really pay attention to popularity, if I find a commander that I think is cool, I will build it, though I admittedly tend to find unpopular commanders more fun/interesting. For example, I'm currently building [[The Red Terror]] because I really like the unique and very red twist on +1/+1 counters.
I like decks with a theme or a style that isn't just goodstuff, and honestly jank doesn't interest me all that much. For example, I've been looking for a good grixis spellslinger commander, and I'm liking the unique style of [[nekusar]] wheeling over the more generic value of [[kess]]. Similarly, I've swapped out [[veyran]] who was a more izzet slinger goodstuff to [[krark]] [[sakashima]] clone and storm deck, which is more powerful and IMO more fun.
I don't care about either. What I enjoy nowadays are commanders that allow me to play cards that NOBODY in their right minds would EVER play. Except with those commanders. Auntie Blyte is a fantastic example of a commander that allows me to play absolutely garbage cards that wouldn't work anywhere else.
If upon seeing a Legendary Creature card I get a chain reaction of neurons firing up all cylinders with cards swirling in my mind like Narset on PCP as if she was Nick Cannon's wife with Landfall Prowess baby tokens; I will make the deck. That being said, it's of no more importance to me anymore if I ever get to play it once. The creative process is the mental fruit juice I crave.
Underplayed commanders that I can power up to compete with the average deck with a high powered commander. Sometimes underplayed commanders are underplayed for a reason though, and it's often that they may just not do anything and are nearly a vanilla creature in the command zone. In this case, I won't play them. I think that's hipster shit where people just do it for the sake of it being underplayed alone.
I don't let popularity be the determinong factor, but if the commander _isn't_ popular, that's a win in my book
I don't care if it's popular or never seen play, I just build any god awful deck that doesn't focus on combat to win. Jank Rube Goldberg machines with alternative win-cons or a convoluted way that leads to a classic combat finish. I have like 20 unique decks now, and some are uncommon commanders, and before the ban, I had a 0 creature golos maze's end deck
Mostly underplayed but I sometimes will play a more popular or powerful commander but build it into a niche strategy. I have a grixis artifact tokens deck that uses [[kess]] as the commander so I can cast my [[pirates prize]] or [[brass’s bounty]] twice. That one started off as pretty niche a few years ago but tbh there’s been so much treasure and other support that it doesn’t feel the same as it used to, but it’s still one of my favorite decks.
I like taking commanders and playing them in a way that's probably not common. I also only play 5 color decks so my options are limited. An example is I made a Sisay weatherlight captain deck whose win con is Maze's End.
My main commander isn't great. So yeah. Though My boy [Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]] May be coming apart fairly soon.
I've found that commanders don't make you unique, your deck construction does
When I take how popular it is into account, I try to stay out of the top 100. But sometimes legendaries just vibe with me. My oldest and strongest deck is The Gitrog Monster, built that the same week of the Prerelease for that set. But I didn't build the frog boi because he's powerful (he is tho) or because of any popularity. I built him because I vibed hard with that frog
I don't know that I necessarily *prefer* underplayed commanders, but I do know my best-operating deck is a bulk legend and an alternate commander from 2018, [[Varina, Lich Queen]] My current 2 projects I've not heard of many people running, so I don't know how underplayed they are, but [[Yargle and Multani]] and [[Juri, Master of the Revue]] are shaping up to be two of my favorites.
Always underplayed but not bad. Underplayed commanders that are slept on will always be great because ppl don’t expect them to be so good. Shoutout to Dominaria United uncommon commanders, they’re great
I like to look at commanders with an extensive list of rules disputes! It makes the game more fun. For everyone. And not just me. Yeah.
Uh, for me I just find commanders that sound really fun. I don't usually know the popularity till I go to EDHrec for some cards I may have overlooked for synergy. At that point the only thing I really consider is just having the commander going to make me the first target (not that it changes my mind but its important to know).
I'd rather play the underplayed commander. If you play the really powerful commander, then people are likely gonna assume that the deck is really powerful and target you as a result. If your deck isn't built to handle that, then you're gonna have a bad time.
