What's your most unusual commander and/or deck?

[Dragonlover]

(The Zedruu build is highly unusual, too, but tstorm823 can speak to it since its his.)

I don't know, Zedruu seems like a pretty popular answer in here. It's probably the right answer, but I want to say something different.

I do have a deck built around the lands that give legends banding and then only legendary creatures. Other people have done that, but I've never seen that in person.

In terms of just doing something I've never seen anyone else do, I think the most unique thing I've done was my Jodah, Archmage Eternal deck, where the ideal win condition was to Conflux for Grozoth, Hypergenesis, and Dualcaster Mage so that I could cast Hypergenesis from hand with Jodah (style points), and then fork it with Dualcaster so that Grozoth tutored out like 15 9-drops with a Hypergenesis still on the stack. But that was one of those win-cons that impressed people only the first time I won with it and never again, and also proved to me that casting 9-drops with Jodah is a better win-con than Grozoth combo, so it's no longer with us.

My wife has a Jodah deck focused around chucking out 9 drops after they got it in our stores annual "edh build around challenge". Surprisingly resilient given the mana curve.

Dragonlover

[Toshi]

I tend to gravitate towards oddball commanders with weird designs, or doing things in the wrong colour combinations. However, I subsequently try to build the best deck I can around them, so no goofy self-constrained themes to be found here.

Same here. Just because my deck is headed by Traxos, Scourge of Kroog instead of an Eldrazi, don't expect me to be any cute about it.
Actually, i've never seen another one in paper and most players react quite positively when they face it, despite the fact it's very aggressive and preys on decks that lack early drops and disruption.

3c Slivers also gets a look towards me.

Any time I bust out the white border deck.

Big fan of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death in all shapes and forms. Especially those 2 decks of yours!

[3drinks]

If you like that, you'll probably like my white border Nicol Bolas deck. It's only a matter of time before I go back to that one soon.

[materpillar]

Ooooooh! One of my favorite things to do is kill people with really bad cards that people have to read. Have I got some stupid for you!

Changeling Tribal - my current favorite deck. Everyone has a blast watching me pilot it. Every card is a changeling or lets me say a creature type. The goal of this deck is extremely simple, attempt to win while simultaneously saying as many different creature types as possible. That means an idea line of play is tap Primal Beyond for U which can only be used to cast an elemental Amoeboid Changeling which only cost U because it's a dragon. Also, because I just cast a spirit, trigger Elder Pine of Jukai. Then, since an sliver entered the battlefield trigger Harmonic Sliver. Now because Amoeboid Changeling is a knight it has haste because of Khorvath Brightflame. So I'll tap Amoeboid Changeling to turn my Elder Pine of Jukai into all creature types so that when I cast Peer Pressure naming "Praetor" I can steal my opponents Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur since I control more Praetors than he does.

Lazav, the Multifarious - You just run a pile of utterly terrible cards and then murder people with them. Thran Turbine, Cephalid Inkshrouder. Eater of Days, masticore, and Phage the Untouchable being some of the cards that overperform. I've watched my Ovinomancer get swords. Want to un-ironically run Vector Asp, ornithopter and gingerbrute with no artifact synergies? This deck is for you.

Damia, Non-Infinite Elf-Storm - As title. Cast a bunch of 1cc creatures (the deck plays 37 of them). Draw your deck and cast your deck with Beast Whisperer and tangleroot effects. Kill the table with Tendrils of Agony. The deck explicitly can't go infinite and can deal a few million damage. The deck if fun for people to play against exactly once.

5c Political Dredge - I've been playing this deck for since before 2012. It's a self-milling Laboratory Maniac/worm harvest deck that really abuses Life From the Loam. It used to be super original, but it feels less so now because they keep printing lab man knock-offs and lands-matter cards. I did it before it was cool though. Blowing people out with Memory's Journey and Pull from Eternity feels great. As does attacking someone with progenitus and giving them a savage beating. Lots of really durdly value engines involving all 10 bouncelands.

