Commander 2019 Post Mortem

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

So, I hate to say something has come and gone but given we are beyond the next set release it sort of feels that way. Given that the banned list announcement this week mentioned that C2019 was very well received I thought I would open a thread on it and see how others were feeling.

1) I was just curious how people were feeling about commander 2019 now that its been out for a bit. Did you really like it or not so much?
2) How would you rate it as far as commander products go.

Personally I would say that commander 2019 was kind of middle of the pack for me. It wasn't super high for me as I really haven't used much from it so far but I also didn't hate or despise the cards it was introducing to the card pool which I have several times felt in the past. I haven't built any of the commanders from it and honestly haven't felt any real inclination to do so with any of them. I have seen exactly one commander from them played exactly once and that deck seemed to sort of crash and burn. I think stores were kind of low on stock of the product and some are still waiting to get their hands on it though.

The biggest fail for me was that it didn't feel like the concept key mechanics they highlighted for the decks really felt all that viable due to the addition of these commanders / the cards they added.
Last edited by ISBPathfinder 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Rorseph » 4 years ago

I've had a lot of fun playing Kadena because Morph just feels better in Sultai and the new cards the deck brought have made Morph a bit better in Commander. I think Thieving Amalgam and Ghastly Conscription especially make for interesting endgames.

Otherwise, I wasn't super hyped for this set. There wasn't anything bad about it, it just didn't speak to me as a player outside of Faceless Menace.
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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I didn't really care for the decks or themes. Of the commanders, I only found Greven, Predator Captain interesting. I might end up building a Rakdos deck built around him.

But, other than that, nothing stood out to me. I didn't find enough of the new cards to be interesting enough to even care about.

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Post by Serpent_Steve » 4 years ago

Like the above I've had great fun with the Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer deck as it functions quite well out of the box and didn't need too much tuning to make it surprisingly viable on the table. The other decks either had themes that didn't speak to me (Sevinne, the Chronoclasm deck), disappointed me (Ghired, Conclave Exile - I expected more from the inclusion of red into populate) or had nice cards but lack a colour I commonly use (Anje Falkenrath - deck is solid and I love the new cards in it but it's just not my playstyle).

All in all I don't think the decks themselves were revolutionary this year neither did they really introduce any amazing new mechanics unlike some commander series but I feel like 70% ish of the new cards have opened some very new and interesting avenues for commander games. I also like most of the new legendary creatures that were introduced in this set as well. Even the reprints were slightly stronger this year but I don't really focus on them as to me the new cards should be the stars of the show.

In terms of overall rating easily a solid 7.2/10.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

I think a rating scale of some kind might be interesting in a strawpoll. Like, on a scale of 1-5 or 'no opinion', and then aspects about it in ratings of 1-5. I would give it a 3-4 out of 5; for me, it's really hard to compete with the high watermarks of 2016 and 2014.

I really liked it. I was initially salty about reprints, but, they really did try to put as many $5-$10 cards in there as possible, and some of them were quite welcome (but seriously, no thanks to Pristine Angel and Pristine Skywise).

I liked that they pushed some design space with cards like Gift of Doom and Bloodthirsty Blade, and many of the cards are good enough that they see play in my group's decks, either maindecked or as generals (notably K'rrik, Grismold, Elsha, and Volrath).

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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

In my opinion 2018 and 2019 are the worst commander products released so far, at least in comparison to previous years. Wizards has just been really dropping the ball with these lately for some reason in terms of reprints and overall deck construction. Pretty much the only thing they've consistently knocked out of the park every year are the new cards they design specifically for commander. Even with that though they're still easily the best supplemental product the company makes and I still look forward to them every year. Hopefully 2020 will be a step up instead of another disappointing step down.

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Post by Sharpened » 4 years ago

I got to play some with the precons at the release event.

As decks: They were pretty fun.
Primal Genesis, particularly with Ghired, Conclave Exile in command felt better than the rest.
Mystic Intellect also seemed a little awkward. Also, Sevinne, the Chronoclasm was underwhelming and one guy made Elsha of the Infinite his commander, which worked better.

The game play was fun, pretty interesting with lots of choices and splashy moments.
Sudden Substitution to steal an In Garruk's Wake
Ghastly Conscription with Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer in play drawing 14
Nightmare Unmaking as a 1 sided wrath
A big Ignite the Future turn that whiffed repeatedly

As a contained product, high marks from me. Room for improvement, sure. But very good.