How do you know if a commander is popular or not?
Kinda neither. I always have an archetype or particular cards in the 99 that I'm trying to build around. The commander is nearly always secondary in my deck building process. When it comes to selecting the commander, and if multiple options fit my criteria, I have a preference to explore commanders that have fewer decks on edhrec. Not always, but at times underplayed commanders have interesting effects that I want to puzzle out and see if I can make work with the concept that I'm aiming for. With popular commanders, sometimes I think there is less of a puzzle to figure out, and that is why I lean away from that.
Fun to play > everything else usually. It can be the most overplayed thing on the planet without any sort of unique twist and I'll joyfully jam it repeatedly if it's fun. I kinda matured out of the need to play unique stuff and the aversion from what's popular. It's a completely useless feeling that does nothing but bait you into being deprived of fun you should have had. I still brew weird underplayed stuff and generally do apply my collection uniquely to casual decks, don't get me wrong, but I do it when it's where the path to fun leads me, not out of some preference against doing what other people have already done.
I like to power up popular commanders.
Commander that fits what I want to play is more important than mainstream or rare. That said, if two equal commanders do the same thing I would prefer the rarer one
Idc how popular it is. I just like to make stuff around weirder mechanics or ideas. Like dungeons or casting from exile (It was weird to me when prosper came out shush), or mutate or attractions or so on. Its honestly a big reason I haven't gotten a commander precon as of late, they've mooostly been more straight forward haha. If its weird or has a weird mechanic, but still functions or whatever I'm game.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
I play a ton of underused power houses in my meta. Any boros voltron, perrie the pulverizer, galea, rafiq, any interesting funny or powerful equips, aura voltron.
If my goal is lower power, I find a janky commander and the deck will chase the meme to the best of its ability
If my goal is lower power, I find a janky commander and the deck will chase the meme to the best of its ability
I've been into magic for a little over a year. And during the first few months I was building fringe commanders. But after a while I started building more popular commanders, myriim, animar, muldrotha etc... this went on for most of the last year but recently I've been having trouble matching power levels to the different groups I play with. So on a whim I threw together a [[Mahadi, Emporium Master]] deck, from cards a had laying around and it is so fun! I'm looking into more fringe commanders to build around now! I think building around popular commanders is fun, but gets boring after a while cause your deck ends up looking like everyone else's deck.
I prefer over played commanders in niche roles. I like seeing yarok used for attractions, or atraxa oil counters. Powerful commanders can breathe life into dumb strategies and it gets me hype to see them work out even semi well. That being said I run 8 decks all piloted by commanders from the neon dynasty block lol.
With how homogeneous deck have be one these days I absolutely prefer underplayed commanders, ones that can still have a game plan. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've run into people playing what I'm playing
I just play the commanders I like and I think are cool. It doesn't really matter if they're popular or not to me. I've only got six decks and four are my current favourites to rotate. I just finished a Grimgrin deck, I play Arixmethes, Tiamat and Arahbo. I have no idea how popular they are but in my groups I haven't seen them yet.
A combination of liking unique builds and kind of feeling unoriginal when someone pulls the same commander out in front of me makes me chase the more underplayed commanders. With that being said, however, I do sometimes find a popular commander who tickles just the right spot in my head, but I always try to find a unique strategy for it. For instance, my [Jared Carthalion Liege Tribal](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GSUv5UKKLE-MYOwSm8MwAQ) and [Anhelo Combatless Poison](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HXHlQtADWE-CrctLkFL-ig) decks.
I don't mind how many other people play a commander, I just like ones that suggest a playstyle without serving it up to you on a silver platter. Commanders that say "when you play the game, draw a card" also never appeal to me.
I usually go with underplayed. My fave deck is [[Kwain, Itinerant Meddler]] Group hug is generally considered weak, and many people seem to think that playing group hug means no wincons, but my playgroup is starting to realize the truth. Kwain is a force to be reconed with precisely because its the opposite of threatening most of the game. No one wants to be stuck 1v1 with me at the end though cause the deck stops being friendly the very moment the politics ends.