[WolfWhoWanders]

I have a kykar deck built around ridiculous interactions with mirrorweave. I just call it mirrorweave tribal

[MeowZeDung]

I have a kykar deck built around ridiculous interactions with mirrorweave. I just call it mirrorweave tribal

YES! I need to thank you directly for being the first to recommend Mirrorweave in my Kykar thread. About a week ago I turned everything into Thundering Spineback when one opponent attacked another. It was glorious.

[WolfWhoWanders]

[mention]MeowZeDung[/mention]

That's awesome! Mirrorweave has been responsible for some of the most fun I've ever had playing magic. Between the insane interactions you can build for and the opportunities your opponents provide there is never a dull moment. Kykar has been a boon for this deck with his natural ability to provide tokens to weave. I'll have to post the deck some time as I've yet to see anything much like it, and it's hard to see all the possible shenanigans... It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

[MeowZeDung]

MeowZeDung

That's awesome! Mirrorweave has been responsible for some of the most fun I've ever had playing magic. Between the insane interactions you can build for and the opportunities your opponents provide there is never a dull moment. Kykar has been a boon for this deck with his natural ability to provide tokens to weave. I'll have to post the deck some time as I've yet to see anything much like it, and it's hard to see all the possible shenanigans... It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

Can't wait to see it! Feel free to stick it in my Kykar thread if you don't want to make your own decklist thread for it.

[tstorm823]

It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

Things I've Mirrorweaved, you say?

Blightsteel Colossus.
Goblin Rabblemaster with an Akroma's Memorial.
Drogskol Reaver for a double kill, the defending player died to the damage, the attacking player drew out.
And then with Opalescence on board:
Furnace of Rath hitting with 4 attackers for ~30k damage.
Thought Reflection with only a couple creatures in play, tapped Temple Bell to mill the table.
I'm sure there's other good ones I'm blanking on at the moment.

[WolfWhoWanders]

It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

Things I've Mirrorweaved, you say?

Blightsteel Colossus.
Goblin Rabblemaster with an Akroma's Memorial.
Drogskol Reaver for a double kill, the defending player died to the damage, the attacking player drew out.
And then with Opalescence on board:
Furnace of Rath hitting with 4 attackers for ~30k damage.
Thought Reflection with only a couple creatures in play, tapped Temple Bell to mill the table.
I'm sure there's other good ones I'm blanking on at the moment.

Those are spicy. I love the hitting with furnace of rath and thought reflection trick... I suppose I should give that strange brew of yours a try one day. I imagine you can weave things that get reeaaal interesting. Some of my greatest hits have been 30+ blightsteels, a similar number of pathbreaker ibexes, veteran explorer in response to a board wipe, and this scratching of the surface doesn't even include anything in my deck. I may go start putting that in here...

[Cyberium]

I have a few.

1) Nicol Bolas, the Ravager and five Gods. The deck was designed to incorporate the abilities of The Scorpion God, The Locust God, The Scarab God, God-Eternal Kefnet, and God-Eternal Bontu. The deck is heavy on instant/sorcery, utilizes zombie tokens and PW strategy with proliferate in mind, so I could spread -1/-1 counters and poison counters while boosting my Dreadhorde and PWs.

2) Alela, Artful Provocateur's permanent type matter decks. Using artifact/enchantment creatures as well as Adventure creatures, alongside various spells that interact with specific permanent types to maximize profit and avoid downside, such as Wrath while having Bestow creatures, or use Cloudstone Curio to bounce Adventure creatures for reuse as spells, etc.

3) Pharika, God of Affliction twin Oath. This idea came from an EDHREC article where you use Pharika to maximize both Oath of Druids and Oath of Ghouls's effect for your profit. Keeping low creature count on the board but always revive them at right moment.

4) Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper land matter. Animate lands then mass LD so only I get to keep creatures. Again, another idea from EDHREC article.

[Segrus]

It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

It's possibly the second best card in my Noyan Dar deck. Negating somebody's wrath by turning everything into a land is always fun. I believe I've also helped one opponent take out another opponent by turning a regular attack into an alpha strike. One of my favorite obscure uses for Mirrorweave was a friend of mine who would target Dandan/Manta Ray to (generally) wrath the board.

[Nimbaway]

One of my most fun decks to play is Karametra, God of Harvests, which is primarily a ramp/landfall deck that aims to win through using Deceiver of Form to turn all my creatures into something spicy to attack with.

