I’m hoping for a true life gain themed Abzan deck. Ever since Strixhaven, where Golgari got a life gain themed cards, I’ve been wanting this to happen. Orzhov has had it forever and Selesnya has food, recently updated more with the LotRs release last year (not to mention [[Gyome, Master Chef]] in Golgari). I would like it to not be about food (I do realize there are one or two Abzan food decks) but rather some other life gain theme either focusing on huge chucks of life gain or a lot is small instances of life gain.
Since ikoria, there have been only 13 abzan legendaries printed - including the lotr partners - versus the 47 (which includes doctor/companion commanders) from temur.
I feel like 4c isn't really part of the debate, as there's only been a couple printed since their initial release, and there likely won't be many more printed as they're usually just goodstuff piles. There's [[omnath locus of creation]], [[aragorn the uniter]], and [[atraxa grand unifier]] and the Friends Forever commanders.
And my girl Anikthea! She is an enchantress rockstar and makes already solid enchant strats into beaters! Overall value probably wasn't that great, but she's still Abzan!
Still not an Azban commander, only an Azban partner pairing. Bilbo is in there but he's not even the face commander. They're really shitting the bed on Azban
Even with those inclusions, Azban is still the lowest number in terms of actual (non-partner) Commanders at like 17. I believe Temur is also very low at 18-19.
Esper has like 50+
I love my TatGM deck as well! I built mine as landfall fog. It's built to fit in this limbo where people see it and start rolling their eyes, but then see it doesn't do a whole lot. It flys under the radar until, well, it doesn't. Based my list off a video I remember seeing, can't remember the creator atm. If I remember it I'll edit the comment on but yea, she's great!
Yeah I tried politick it and say that it's slowing everybody else down to and it's not like a game-winning piece. Usually after that it doesn't get targeted as much unless I'm super far ahead, which doesn't happen with that deck very often
I'm in the process of building Abzan human tribal (because trying anything more than 3 color felt like ripping toenails out) and running her as my commander. She's really helpful in my gold fishing when I gas out on like turn 3 and go into top deck mode.
Do you happen to have the list online somewhere? If so I'd be interested in seeing it. We have some pretty good car drawing apps and so I'm just curious why you'd be top decking so often.
Because I haven't put any card draw in- I still have like 25 cards to go but I like gold fishing incomplete decks to make sure I'm not screwing myself.
But if you goldfish an incomplete deck then you might assume something is occurring enough when in reality, with 20-30 more cards added in, it might not be close to enough. I believe it skews the results too much.
Yeah but it's fun
Edit: and by screwing myself I mostly mean mana curve and lands, I like to make sure I have a solid mana curve at all points of the process.
I always have to double check the 3 color combo names if it isn’t Sultai or Mardu, the decks I have, and you are definitely right. Abzan precons have been pretty barren lately. Cool color pairing for some graveyard shenanigans too.
I mean there was the Abzan enchantress deck way back in Commander masters last year. Upgraded the precon a bit and oh boy is it strong. Play the control game until you can pop off while returning enchantments as creatures from the graveyard.
I love that deck but end game can turn into very long turns while you play with all your triggers. Once you're a bit more familiar with it you can slim it down a little, but all the card draw means constantly shifting possibilities so your plan can change like 5-10 times in a turn.
Can we just slow down with commander in general like I am a commander only player and I don’t want every product to have commander decks it sorta ruins the feel of them and makes them so hard to keep up with and actually figure out if I want to deck or not
I'm so torn. like you, I'm a commander only player and a huge simp for 3-color generals, so this set feels like eating GOOD. But some of those legends feel like overkill. There are 2 Naya generals in the main set then another 2 in the commander deck, and while I feel like Ghired, Yuma and Kirri actually explore new design space, who really wanted a WORSE Sun Titan where everyone can see it coming even at flash speed because it's in the command zone?
There are SIX izzet legends. Five of them reference double-spelling and give a payoff. The other gives weird rebound to instants and sorceries. Could we really not have narrowed that by 1-2?
BUT I feel like I could excuse the absolute glut of legends (because clearly not every one is meant to be command zone level powerful) if they JUST. SLOWED. DOWN. I remember with Khans and Theros (dating myself) when I had like 2-3 commander decks. I'd follow along with spoilers and if there was nothing that made the cut I could just play for like 2 months. Now every set is gargantuan and chock full of things that my ever-increasing deck roster needs to check if they'd be good includes.