As New Cards:
There's basically 6 commanders that people seem to care about:
Anje Falkenrath
Atla Palani, Nest Tender
K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
Ghired, Conclave Exile
Elsha of the Infinite
Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer

I'm surprised by the love for Ghired, and the lack of love for Volrath, the Shapestealer.
Regardless, 6 hits on commanders seems to be par for the course.

The other cards feel like a let down.
Look, obviously Dockside Extortionist is a fantastic card. Ohran Frostfang and Bone Miser seem like cards people will see as well.
But the rest don't seem to have gained any traction.
There's some neat cards that are very niche - Gift of Doom and Song of the Worldsoul for example.

But all the cards that feel like attempts to create something that might be a staple of commander play feel like misses.
Leadership Vacuum - Cantrip Commander kill, thats both versatile and cheap, and yet feels inessential
Nightmare Unmaking - Exploitable variable Wrath effect, that may or may not work for you
Road of Return - Way to avoid Commander tax, and useful even if you don't have to, but would rather just have Command Beacon
Mire in Misery - Black Enchantment Kill, that you unfortunately can't count on
Cliffside Rescuer - A cheap meaningful bodyguard, that comes up just short.
Sudden Substition - A Nice trick, but feels redundant coming out right after Narset's Reversal
These feel alot like warning track shots that fell just short of being home runs.


Reprints in the set have been talked about to death. I think they were better than the general consensus, but it still felt lacking. Giving each deck a planeswalker was a plus. Stop putting Temple of the False God in every commander deck.

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Post by xeroxedfool » 4 years ago

Commander 2019 is okay but the most annoying thing about it is the Throne of Eldarine brawl decks. Those commanders are all more interesting than anything in C2019. So I'm sitting here at work feeling pretty stupid for buying C2019 when now I need/want to spend another 100-200$ on decks so soon. Arcane Signet is a mistake, these commanders look powerful and interesting, and they are apparently very hard to get.

So here we are again. WOTC messed this up, they should have split or added some of these cards from both products. Put the new 'signet' in both, or move some of these commanders around. Maybe space these products out some more. Or hell, even just make two equally exciting products. It seems my yearly commander tax has doubled.
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Post by lyonhaert » 4 years ago

I mostly got it for the new singles. I remember calculating that the price of the singles I was interested in at the time was higher than just buying the decks.

I mostly haven't felt the value from acquiring them yet because almost none of those new cards went into my main 3 decks (except for testing K'rrik in Chainer and putting Sudden Substitution in Zedruu). I want to find a good home for stuff like Gift of Doom because it's a cool card, but most of the cards I was interested in are actually intended for decks like Marchesa, Zada, and Samut and all of them are still on the To Do list for building/re-building.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I love Scaretiller and that's most of what I have to say hehe :)

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Honestly, I was a little disappointed, nothing REALLY tickled me the way I wanted it to. Greven is a space I haven't explored overly in terms of 'suicide' builds, and K'rrik is clearly disgusting value, but otherwise there's just not much in the set for me. Either way it's a moot point for me, because we here in NZ haven't seen anything past the first print run, which went with preorders and has yet to be replenished. Not sure if this is the case for anyone else, but.....yeah. It's a bit of a balls-up, and it's happened again with Eldraine Brawl decks.

That being said I recognised from the get go that the precons aren't necessarily for seasoned players, so unless it happens to hit a sweet spot you're after there's no guarantee of excitement. Otherwise it's just filling in spots for existing builds and that gets harder the more complete a deck becomes.

It does seem, though, with a broader perspective, that Wizards may be shooting themselves in the foot with product overload though. Between War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, C19, Eldraine, Brawl Eldraine, there's almost too much to keep up with, and the pace of release really isn't giving anything but the most top notch of cards any time to have the limelight.
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Post by Gashnaw » 4 years ago

I really regret buying the American deck. I don't enjoy it.

I do like volrath though and will continue to play and tweak him.

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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Overall? Mixed feelings. I think the decks are fairly well built, and I've seen a few of the new commanders in action (mostly lots of Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer, who seems quite strong... and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth , who seems degenerate).

On the other hand, none of the decks or new commanders excited me enough to want to build a deck for them - I might want to build a Chainer deck at some point, but it's lower on my priority list than other decks I already have ideas for. Because they're built around specific mechanics, most of the cards present don't fit into my existing decks, so there aren't a lot of reprints that I care about. The past archetype / tribal decks were more resonant.

