Ideas for an explosive commander and deck?

Mr. Sinister
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Post by Mr. Sinister » 4 years ago

To maximise variation I like to have my decks cover different playstyles and color combinations. I currently have an Aminatou, the Fateshifter control/blink/superfriends deck, a Daretti, Scrap Savant artifact deck and a Taigam, Ojutai Master spellslinger deck. For some time I've wanted a more ramp heavy, board centric deck including green to cover both the color and the playstyle but I haven't found the right deck yet. A while ago I built a Trostani, Selesnya's Voice token/lifegain deck that never really felt strong enough. I then kept the token theme but switched the commander to Captain Sisay and added a suite of planeswalkers and strong legends to boost my board and act as silver bullets. However, Sisay typically ended up being too slow, fragile and reactive so now I'm not sure where to go.

I would like a deck that ramps, draws and plays cards like a champ, a deck that is both interactive and resilient and can take the initiative and overwhelm the opponent on the board. It is also very important to me that the deck has multiple roads to victory as too linear decks tend to bore me very quickly. I mainly play 1v1 with 30 life and the multiplayer ban list. Which commander and strategy would you recommend for that kind of deck?
Last edited by Mr. Sinister 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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75chan
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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Maelstrom Wanderer can quite easily be built like that, it can overwhelm opponents, be resilient to attempts to control it and is a good fit for both ramp and card draw. It's not that great at being interactive though, but you can always build it a bit more interactive than the norm with modal cards and proactive removal.
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Rumpy5897
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Pretty much Maelstrom Wanderer, yeah. It's funny how two threads opened up in rapid succession where this seems like the correct answer :P
 
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I built MW for this kinda approach and it has turned out great. Does almost everything I want.

That said, I don't think it's that good for 1v1 where an opponent can spend all their resources stopping just you. It's the type of deck that works because people can't counter your ramp spells and still hope to win the game.

I would strongly recommend something with Tymna. I recently built a Tymna/Silas affinity deck and it has just been rocking. You could tune it for 1v1 pretty easily by playing more interaction, maybe even some discard (thoughtseize and Duress effects seem really good in 1v1).

My build is here if you want to check it out:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2430179

Tymna is just a workhorse from a card draw perspective.

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Post by Mr. Sinister » 4 years ago

75chan wrote:
4 years ago
Maelstrom Wanderer can quite easily be built like that, it can overwhelm opponents, be resilient to attempts to control it and is a good fit for both ramp and card draw. It's not that great at being interactive though, but you can always build it a bit more interactive than the norm with modal cards and proactive removal.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Pretty much Maelstrom Wanderer, yeah. It's funny how two threads opened up in rapid succession where this seems like the correct answer :P
Thank you for the replies! A non-combo version of Maelstrom Wanderer might be the right choice. My only concern is that it could turn into too much of a dumb battlecruiser kind of deck since the cascades can be great value but are probably hard to control. I would like to be able to adjust my gameplay to handle my opponents board rather than just spam value. Do you think it's possible to build MW that way or should I rather go with one of the Simic commanders that offer massive ramp or CA?
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
I built MW for this kinda approach and it has turned out great. Does almost everything I want.

That said, I don't think it's that good for 1v1 where an opponent can spend all their resources stopping just you. It's the type of deck that works because people can't counter your ramp spells and still hope to win the game.

I would strongly recommend something with Tymna. I recently built a Tymna/Silas affinity deck and it has just been rocking. You could tune it for 1v1 pretty easily by playing more interaction, maybe even some discard (thoughtseize and Duress effects seem really good in 1v1).

My build is here if you want to check it out:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2430179

Tymna is just a workhorse from a card draw perspective.
Thank you too for the reply! My opponent typically doesn't play more than a few counterspells, so I'm not overly worried about him stopping my ramping. I do worry about MW been too linear though - I had a Xenagos, God of Revels deck once that worked pretty well but bored me after only a few games due to it's very linear playstyle.

Tymna is a great card, although it will only allow me to draw a single card each turn (since I play 1v1). I like it's low CMC though and the possibility t add another partner. I like affinity and you build looks like a lot of fun but I would like not to dip too much into artifacts with this deck since I already have a Daretti-build. I know that they have vastly different playstyles, but they're both artifact decks nonetheless. I might look into other partners for Tymna.

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

You can build MW less MW-centric, if you want, and just treat it as a value engine. As long as the cards you'll cascade into aren't dead when cascading into you should be fine. Mystic Confluence is okay to cascade into and interactive. . [card]Blasphemous Act can't be cascaded into. Plasm Capture is not completely awful to cascade into. Planeswalkers usually comes with several modes of which one should be interactive. Theft cards like Bribery also decreases linearity[/card]. Beast Within might never be great, but it's never awful.

If you love counterspells or want a more interactive-focused deck there are simic options that are strong such as Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, but none of them offer the resiliency or raw overwhelming power that MW has.