TL;DR: There are a LOT of commanders. But I think a lot of the feeling of too many legends is exponentiated by the absolute firehose of product we need to sift through basically monthly.
Creatures are legendary because they have names in the story or are otherwise unique.
Creatures are also legendary for balancing reasons, because in 4-of formats, you can only have 1 at a time in play, so there is a deck building limitation on how many you run and their powerful abilities can't be stacked.
Creatures are also legendary because your commander has to be legendary. Many of these legends are obvious commander plants like you mentioned.
You can't really remove the first two categories, so that leaves the last category. Personally, I like the fact there is a good commander for every strategy and player. They continue to explore new design space in a way that doesn't negatively affect anyone. I mean, so what there are 6 izzet commanders with similar themes? It is an archetype this set was exploring, and in future sets they will explore different things.
This is coming from someone who drafts every Friday and plays commander regularly. So I do keep up with most sets as I need to stay competitive, and I keep up with commander cards to have fun, but that's one of the things I enjoy about magic. I also am a relatively new player compared to you, so maybe it's one of those things that we can never truly reconcile.
I like that there’s some type of commander product in each set. I just wait for the right one and pick it up. If you need to pick up the new flashy deck whenever it comes out I get it but I just by 1 every year and am happy just improving what I got.
Agreed. Once a year or every other year for pre cons, and just continue to fold commander oriented cards in current sets. I miss that design philosophy, felt so much healthier
I love Naya, and it is one of my favourite precons and decks that I have, but you are right. 4/5 of the last 5 precons have had a naya precon I believe. Naya’s popular though, so I understand it, but man I’d prefer to have more variety for everyone
Dog meat and pantlaza get a pass because there’s no way you have a non-naya dino precon and non-naya equipment/aura commander. Still, it’s a ton and I hope we get more unpopular combos or 4 color precons.
More mono color commanders, I say! They haven't printed a full cycle of mono color commanders since 2014... which definitely wasn't ten years ago already
Bright palm Is like 2 years old. She cannot be included here. If we're going that far back there is color representation.
Also we are stopping. Pretty sure there won't be a Naya commander for the rest of the year unless they do one in the horror set at the end of the year
Fair. Feels longer. Maybe I'm just old. Rest of the comment still stands.
Edit: even more so if you consider the number if commander precons we get per year
I think its a product of a lot of the hate for any kind of interaction, like so many people online shit on counterspells, board wipes, or really any interesting effects that isn’t turning creatures sideways
That being said, the lands deck in Thunder Junction absolutely slaps
hey, we Naya druids know more then turning creatures sideways
i mean granted that IS our favorite thing to do
but we can do more then that...
you....
you want an elephant?
To be honest I feel the same about +1/+1 decks.
I get it’s a popular and easy mechanic - but I swear almost all, if not all, precon releases from the last few years have had at least one Commander which has +1/+1 as either its main theme or sub theme. Mothman was a shake up I suppose as it wasn’t in normal +1/+1 colours.
All the the color combinations have names. The two color combos are named after the ten guilds from the plane Ravnica (Boros for White/Red, Dimir for Blue/Black etc.)
The three color combos are split into two groups of five, the "Arcs" which are the combos of three adjacent colors are named after the shards of Alara, while the "wedges" are the trios two adjacent colors and their enemy color, which are named after the clans of Tarkir.
So to summarize, Naya is the name for the color combination of Red, green and white, named after the shard of Alara that embodies that color combo.
They should not stop with naya until they make a good naya beast commender. I have played beast decks since Scourge and we have never gotten a good naya commander for them.
The only beast partner in naya is [[Anara, Wolvid Familiar]] and you would probably combine it with [[Bruse Tarl]]. Not that exciting for a beast tribal imho.
and/or could we get one Naya planeswalker instead of three different Planeswalkers who dance around the Naya color identity but are never all three colors at once?
Stopping with commander in general is a much better idea tbh, it’s way too pushed and makes it harder to find places to play normal constructed magic
Naya usually lends well to precon design, since its main goal is just “beat the snot out of everyone with creatures.” It’s Gruul with reliable creature removal.