I would say that my biggest complaint with the decks is how incredibly lacking the reprints are - for each of the decks, there are only one or two reprinted cards I care about, and the value in the reprints is also pretty low. As a result, I can't really justify getting a deck instead of just picking up singles.

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Post by Skello496 » 4 years ago

I think they did a good job this year. The commanders are very niche, which I think is the best thing they've done for commander. They took strategies that people already played, even though they were ineffectual, and they made commanders for them to make them work. Populate, Morph, Madness... all great mechanic choices. Sure the decks are lacking in some ways, but that's the point! You upgrade them or buy the singles and make the deck you want. I bought some of the singles for Ghired, and I think it's a fun deck to play. My friend plays Atla and Volrath, and those decks are ridiculous. Sure, some reprints were lacking and yes, two of the cards are just plain bonkers, but overall they're a well-balanced set with good contributions to the EDH community,
Honestly, the biggest problem with them is the power level (and land based) of the Brawl decks.
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
It does seem, though, with a broader perspective, that Wizards may be shooting themselves in the foot with product overload though. Between War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, C19, Eldraine, Brawl Eldraine, there's almost too much to keep up with, and the pace of release really isn't giving anything but the most top notch of cards any time to have the limelight.
I'm going to be interested in how this opinions on this set shake out over time. I know I was still absorbing the impact of WAR/MH1, which put a lot of interesting cards into the format. C19 has a few interesting generals for me (despite not liking any of the deck themes - none of them are the face cards) in addition to a number of things I want to try out in the 99. The big reason I haven't tried any of those out is because I haven't actually gotten out to play in the last month, but the corollary reason is that I still don't have a good sense of how everything in the last couples sets plays. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's not keeping up with all the new options thanks to the release schedule this year.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

SocorroTortoise wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
It does seem, though, with a broader perspective, that Wizards may be shooting themselves in the foot with product overload though. Between War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, C19, Eldraine, Brawl Eldraine, there's almost too much to keep up with, and the pace of release really isn't giving anything but the most top notch of cards any time to have the limelight.
I'm going to be interested in how this opinions on this set shake out over time. I know I was still absorbing the impact of WAR/MH1, which put a lot of interesting cards into the format. C19 has a few interesting generals for me (despite not liking any of the deck themes - none of them are the face cards) in addition to a number of things I want to try out in the 99. The big reason I haven't tried any of those out is because I haven't actually gotten out to play in the last month, but the corollary reason is that I still don't have a good sense of how everything in the last couples sets plays. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's not keeping up with all the new options thanks to the release schedule this year.
It's a bit nuts right? I can't keep up for money or content. It sort of makes it hard to keep up with assessing all of the options for an otherwise stable list.

I guess this phenomena is a symptom of catering to different formats on different timescales - we maybe just notice the inundation because it's all fair game to us.
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

From a non-reprint cards perspective some of the commanders are completely broken.
The power level on K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, Elsha of the Infinite, Greven, Predator Captain is absurd.

Ability wise they are the most powerful commanders ever printed in commander products in my opinion. That is they have the highest ceiling ever printed in a commander product. The only thing that prevents them from being the "best" is that they are mana costed higher than other years, say when you compare that to earlier commanders like the partners Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver or Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.

But my point is that I'm aware of the fact that often we don't know how over-the-top cards are for a period in time. In five years we could be looking back at Commander 2019 and going "can you believe they printed those cards!?!".

Now the other cards that I play in 99s have been Bone Miser, Dockside Extortionist, Ohran Frostfang, Scroll of Fate, Sanctum of Eternity.
They are fairly specialized cards for particular decks, the exception being Dockside Extortionist. So no real must have except the Dockside Extortionist and Ohran Frostfang as far as future proofing for staples.


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Post by Morganelefay » 4 years ago

As I've stated in My review here, I do generally like the new cards it inserted into the format. None are obviously stupid broken like Chulane, Edric or Prossh, (K'rrik, while strong, does require a rather specific build to break) and most of the new cards do have homes left and right.

That said, reprint quality has not been great. I do feel this is also due to how cards have increased in value. If the 2011 decks had $70 of reprint value in them, they had a LOT more goodies in them than a 2019 equivalent putting in $100 simply because average prices have risen like mad.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Looking back, it's interesting what makes a Commander set "stick". Most view C16 as the peak of the series, but you check the include rates of new cards on EDHREC and the set didn't do hot at all. What is it then? The memorable face legends? The vast partner possibilities? The all time high out of the box play experience?