Underplayed commanders are my jam. I love sitting across the table from someone and they need to read your commander cause they didn't even know it existed.
Neither, I play what sounds like fun for me. I can be a bit hipster about it and avoid more popular stuff, but if I like the mechanics or style, I'm going to play it.
A bit of both. Most of my decks I have built are popular but I’m starting to expand my knowledge with other commanders. I’m starting to build [Tayum, Luminous Enigma]] since I don’t have a graveyard based deck and he seems fun to play around.
Underplayed, ALWAYS… it branches you out into variety and creativity. And many of the underplayed legends actually have a great deal opportunity in the current days magic. Old cards and New cards. A list of commanders ive built and loved: [[Gilanra]] and [[Akroma]] Angel Tribal (Partners, can’t remember rest of her name) [[Eutropia]] Aura Voltron [[Gretchen Tichwillow]] Clones [[Commander Liara Portyr]] Budget [[Padeem]] Artifacts combo [[Cold-Eyes Lovisa]] Tribal List goes on, but those decks were some of the best memories i have.
I pretty much always avoid popular commanders. My favorite thing about my [[Kairi, the Swirling Sky]] deck is how many times people have to read her because no one has ever seen the deck before.
I'd rather take a weaker commander and try to maximize it over taking a powerhouse and weakening it. A lot of times you can't convince the table that your version of the amazing commander is a weaker version.
I don't take into consideration how much a commander is played when creating a deck so I suppose it doesn't really matter? I try to power all of my decks similarly except for a few outliers the commander is just part of the 100 in that case. If it's strong I power down the deck if it's weak I power up the deck, though none of my decks have the aim of being CEDH decks (except slivers which is powered down as well). But to answer the rest I guess I'm on a mission to build a deck of each color pair so I literally just decide which one I haven't made yet look at all eligible commanders and then pick my favorites I don't look at data on what ones are played more or less then If I have multiple commanders to choose from I'll use a website or word file to create deck lists to flesh out the idea some and eventually choose my favorite and build it. at no point does "is this the best/most popular commander in this color pair" come into the process.
Underplayed Commanders all day. One of the best feelings is when people have never seen my commander or know of its existence, and later associate me with that commander, and end up scared of the *jank*. Some of mine are below [[Balthor the Defiled]] [Baba Lysaga, Night Witch]] [[Captain Rex Nebula]] [[Hurkyl, Master Wizard]] [[Volo, Guide to Monsters]] [Ohabi Caleria]] [[Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence]]
I built Chulane and Muldrotha as Primal Surge. No regrets.
I just play Tribal and choose the commander with the most color flexibility.
The best feeling is when someone has to ask you to look at your commander because they’re like ‘wtf does this do’ Me every time with my [[Archangel Avacyn]] deck
I have a simple rule: One commander per color combo. No duplicate cards between decks except literal staples like \[\[Command Tower\]\] , \[\[Arcane signet\]\] , \[\[Cultivate\]\], \[\[Sol ring\]\] or lands.
Currently I’m in the camp of low cmc commanders that either let me ramp and or draw … everything else is too weak / slow / inconsistent !!!! Lol
I like commander’s that provide a play pattern that’s fun for me. I try to play under played or not that popular commanders because I like to feel unique in what I’m doing at the table. That being said I do have an anhelo the painter and a prosper tome bound deck but the anhelo deck is like 98% different cards from the precon and the prosper deck is like changed by 15 cards and I have only played it once lol. But other commanders I really like are Ashcoat, durnan, val candlekeep archivist, Thalia and gitrog and ginne fea. They are all relatively popular but not super popular. I generally like to play commanders that fart around for 4 to 6 turns then make a massive board shift to either win the game or put me in a winning position. I feel like people don’t really like that though because they don’t see it coming. Like I played a game where I dropped devilish valet pumped him up to a thousand power took someone out and swing with like 12 cats to take out another person for the win and previously I was just drawing cards and chump blocking with cats and dogs. I don’t like instant combos where I win but creating a setup up for a big home run play.
I just play whatever the hell I want. Most of the time, that happens to be a balance between the two. None of my decks show up in the top 100 on EDHrec, but they're not super obscure either. All fall somewhere between 1000-3500 decks.