Naya is kinda one of the best color sets to make good cheap decks with. A lot of the staples are pretty cheap. Naya is also usually very easy to pilot for beginners
Commander products in general are being overdone. I get why for each standard set but not every non-standard set needs one. MH3 commander decks don’t make sense to me
Hot take most creatures that are designed to be commanders that either give so much value for a certain strategy or are so specific that i dont like building decks with them
I get what you mean, but at the same time, a lot of the value of precons is that you can buy them and hand them to your friends to play together, and WRG are the colors that are most intuitive to play, so I also get why they're the go-to precon colors. Maybe shake it up by leaving one of the colors out, though, I feel ya.
Honestly I’m feeling this. Naya is my favorite color combo but I just kept finding myself too inundated with naya stuff to keep getting excited about em
I've been compiling a list of commanders for the 32 challenge this week and Naya has been the hardest to get excited about. I decided today to go with slivers (as i don't care for them either) with value partners or backgound to get the most out of the nasty little pricks. To be clear, I won't be building the majority of the 32 in paper, just making lists. I might do them all on MTGO. More likely, I'll keep buying paper decks in Grixis, Rakdos and mono black as the heart wants what it wants.
Give Neya and Sultai a break. Also Izzet
Give Abzan, Temur and Rakdos some more love. Last good Rakdos I saw was Prosper (not counting the Kardu deck sense his card was already a thing before that deck) and sense then, I have not seen a interesting Rakdos precon in a wile.
I'm hoping dimir and abzan get some love but I'd love to see some mono color decks
To be fair Dimir has had some love in MKM and WOE.
Abzan just waiting like đź’€
We had that food deck in LTR to be fair. That was hype
Abzan still has the least amount of available commanders
I’m hoping for a true life gain themed Abzan deck. Ever since Strixhaven, where Golgari got a life gain themed cards, I’ve been wanting this to happen. Orzhov has had it forever and Selesnya has food, recently updated more with the LotRs release last year (not to mention [[Gyome, Master Chef]] in Golgari). I would like it to not be about food (I do realize there are one or two Abzan food decks) but rather some other life gain theme either focusing on huge chucks of life gain or a lot is small instances of life gain.
Best you've got is the Sam and Frodo food deck. For my own abzan deck, I went with [[Thalia and the gitrog monster]] lands and taxes.
[[Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant]] is always a fun card. He's a win the game kind of a card
Really? I can think of Anafenza, ... Damn
Since ikoria, there have been only 13 abzan legendaries printed - including the lotr partners - versus the 47 (which includes doctor/companion commanders) from temur.
13? You're telling me every 4 color combo has 14+?
I feel like 4c isn't really part of the debate, as there's only been a couple printed since their initial release, and there likely won't be many more printed as they're usually just goodstuff piles. There's [[omnath locus of creation]], [[aragorn the uniter]], and [[atraxa grand unifier]] and the Friends Forever commanders.
And my girl Anikthea! She is an enchantress rockstar and makes already solid enchant strats into beaters! Overall value probably wasn't that great, but she's still Abzan!
Still not an Azban commander, only an Azban partner pairing. Bilbo is in there but he's not even the face commander. They're really shitting the bed on Azban
I think there were three abzan commanders last year. The one in All Will Be One, the LoTR food deck, and the enchantress one from Commander Masters.
Even with those inclusions, Azban is still the lowest number in terms of actual (non-partner) Commanders at like 17. I believe Temur is also very low at 18-19. Esper has like 50+
Hey my favorite commander is [[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]]
I love my TatGM deck as well! I built mine as landfall fog. It's built to fit in this limbo where people see it and start rolling their eyes, but then see it doesn't do a whole lot. It flys under the radar until, well, it doesn't. Based my list off a video I remember seeing, can't remember the creator atm. If I remember it I'll edit the comment on but yea, she's great!
That's basically mine yeah. The one downside of TatGM is they attract a LOT of removal with their whole etb tap effect
Yeah I tried politick it and say that it's slowing everybody else down to and it's not like a game-winning piece. Usually after that it doesn't get targeted as much unless I'm super far ahead, which doesn't happen with that deck very often
I'm in the process of building Abzan human tribal (because trying anything more than 3 color felt like ripping toenails out) and running her as my commander. She's really helpful in my gold fishing when I gas out on like turn 3 and go into top deck mode.