I feel C19 will go down like C15, in that the set will be largely forgotten but sport a small group of devotees jamming the legends. It's a step up from C17/C18 for sure though. The face legends form an interesting gradient of how hard you had to push a mechanic to make it EDH viable, ranging from Ghired's situational token production to Anje's ridiculous madness rummages. The non-face legends encourage some interesting things, be it Greven's timely arrival to helm lifeloss.dec or Marisi's shadow tribal combat screw. The legends that are conventional enduring successes tend to be open-ended and broadly support coveted archetypes. There have been 8.5 times as many Merens as Kalemnes picked up in the past two years. C19 prides itself on focusing more on the narrow stuff, which is a death warrant for widespread longevity.

That said, C19 doesn't even nail the hyper-specific angle it goes for in terms of 99-only matters. I've been messing around with a Ghired build for a while now, starting from the precon and fiddling with the constituents. Of the new cards printed in the deck, only Idol of Oblivion and Ohran Frostfang survived. An argument could be made for Selesnya Eulogist and Hate Mirage, but new proliferate support pieces like Full Flowering, Ghired's Belligerence and Song of the Worldsoul went out early and haven't been missed. Feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity in that case.

Seeing how there's a sidetrack of Brawl precon in here as well... I see why they did it the way they did. The standard card pool is quite shallow, and people are accustomed to a certain level of excitement from EDH gameplay. As such, they jammed everything and the kitchen sink into the legends to spruce up the experience. A three mana BoP becomes a whole lot more exciting when it comes with a card draw and land dump. The ludicrous legends and support pieces (dammit Gavin) rhyme with C11/C13 in a way. I'm hoping that if they carry on with this product line, more legends will resemble Syr Gwyn - a powerful set of abilities with a bit of general utility, but synergising with what's going on in standard at the time rather than somehow supporting artifacts, enchantments and flying tribal at once. Yes, I know artifacts/enchantments are UW's jam in ELD, but the wording on this thing is just too broad.
 
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
I feel C19 will go down like C15, in that the set will be largely forgotten but sport a small group of devotees jamming the legends.
I think you're definitely on the mark, here. The most memorable commander sets for me were 2014 and 2016, on the basis of a) first time planeswalkers as commanders happened, and b) Partner commanders, respectively.

Many of the precons for years outside this felt somewhere between "here's some legendary creatures and cards with the verbage 'each player/opponent'" to "legendary creatures, but with another sentence that helps value continue or accrue".

I think 2014 and 2016 designs, by comparison, were earthshattering.

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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Looking back, it's interesting what makes a Commander set "stick". Most view C16 as the peak of the series, but you check the include rates of new cards on EDHREC and the set didn't do hot at all.
I don't think this is true? According to EDHREC all of the new face commanders from 2016 fall within the top 40 most popular commanders of all time. Hell, 4 out of the 5 are in the top 25, with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice|C16 and Breya, Etherium Shaper|C16 taking the number 1 and number 5 spots respectively. Even ignoring the commanders, there's plenty of New cards from those decks that are played in thousands upon thousands of decks to this day. Ash Barrens|C16 is played in nearly 15,000 decks according to the site, which is 5% of all the decks in their database.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I'm talking non-legendaries. What else from that set made an impact, apart from Ash Barrens? And how does Ash Barrens hold up to other all-purpose "big hitters" like Commander's Sphere, Thought Vessel, or even Path of Ancestry/Opal Palace?

I stand by what I said. I admitted the legends were impactful.
 
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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
I'm talking non-legendaries. What else from that set made an impact, apart from Ash Barrens?
Sylvan Reclamation|C16, Deepglow Skate|C16, Crystalline Crawler|C16, Ancient Excavation|C16, Conqueror's Flail|C16, Stonehoof Chieftain|C16, Goblin Spymaster|C16 and the list goes on. These are all brand new, non-legendary cards from C16 that are in thousands of decks according to EDHREC. To say that "nothing from the set made any impact" is just not true, and you should probably do some more research before making broad generalizations like that.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Check the other sets. C16 is dwarfed by everything that isn't C18 (that one's the real dud of the pack, even after you correct for the fact it's only got a year's worth of decks in the system).

That said, I feel our little back and forth is derailing the thread, so let's call it here, shall we? Sorry, folks, carry on. C19!
 
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