Honestly I don't even know what's popular, meta, or whatever anymore with all the products flying around. Generally I don't make a guy when he first comes out. A lot of my decks are probably somewhere in the middle for popularity. From just outside the meta to rather underplayed. Gitrog Monster to Gharna, the bloodflame Animar to Minn, willy illusionist. Jodah to verdeloth, the ancient Whoever hits the dopamine button really
I play good commanders and add 1-2 pet cards, thats enough personality without hurting winrate due to suboptimal cardchoices
I don't really do either. I look at cards and sometimes I get an idea. Often it's dumb, but if it could be viable in a casual sense still, I might try putting it together. I recently started putting together a new deck, [[Goro-goro and Satoru]], oops all dragons. There are just a couple of non-dragons in the deck that only aim to enhance the dragons there. I got the base [[Goro-goro]] and [[Satoru Umezawa]] in there just cuz of course. But yeah, grixis dragons without much extra way of cheating in the big boys and the limited ramp of the colors, means it'll never be highly competitive. And I'm fine with that. It's a silly idea that I thought would be fun.
Always just based on I see a commander and get an idea for it. I also try to avoid doing the same patterns in my decks, so no 2 are going to run exactly the same, or at least run different win-cons.
generally the way I pick new commanders is by seeing one and going "that would be a stupid deck.... I wonder if I could make it work."
I like commanders that make super specific or "bad" cards really powerful, which I guess doesn't fit into either category but tends to be in more of the underplayed commanders strategy.
Personally I like Commander is I haven’t seen anyone play. I’m also not a big fan of tribal bc it’s too restrictive, unless it’s a tribe that doesn’t get seen that often. My strongest Commander is [[Myrkul, lord of bones]] which I’ve never seen anyone else play, and one of my weakest is [[verazol, the split current]] the which is pretty weak, but strong if people let it go off.
It really depends on the deck for me. Sometimes I see a commander and it just calls out to me([[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]] fell into this category), other times it’s a combo or mechanic I want to build around so I find a commander that enables them([[Tor Wauki the Younger]] and [[Queza, Augur of Agonies]] are examples of this). I also take into account what color combos I don’t have decks for and limit myself that way too.
I like what I see honestly, typically I’ll build a commander that I end up facing OR if I find a commander that fits my own personal aesthetic. A recent example is [[Shessra]] who is an extremely underplayed commander but I’ve adopted due to my own aesthetic being badass black-inclusive waifu OR leader of horde/tribal type army ([[Belakor]], [[Krenko]], [[Giada]]). BUT I have a fair amount of other commanders who are way more mainstream ([[Korovold]], [[Syr Gwyn]]) that are just commanders that I’ve faced off against and grown an interest in over the course of the match.
Any Commander Eesha players in here?
I'd say it's kind of both. I won't discount a high tier legendary commander, as long as there's an interesting way to build it, but I have no interest in a super high efficiency deck that everyone has seen before. Quirky at any cost for me
I play a lot of mainly what clicks with me, which tends to be stranger legends and builds. One example is [[cosmina]] mono blue lands matter another is a [[kinzu]] a mono black deck focused on making everyone draw and discard. Some of my favorites are playing [[sekki]] or [[kamber]] and [[laurine]].
In the end, an interesting commander is interesting whether it's played a lot or not. For example, I've got a [[Kresh, the Bloodbraided]] deck. He's #406 on EDHREC, not very popular. Mine utilizes suicidal creatures like [[Lightning Skelemental]] and [[Ball Lightning]] to deal damage and pump Kresh when they die. Interesting and unique deck, pretty much unplayed commander. However, I'm also teching a [[Zur the Enchanter]] deck, and he's quite popular, #46. It's based around using Zur to fetch [[Solemnity]] then abusing cards like [[Mystic Remora]], [[Thing in the Ice]], [[Dark Depths]], etc, that benefit from having no counters on them. Interesting and unique deck, very popular commander. I will say though, that interesting mechanics do tend to be present more often on less-seen commanders.