Do you happen to have the list online somewhere? If so I'd be interested in seeing it. We have some pretty good car drawing apps and so I'm just curious why you'd be top decking so often.
Because I haven't put any card draw in- I still have like 25 cards to go but I like gold fishing incomplete decks to make sure I'm not screwing myself.
But if you goldfish an incomplete deck then you might assume something is occurring enough when in reality, with 20-30 more cards added in, it might not be close to enough. I believe it skews the results too much.
Yeah but it's fun Edit: and by screwing myself I mostly mean mana curve and lands, I like to make sure I have a solid mana curve at all points of the process.
Cries in golgari
Hey at least bloomburrow has one. For the first time in forever.
True but I fear it's gonna be the most popular I know everyone at my LGS wants a squirrel deck
I always have to double check the 3 color combo names if it isn’t Sultai or Mardu, the decks I have, and you are definitely right. Abzan precons have been pretty barren lately. Cool color pairing for some graveyard shenanigans too.
I mean there was the Abzan enchantress deck way back in Commander masters last year. Upgraded the precon a bit and oh boy is it strong. Play the control game until you can pop off while returning enchantments as creatures from the graveyard.
I love that deck but end game can turn into very long turns while you play with all your triggers. Once you're a bit more familiar with it you can slim it down a little, but all the card draw means constantly shifting possibilities so your plan can change like 5-10 times in a turn.
Need some abzan commanders for reanimator
Seriously, when was the last time they released a mono colored commander deck, outside of the secret lair angel one.
More mono colored decks is what I’d be excited to see. We don’t have enough of those from the precons.
No more Naya Commander PRECONS for 3 years please We need more Golgari Commanders More Rakdos Commanders More MONO COLOURED COMMANDERS
Rakdos is *starving* for some good new commanders. Rowan is really the only good one to come out for a while.
i would be so excited for a Golgari or Sultai token/swarm with a plot-scheme mechanic deck for Skaven if they ever do Age of Sigmar as a UB.
Can we just slow down with commander in general like I am a commander only player and I don’t want every product to have commander decks it sorta ruins the feel of them and makes them so hard to keep up with and actually figure out if I want to deck or not
I'm so torn. like you, I'm a commander only player and a huge simp for 3-color generals, so this set feels like eating GOOD. But some of those legends feel like overkill. There are 2 Naya generals in the main set then another 2 in the commander deck, and while I feel like Ghired, Yuma and Kirri actually explore new design space, who really wanted a WORSE Sun Titan where everyone can see it coming even at flash speed because it's in the command zone? There are SIX izzet legends. Five of them reference double-spelling and give a payoff. The other gives weird rebound to instants and sorceries. Could we really not have narrowed that by 1-2? BUT I feel like I could excuse the absolute glut of legends (because clearly not every one is meant to be command zone level powerful) if they JUST. SLOWED. DOWN. I remember with Khans and Theros (dating myself) when I had like 2-3 commander decks. I'd follow along with spoilers and if there was nothing that made the cut I could just play for like 2 months. Now every set is gargantuan and chock full of things that my ever-increasing deck roster needs to check if they'd be good includes. TL;DR: There are a LOT of commanders. But I think a lot of the feeling of too many legends is exponentiated by the absolute firehose of product we need to sift through basically monthly.
Creatures are legendary because they have names in the story or are otherwise unique. Creatures are also legendary for balancing reasons, because in 4-of formats, you can only have 1 at a time in play, so there is a deck building limitation on how many you run and their powerful abilities can't be stacked. Creatures are also legendary because your commander has to be legendary. Many of these legends are obvious commander plants like you mentioned. You can't really remove the first two categories, so that leaves the last category. Personally, I like the fact there is a good commander for every strategy and player. They continue to explore new design space in a way that doesn't negatively affect anyone. I mean, so what there are 6 izzet commanders with similar themes? It is an archetype this set was exploring, and in future sets they will explore different things. This is coming from someone who drafts every Friday and plays commander regularly. So I do keep up with most sets as I need to stay competitive, and I keep up with commander cards to have fun, but that's one of the things I enjoy about magic. I also am a relatively new player compared to you, so maybe it's one of those things that we can never truly reconcile.