For reference, I run a MW deck with only about 7 beatstick, of which about half might get cut in the near future, otherwise I run some utility and value creatures at high CMC and I wouldn't call the deck either linear or battlecruiser, with the exception of the first few turns which is mostly about getting to 8 mana ASAP.
I swap decks a lot
wr Avacyn with defensive blinking
ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Mr. Sinister
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Post by Mr. Sinister » 4 years ago

75chan wrote:
4 years ago
You can build MW less MW-centric, if you want, and just treat it as a value engine. As long as the cards you'll cascade into aren't dead when cascading into you should be fine. Mystic Confluence is okay to cascade into and interactive. . [card]Blasphemous Act can't be cascaded into. Plasm Capture is not completely awful to cascade into. Planeswalkers usually comes with several modes of which one should be interactive. Theft cards like Bribery also decreases linearity[/card]. Beast Within might never be great, but it's never awful.

If you love counterspells or want a more interactive-focused deck there are simic options that are strong such as Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, but none of them offer the resiliency or raw overwhelming power that MW has.

For reference, I run a MW deck with only about 7 beatstick, of which about half might get cut in the near future, otherwise I run some utility and value creatures at high CMC and I wouldn't call the deck either linear or battlecruiser, with the exception of the first few turns which is mostly about getting to 8 mana ASAP.
Thank you for the reply. Your MW-build sounds really interesting, do you have a list that I can see?

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Post by 75chan » 4 years ago

Mr. Sinister wrote:
4 years ago
75chan wrote:
4 years ago
You can build MW less MW-centric, if you want, and just treat it as a value engine. As long as the cards you'll cascade into aren't dead when cascading into you should be fine. Mystic Confluence is okay to cascade into and interactive. . [card]Blasphemous Act can't be cascaded into. Plasm Capture is not completely awful to cascade into. Planeswalkers usually comes with several modes of which one should be interactive. Theft cards like Bribery also decreases linearity[/card]. Beast Within might never be great, but it's never awful.

If you love counterspells or want a more interactive-focused deck there are simic options that are strong such as Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, but none of them offer the resiliency or raw overwhelming power that MW has.

For reference, I run a MW deck with only about 7 beatstick, of which about half might get cut in the near future, otherwise I run some utility and value creatures at high CMC and I wouldn't call the deck either linear or battlecruiser, with the exception of the first few turns which is mostly about getting to 8 mana ASAP.
Thank you for the reply. Your MW-build sounds really interesting, do you have a list that I can see?
Sorry, I haven't gotten around to uploading my decks (and it's still very much in a testing stage, so I'm still searching for a decklist I'm happy about).
I swap decks a lot
wr Avacyn with defensive blinking
ur OG Jhoira spellslinger without MLD or eldrazi
and some other stuff that are more or less messy


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Post by Syb » 4 years ago

Zacama, Primal Calamity is a great Big Stompy Ramp Deck if you don't want to play blue, she does tend to run away with games as soon as you get a mana doubler or two out though. Greater Good, Life's Legacy, and Momentous Fall can cover your big draw and also happen to recycle Zacama.

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Post by Mr. Sinister » 4 years ago

Syb wrote:
4 years ago
Zacama, Primal Calamity is a great Big Stompy Ramp Deck if you don't want to play blue, she does tend to run away with games as soon as you get a mana doubler or two out though. Greater Good, Life's Legacy, and Momentous Fall can cover your big draw and also happen to recycle Zacama.
The idea of having a gigantic, three-headed elder dinosaur at the helm is definitely tempting! :) My only concern is that it is almost too easy to combo out with him. A mana doubler and any sac outlet isn't exactly hard to muster, and Food Chain even does it by itself. I'd have to actively avoid enabling combos if I build him. I've been googling for a "fair", non combo build, but they're hard to find.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I had a short-lived Naya goodstuff build helmed by Zacama. It lasted a handful of games - no matter what the deck was doing, the moment there was mana Zacama came out and took over lead vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, bass, drums, keyboards, production, marketing, running the fan club and ordering merchandise. He's just such a dominant monstrosity that when he comes out the rest of the deck's plan goes out the window and it becomes all about the dino monstrosity. There's a reason why Zacama decks just go ham on supporting the commander and not a whole lot else.
 
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Post by Mr. Sinister » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
I had a short-lived Naya goodstuff build helmed by Zacama. It lasted a handful of games - no matter what the deck was doing, the moment there was mana Zacama came out and took over lead vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, bass, drums, keyboards, production, marketing, running the fan club and ordering merchandise. He's just such a dominant monstrosity that when he comes out the rest of the deck's plan goes out the window and it becomes all about the dino monstrosity. There's a reason why Zacama decks just go ham on supporting the commander and not a whole lot else.
So you even went goodstuff rather than combo? I had a Marath, Will of the Wild deck once that did the exact same thing. I dismantled it after only a few games due to it being too linear and boring. I might go for a goodstuff Maelstrom Wanderer deck instead.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

The deck was in theory supposed to be goodstuff, but ended up as just pumping mana into Zacama and ignoring the deck.
 
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