[Morganelefay]

For me it's probably Chandra, Flame of Kaladesh Chandra Tribal. Every single Chandra PW card is there, and while the deck doesn't regularly win, it does occasionaly notch up wins.

[WolfWhoWanders]

It'd be nice to hear what others come up with and have done with mirrorweave.

It's possibly the second best card in my Noyan Dar deck. Negating somebody's wrath by turning everything into a land is always fun. I believe I've also helped one opponent take out another opponent by turning a regular attack into an alpha strike. One of my favorite obscure uses for Mirrorweave was a friend of mine who would target Dandan/Manta Ray to (generally) wrath the board.

Most excellent, I use it similarly in my noyan deck. I also use the jank where you animate a contested war zone and mirrorweave it to steal everything. I also use the dandan trick in the dedicated mirrorweave deck. It started out as some sea serpent or another until I found dandan just sitting in an old box and I was like "this is perfect!". Love the art too, and I've weaved all my things into him in order to alpha strike too

[Runnin]

I'd say my Kozilek, the Great Distortion deck. I'm the only one that plays colourless at my LGS and its quite pimped out, been working on it for years and collecting colourless foils when I could. I play colourless in all formats I can so I share a lot of cards between the formats. But its fun that colourless can draw and counter like a blue player or even more than them.
EDIT: Otherwise I've had like , oldborder only decks and what not.

[Serpent_Steve]

For me it would have to be either my mono green Patron of the Orochi deck that tapdances for ridiculous amounts of mana (Nyxbloom Ancient is an amazing recent addition for the deck) to spend on activated abilities gets odd looks as they don't immediately notice the effect on patron is symmetrical.

Otherwise it would be my Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire chaos(ish) deck. Lacks the usual annoyances like Thieves' Auction that serve no purpose but drag the game on but certainly presents insanely hilarious interactions.

Most random deck I played against was a Cromat board wipe tribal deck that relied in Cromat's power alongside combo cards that gummed up the board (Solemnity and Naked Singularity made tapping for mana awkward whilst Possibility Storm and Rule of Law made it impossible to play cards from hands).

[RxPhantom]

I have to tell you all, this thread did not disappoint. Several of these have provided some inspiration. Thanks everyone!

[mention]Segrus[/mention]: I'd really love to see that colorless slivers list. It just doesn't compute in my head that there are enough cards to pull that off in colorless, even if it is a super casual deck.

[mention]Outcryqq[/mention]: I'd love to see that Jodah list; I'm curious which cards made the cut, especially since, for the most part, flavor text has been lacking for years now. Also, Lord of Tresserhorn is so cool. I don't see a lot of deck lists with him at the helm, and most of those are zombie tribal, which is not what I'd want to use such an odd Commander for.

[mention]lyonhaert[/mention]: Does the Spider Spawning deck have a plan B just in case it gets hit with a Dissipate or some grave hate?

[mention]pokken[/mention]: Do the Golos decks have any mechanical themes?

[mention]RabidVacin[/mention]: Just reading through the Sivitri Scarzam list made me chuckle. I like that Dispersal Shield tech.

[mention]NoNeedToBragoBoutIt[/mention]: You can't just tell me the Lazav deck has a bunch of weird cards in it and then not tell me ANY!

[mention]MeowZeDung[/mention]: I've been considering making a pinger deck for a long time. I've had a loose list kicking around for years. Is it fun to pilot? Any secret tech you'd recommend?

[mention]Mookie[/mention]: how often does that Zedruu deck cause you to lose friends and gain nemeses?

[mention]tstorm823[/mention]: Please tell me you have that banding list! I've been considering this, but I'd probably have to print out the banding section of the comp rules and keep it with the deck, just so my opponents (and myself for that matter) can be sure I'm doing it right.

[mention]materpillar[/mention]: I have no questions, mainly because you provided so much detail, but I did want to say that the changeling tribal deck seems like a good time.

[mention]Serpent_Steve[/mention]: I've tried a chaos deck, and even though I also avoided the really grindy stuff, but even then people didn't respond positively and I took it apart. It was a lot of stuff like Shared Fate, Knowledge Pool, Illicit Auction, etc.