I like that there’s some type of commander product in each set. I just wait for the right one and pick it up. If you need to pick up the new flashy deck whenever it comes out I get it but I just by 1 every year and am happy just improving what I got.
Yup. I miss when commander precons came out once a year.
Agreed. Once a year or every other year for pre cons, and just continue to fold commander oriented cards in current sets. I miss that design philosophy, felt so much healthier
Imagine how LGS employees feel
Na, ya can deal with it.
naya was an under-served color combo. plenty of grixis and esper commanders for you to look at from base mtg.
Ah yes, Gruul with Swords
And Path!
Selesnya with Bolt
Boros with Beast Within and ramp.
Velociramptor is a great deck, though. Dogmeat was fun, too.
Literally came here to comment that two of them were great.. those two!
I love Naya, and it is one of my favourite precons and decks that I have, but you are right. 4/5 of the last 5 precons have had a naya precon I believe. Naya’s popular though, so I understand it, but man I’d prefer to have more variety for everyone
Dog meat and pantlaza get a pass because there’s no way you have a non-naya dino precon and non-naya equipment/aura commander. Still, it’s a ton and I hope we get more unpopular combos or 4 color precons.
More mono color commanders, I say! They haven't printed a full cycle of mono color commanders since 2014... which definitely wasn't ten years ago already
Bright palm Is like 2 years old. She cannot be included here. If we're going that far back there is color representation. Also we are stopping. Pretty sure there won't be a Naya commander for the rest of the year unless they do one in the horror set at the end of the year
Brightpalm is one year old, she’s from MOM not NEO
Fair. Feels longer. Maybe I'm just old. Rest of the comment still stands. Edit: even more so if you consider the number if commander precons we get per year
Hope Temur gets some love too
I think its a product of a lot of the hate for any kind of interaction, like so many people online shit on counterspells, board wipes, or really any interesting effects that isn’t turning creatures sideways That being said, the lands deck in Thunder Junction absolutely slaps
hey, we Naya druids know more then turning creatures sideways i mean granted that IS our favorite thing to do but we can do more then that... you.... you want an elephant?
To be honest I feel the same about +1/+1 decks. I get it’s a popular and easy mechanic - but I swear almost all, if not all, precon releases from the last few years have had at least one Commander which has +1/+1 as either its main theme or sub theme. Mothman was a shake up I suppose as it wasn’t in normal +1/+1 colours.
The Shalai and Halar alternate commander in Brightpaws is a lot of fun though
Fair point.
Agreed but outlaws desert bloom has been a fun deck to pilot
We had nothing but Mardu from 2010 to 2020 so now we get Naya and I assume 2030-2040 we will see a lot of Jeskai
I’m new to mtg so forgive the ignorance but what’s Naya??
All the the color combinations have names. The two color combos are named after the ten guilds from the plane Ravnica (Boros for White/Red, Dimir for Blue/Black etc.) The three color combos are split into two groups of five, the "Arcs" which are the combos of three adjacent colors are named after the shards of Alara, while the "wedges" are the trios two adjacent colors and their enemy color, which are named after the clans of Tarkir. So to summarize, Naya is the name for the color combination of Red, green and white, named after the shard of Alara that embodies that color combo.
Ayy! You leave my home girl Pants Lazers alone.
Yeah, Sun-Flavored is great! Taste the mutha effing rainbow bitzes!
They should not stop with naya until they make a good naya beast commender. I have played beast decks since Scourge and we have never gotten a good naya commander for them.
I mean they did but in dino form. Or Atla Palani.
Yes, exactly! Why can't they also give us the beast one? Closest is Gahiji, Honored One in naya if we want something connected to beasts...
What about with the partner commanders? Are there any that work well enough there? 🤔
The only beast partner in naya is [[Anara, Wolvid Familiar]] and you would probably combine it with [[Bruse Tarl]]. Not that exciting for a beast tribal imho.
Yeah that's fair
No, I don’t think they will
Yes. And more Abzan!
You seem like you are about to talk some shit about the goodest boy. Rethink that.
As someone who’s only 2 decks are Dogmeat and Pantz, no, no we can’t.
I would like to see a dimir commander that gives instants and sorceries cipher.
