The parameters of the project;
- Can only design cards while exercising, though can make small tweaks while entering them on this site.
- Will go off of Scryfall's list of Commanders, sorted from least popular to most popular
- Will ignore silver bordered and banned commanders
- The aim is to create appealing commanders. This means commanders that do something interesting or cool compared to existing commanders or to other, stronger colour combinations. Some extremely weak designs in weak mono-colours might be substantially pushed.
- The target power level is at the higher end of what can be achieved without consistent combo, stax, top-tier commanders, multiple tutors etc.
- Where possible, improvements will be made through "least effort". If lowering their cost or increasing a number will fix a commander, that will be the solution I go for.
- The utility of this card in the 99, or in other formats, is not considered.
Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix"
Here we are, starting strong with the "rank 961" of 961 legendary creatures legal in commander (though not all as commanders), we have this gem from Portal 3k. You'll see a bit of a theme with these early entries, in that many come from that set. He has pretty cool art, the OG sword and shield stats and the iconic P3K "tap only before attackers are declared" rules text to boot.
So what are his problems? Well he's very small, his ability is extremely weak both in concept (increasing toughness) and execution (on one creature by tapping at fixed time opportunities), and he is mono-white, meaning you need a really good reason to be running him.
So how to go about fixing him as a commander? I want to keep "increasing toughness" and tie into his flavour text about the boat-bridge. Any commander with that iconic pre-combat tap restriction has to keep it. The three kingdoms period ties well into white weenie and soldiers too. However, due to his extremely poor design for EDH he will need a shift in some alternative directions to make him viable at all - we can't just lower his cost and scale up the toughness shift and call it a day.
This guy needed an almost total rewrite. I decided to broaden the toughness change to all creatures, and add a conditional form of evasion. Then I made him 1 mana, which is barely cheap enough. Finally, I figured he would make for a solid tribal option and gave him a form of card advantage that rewarded you for going in on some form of going wide strategy. Thankfully the other entries on the list can be 'fixed' with less of a total change like this, but this guy was a pretty extreme case!Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix"
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
: Creatures you control get islandwalk and +0/+2 until end of turn. Activate this ability only during your turn, before attackers are declared.
When a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, reveal the top X cards of your library where X is that creature's toughness. You may put a human or soldier card with toughness X or less from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest onto the bottom of your library in a random order.
1/2
Daughter of Autumn
I reckon a cost balance shift could make this commander kind of interesting.
Took away the cost from her ability. Made her cheaper, and gave her enormous toughness to help make her ability viable. If you are thinking "8 toughness for 2 mana, what the heck!?", then we have very different opinions on the value of power and especially toughness in this format. Then I added two things to make her damage redirection more interesting. Firstly, protection from black, lets her potentially tank infinite damage from some types of creatures. Secondly, I added a form of card filtering based on general damage prevention, either from her ability or from weird things like Circle of Protection. If this deck had red that could get really crazy, but as is, she rewards you for swinging into or blocking black creatures and for running niche forms of removal and control. Really like the out come of this design.Daughter of Autumn
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Protection from Black.
Damage dealt to other white creatures you control is dealt to ~ instead.
Whenever damage is prevented, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the damage ~ recieved. Put one on top of your library and the rest on the bottom in any order.
2/8
Zhang Liao, Hero of Hefei
Another P3K stinker, but a much easier fix than Pan Tong.
Made him cheaper (this is a recurring theme you'll find), changed the discard to a thoughtseize effect. Made him get bigger from discard so he has something to do when he quickly becomes irrelevant. I refrained from making the discard scale as that would be something the 'target audience' as described at the start of the post wouldn't really like.Zhang Liao, Hero of Hefei
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
When ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Whenever a player discards a card, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
3/3
Xun Yu, Wei Advisor
Seems to be all about increasing the power of one creature, both in rules and in flavor text. Easy fix;
Minor stat shift (I'm not a fan of 1/x or x/1 on any commander without good reason), made him into a sort of bad mono-black Xenagos. I wanted that power boost to matter, but also to be worse and feel Black as opposed to Red/Green. So no toughness boost, slow (turn after playing), easily removed, and with a cost. Forces you to play both targets for the boost and fodder to feed it. I like the end result more than most black commander options at the moment.Xun Yu, Wei Advisor
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
, Sacrifice a black creature: Target black creature you control gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is it's power.
2/2
Rashida Scalebane
Yikes, these old white commanders are total garbage. But I think this can be salvaged with only a modest adjustment
Changed the name to reflect beasts of all types. Lowered the cost, but kept the power and toughness - a 3/4 on turn two does not matter in this format! Made it pick a creature type to beat up, not just dragons. Added a scry effect to the lifegain effect and also made it broader, lending the trigger to your other Humans for a cool tribal theme. The weird double non-Human wording is to prevent you targeting say, a human wizard, by choosing wizard.Rashida Scalebane v2.1
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
Protection from Dragons, Reach
: Destroy target attacking or blocking creature with flying. It can't be regenerated.
Whenever a creature with flying an opponent controls dies, if it was dealt damage or targeted by a Human you control this turn, you gain X life and scry X, where X is that creature's power.
3/4
Update: Altered to creatures with flying due to backstory. Added Pro-dragon and reach to keep the dragon flavour. Thanks Krishnath!
Pavel Maliki
This is a weird one. A Red/Black... mage? Wandering around doing random acts of kindness for the weak and downtrodden. But is he secretly atoning for something? Must be with the black magic element.
Lowered the cost, to get you a whopping 5/3 for two mana. Terrifying, right? When I saw the terrible firebreathing, I decided to make it a different take on firebreathing instead of a strictly worse one. Firebreathing can be used to spend random excess mana for small perks, or to go all in to make a creature scarier. I decided since this firebreathing costs more, it can't be used for the former use so I would focus on the latter. It would give a bigger boost than normal, but because it requires black I decided to make it hurt him too. This also ties into the idea of Pavel atoning or sacrificing himself.Pavel Maliki
Legendary Creature - Human Warlock
: ~ gets +3/-1 until end of turn.
5/3
Without broken mana, the scariest he gets is a 5/3 on T2, hitting for 8 on T3, then for 11 on T4, and then a kill on T5. No evasion, no protection. Stopped by pretty much any blocker and most removal in the game. Then you lose to the other players. With broken mana, well, you're probably not in the target audience, probably not running custom cards, and he is highly colour dependent meaning crypt and ring etc aren't going to cut it,
Hivis of the Scale
A strong effect, but too expensive, and he is far too situational to be your commander.
Brought his cost down, and shifted his stats down too. Not totally certain how to word the ability. But when I saw "type-viashino shaman" I knew I had to design it as a sort of hybrid tribal. Now you can hose other dragon decks, but also benefit your own deck, using Viashino/Shamans to give haste, boost multiple dragons or even go ham on making one dragon very large. Because of the mass-hosing and to simplify the ability, I made it strictly until end of turn, no permanent capture without tapping multiple creatures over multiple turns. If I felt there would be room on the card, I would give dragons a tap ability to boost their viashino/shaman buddies too.Hivis of the Scale
Legendary Creature - Viashino Shaman
Dragon, Shaman and Viashino spells you cast cost less to cast.
Tap a Shaman or Viashino you control: Gain control of target dragon until end of turn. Untap that dragon. It gains haste and +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the tapped creatures power.
2/3
Thats it for today. I expect other posts to be smaller, kind of went nuts here. Super keen on any critique and feedback as I could be down to actually play one of these sometime in the future!