[Segrus]

Segrus: I'd really love to see that colorless slivers list. It just doesn't compute in my head that there are enough cards to pull that off in colorless, even if it is a super casual deck.

Well, you're in luck--I've already posted it in the Decklists for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully the deck is as interesting to you as the idea sounds lol. But that being said, I really wouldn't mind more eyes on it to help improve it further.

[ISBPathfinder]

Squee, the Immortal turns a lot of heads for me generally the first time they see it. Most people I guess just don't know what to expect from him when I slap him down as my commander.

[pokken]

pokken: Do the Golos decks have any mechanical themes?

I am not sure what I would classify as mechanical themes, but:

mono white Golos (https://deckbox.org/sets/2423059) has a bit of an ETB/Recursion theme with skybind, heliod, ephemerate, interlude, angel of serenity, and some pretty robust ETB rcreatures, It's primarily an enchantment control deck I'd say.

Mono black golos (https://deckbox.org/sets/2467360) has an old school big mana black theme, small recursion subtheme, small eldrazi theme (with eye of ugin being one finisher), and a significant devotion subtheme.

Generally both decks try to just ramp with Golos and not ramp very hard outside of Golos, which lets you explore some territory that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Something I really like about these designs is that it frees you of a lot of the constraints normally exist on getting to a big mana place.

[tstorm823]

tstorm823: Please tell me you have that banding list! I've been considering this, but I'd probably have to print out the banding section of the comp rules and keep it with the deck, just so my opponents (and myself for that matter) can be sure I'm doing it right.

I have a banding list back over on salvation that's Bruse and Thrasios (that I'd link to, but I'm at work computer, and for some reason the firewall lets me see this site but not that one, not that I'm complaining), but I'm actually part way through a major rebuild of that deck. It was mostly a fun, relatively generic battlecruiser with the added gimmick of banding to go with my partner commanders. But having seen when the banding has mattered (and really enjoying when it does), it's gonna get more aggressive. Banding basically lets you attack with impunity, so I'm making 5-color legends (mostly Naya) that turn sideways, my plan right now is Sisay, Weatherlight Captain with the hidden option to tutor out Golos, Tireless Pilgrim to consistently have banding. I'll give it a new thread here once the details are a bit more ironed out.

[Mookie]

Mookie: how often does that Zedruu deck cause you to lose friends and gain nemeses?

I only pull out the deck once every few months, so it's not really an issue. It helps that the deck is built as a control deck and not a stax deck - while there are a few hate pieces (like Torpor Orb) to slow people down, I don't try to lock people out of the game. I'm also not running Illusions of Grandeur or any other mean Zedruu donate targets - I rely entirely on donating Oblivion Ring effects and symmetric enchantments.

On the other hand, while I would say the mission of my Zedruu deck is 'make sure no one wins', the mission of my Kess deck is 'make my opponents lose'. That deck definitely makes enemies.... but on the other hand, it's villain-themed, so that's sort of the point.

[lyonhaert]

lyonhaert: Does the Spider Spawning deck have a plan B just in case it gets hit with a Dissipate or some grave hate?

I have been able to win without spiders and without "number of creatures in my graveyard" cards. Pretty sure I've won with Progenitor Mimic + Master Biomancer, though I forget what it was copying.

I do need to play it in other metas where there's more potential graveyard removal. Maybe my graveyard just doesn't look threatening to my friends because it's not reanimator, not combo, and nothing in the graveyard is of particular interest to them. They do need to pack at least one piece of graveyard hate in each deck and pay more attention to graveyards.

As for resilience with Spider Spawning and exile (even just because of casting it with flashback), there's stuff like Runic Repetition and Riftsweeper. Also Memory's Journey.

It's a fun deck, though. Here's the link to my decklist thread.

[Outcryqq]

Outcryqq: I'd love to see that Jodah list; I'm curious which cards made the cut, especially since, for the most part, flavor text has been lacking for years now. Also, Lord of Tresserhorn is so cool. I don't see a lot of deck lists with him at the helm, and most of those are zombie tribal, which is not what I'd want to use such an odd Commander for.

An older version of the list is here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the ... r-favorite. There have been some additions and subtractions, but there core is there.