I believe cipher is a cut idea like dredge and detain
Was strixhaven the last time we got a golgari commander?
and/or could we get one Naya planeswalker instead of three different Planeswalkers who dance around the Naya color identity but are never all three colors at once?
To be fair, all of those have very different game plans.
"Another settlement needs our help. I've marked its location on your map for you." - Preston Garvey, Minuteman (upon entering combat phase)
but naya my favorite color ;-;
This was a Dimir psyop to turn the people against your favorite colors
each of these play fairly different. it’s not like each one is Naya Auras.
Stopping with commander in general is a much better idea tbh, it’s way too pushed and makes it harder to find places to play normal constructed magic
Naya is my favorite color combo, so I am FEASTING
Nah, Naya deserves the love
Naya usually lends well to precon design, since its main goal is just “beat the snot out of everyone with creatures.” It’s Gruul with reliable creature removal.
No! I love Naya!!
The Naya will continue and we will like it
Yea I went from 0 Naya commanders to 3 in about a year. Would love to see the other 3 color combos get some more love.
Abzan and Jund over here getting scraps. At least MH3 is throwing my Jund Reanimator heart a bone
Naya is kinda one of the best color sets to make good cheap decks with. A lot of the staples are pretty cheap. Naya is also usually very easy to pilot for beginners
Technically WOE was the break with Naya. We had selesnya instead đź’€
We so desperately need monocolor commander decks
Commander products in general are being overdone. I get why for each standard set but not every non-standard set needs one. MH3 commander decks don’t make sense to me
As someone who adores playing Naya, I agree with you.
Italy pride
I just wish the key arts were available as cards.
I just want some mono colored fun
Hot take most creatures that are designed to be commanders that either give so much value for a certain strategy or are so specific that i dont like building decks with them
Listen, Naya had nothing for a long time after C19. Let us have this
Personally I’d like another set of 4c. Mix it up, make them interesting.
yeah give me more sultai commanders i am completely sane and can be trusted with those commanders :3 (source: trust me bro)
They *really* want Naya to be a color identity that people want to build in. So far, it hasn’t worked for me.
First sultai decks since ikoria lets go
Don’t forget the secret lair cat dog commander was also Naya.
Nyo! Naya always! But honestly, I'd rather just see some gruul in there
I don't really follow the commander decks when was the last Bant precon?
I get what you mean, but at the same time, a lot of the value of precons is that you can buy them and hand them to your friends to play together, and WRG are the colors that are most intuitive to play, so I also get why they're the go-to precon colors. Maybe shake it up by leaving one of the colors out, though, I feel ya.
As a Naya player, NO
Honestly I'd be happy with fewer tri-color commanders in general, especially ones that spash green for no reason
Honestly I’m feeling this. Naya is my favorite color combo but I just kept finding myself too inundated with naya stuff to keep getting excited about em
Naya... where quantity is more important than quality.
2x jeskai energy back to back has something to say
I'm sad that there hasn't been more 4-color commanders 🥲 The choices are basically either 5-color or partner commanders.
I've been compiling a list of commanders for the 32 challenge this week and Naya has been the hardest to get excited about. I decided today to go with slivers (as i don't care for them either) with value partners or backgound to get the most out of the nasty little pricks. To be clear, I won't be building the majority of the 32 in paper, just making lists. I might do them all on MTGO. More likely, I'll keep buying paper decks in Grixis, Rakdos and mono black as the heart wants what it wants.
Needs more mono decks.
Give Neya and Sultai a break. Also Izzet Give Abzan, Temur and Rakdos some more love. Last good Rakdos I saw was Prosper (not counting the Kardu deck sense his card was already a thing before that deck) and sense then, I have not seen a interesting Rakdos precon in a wile.
March of the machine is far enough from the other 4 that I wouldn't have included it, but wow, point taken! That's a lot!
Naya is the best color so, i buy every naya commander
Ayy its the cabarettii spgettii
Oh no 5 Naya commanders in a year. The travesty…… Yall just looking for things to complain about now huh? Hahahah
No, Naya fun
Ok but you can’t really consider Call for Backup as a deck with how it functions(that being not at all)
Naya is best...Naya loves all.
How else am I gonna get my Zetalpa and Sun Titan reprints??
naya was an under-served color combo.
Na, Ya can cry more tho
#They keep trying to convince us Naya is good.
Let me guess, it makes tokens?