The Community Deck Build Project v2.0

[3drinks]

Alright, let's try this again. Now with less jank butt partners. I took the liberty this time of randomizing into three legends to be presented here for myself to gauge where the community is at. They're exciting, but at different power levels I think, so I'm hopeful this will help me to better understand.

Note this is not the submission phase. Please do not submit cards yet, your submissions will be ignored. This is the discussion phase. One of these three will be the commander we build together, and to what level? Do we need to be prepared for someone to try to combo on t4? Do we need to stop a hasty voltron'd Rafiq quick? Are playing into a Stax table? Are we the Stax player? What is and isn't OK?

My assumption is that we're playing at the high level, with regular copies of efficient answers a la Nature's Claim, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Leyline of the Void in frequent use. I expect to see Cyclonic Rifts with Eternal Witness support. I don't anticipate lots of moxen into Underworld Breach or Thassa's Oracle lines. I don't anticipate Hermit Druid wins. I anticipate one player getting greedy and going for the win on t5 and getting stopped because they tried to win too soon. Most importantly, it's my intent with these projects to be that a player could take one of these lists with no tweaking at all, and be able to sit down at "the average" commander table and be able to hold their own, contribute meaningfully at all points in the game (early, mid, & late). They should understand the value of removal, sacrifice outlets, sequencing plays and counter plays.

I hope my intent is clarified going forward, and I'm very eager to pool the community's discussions in regards to this!

[Myllior]

Of these three commanders, I would find Kathril the most interesting to build. I'd lean into a Hatebears-Midrange build; the bears to provide the interaction to stop players going for combo wins and the midrange creatures for the beatdown and to provide keywords to soup up Kathril. While some incidental reanimation might help, along with some self-mill or the like, I'd avoid turning this into a reanimator deck both because the commander can be a beast in its own right - it can come into play as big as a 14/14 with all the listed keywords; give it haste and you can OHKO a player - and to avoid building a deck that should really be helmed by Karador.

[Dunharrow]

I think I would be most interested in Medomai or Kathril. Though Medomai is a little obvious to me (give it double strike). I think Najeela is boring, obvious, and tired.
So Kathril? I played Chromantiflayer in standard and had a blast, so this kind of thing seems fun.
Power level - I don't think you can build around Kathril and be competitive. I think most of us would want to avoid going combo (much better support from Ghave). I don't think it can be stax (just play Karador). So trying to compete with turn 4 decks or stax decks seems like it should be avoided.

But if people want Medomai I could see stax making sense. Because I don't think Medomai has an infinite combo. I think you play control until you can put a Blade of Selves on Medomai and take a bunch of turns.

If people want Najeela I will jump out of this thread.

[Henlock]

So. we're dropping the partners?

To be honest, it came as a surprise that the Livaan deck was abandoned after first completed. Sure it was kind of a mess, but still was somethong tunable. I've gone through my collection for some of the cards for it, and I'll be building it probably.

The partners were not really great. but, at least for me, there was a certain appeal in trying to pull off something somewhat viable from them. To be honest. I feel this three new options kind of build themselves.

So I am voting for Kathril. I think it is the one that has more room to build into some exciting lines.

I am not thrilled by any of them, but oh well, I do believe that these guys will make easier for us to carry the deck building and discussion process and serve as a stepping stone for further builds.

[Crazy Monkey]

I have a Medomai the Ageless and Najeela, the Blade-Blossom decks currently built. I just played on tonight. I would personally prefer Kathril, Aspect Warper for novelty sake, but Medomai can definitely hold its own in the described power level.

Medomai has a couple infinite turns combos at 3 to 4 card comboes including commander and it can play a mean tempo, control, superfriends, or stax plan at a variety of powers. The combos just need the creature to not have the restriction text when it is declared as an attacker. The easy one is Vesuvan Shapeshifter and morphing up during combat.

Kathril is likely the least powerful from among these three, but it has my vote. I have been playing Medomai since theros and Najeela really needs a lot of predefined restrictions to avoid 5 color good stuff with a warrior tribal skin.

On over all game plan, I like to build for 75%/mid-high/7 out of 10 as my starting point. This means to me that the.decks godhand wins or eliminates a player no earlier than turn 4, that it can interact with common strategies starting on turn 2, and that it skips the best-in-class good stuff unless there is a good reason to include it. I would personally tend to allow one blind spot in interaction if the deck theme limits it. An example that comes to mind would be trying to find creatures with abilities or discard outlets for interaction instead of Nature's Claim or Path to Exile for Kathril. Even if they cost 3+ mana.

Again, that's just my default, but if we're shooting for something more potent then I would try to hit that target.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Disclaimer: I've never seen a Kathril, Aspect Warper deck before so maybe this is the most boring way already, but i think a self mill/blink strategy might be the best way to go. Not necesarily reanimator (though a few good cards like Unburial Rites won't hurt). By blinking Kathril you can really give all your creatures almost every keyword. Akroma, Vision of Ixidor could be a good hidden commander.

[Gentle Giant]

My vote is for Kathril: Medomai, while an interesting challenge, asks you to jump through a hoop that leads to annoying gameplay (taking lots of extra turns). Najeela would require another page or three in this topic to get to enough limitations to make it actually interesting to build (so agreed with what's said so far). Kathril has flexibility (Voltron is the obvious choice, but there's more to consider, like going broad or fiddling around with counters).

Concerning the goal of the deck and its context:

My assumption is that we're playing at the high level, with regular copies of efficient answers a la Nature's Claim, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Leyline of the Void in frequent use. I expect to see Cyclonic Rifts with Eternal Witness support. I don't anticipate lots of moxen into Underworld Breach or Thassa's Oracle lines. I don't anticipate Hermit Druid wins. I anticipate one player getting greedy and going for the win on t5 and getting stopped because they tried to win too soon. Most importantly, it's my intent with these projects to be that a player could take one of these lists with no tweaking at all, and be able to sit down at "the average" commander table and be able to hold their own, contribute meaningfully at all points in the game (early, mid, & late). They should understand the value of removal, sacrifice outlets, sequencing plays and counter plays.

I hope my intent is clarified going forward, and I'm very eager to pool the community's discussions in regards to this!

Your high level almost reads like cEDH-adjacent
Is leyline of the void that common in high level? Additionally, breach and Thassa's lines are cEDH, it might've bled into lower power levels, but let's not kid ourselves. I don't really see how Kathril could swing with those kinds of non-thematic lines of play without forgoing it's mechanics and just be abzan combo.dec. Especially when T5 wins are to be expected.
Admittedly, I'm incapable of judging this accurately (like most on here I guess?), but does what you describe as high level also count as what you think the 'average commander table' plays? Because I would dispute that being the case.

On over all game plan, I like to build for 75%/mid-high/7 out of 10 as my starting point. This means to me that the.decks godhand wins or eliminates a player no earlier than turn 4, that it can interact with common strategies starting on turn 2, and that it skips the best-in-class good stuff unless there is a good reason to include it. I would personally tend to allow one blind spot in interaction if the deck theme limits it. An example that comes to mind would be trying to find creatures with abilities or discard outlets for interaction instead of Nature's Claim or Path to Exile for Kathril. Even if they cost 3+ mana.

This feels more I line with where Kathril could fit, although even with a godhand, that's an early point to finish things

Like, I was going to ask whether we wanted to include infinite combos or not, but given these sentiments, it feels as though it's a given (aside from Voltron oneshotting a player out I guess). That's not a problem, but it does help to be clear about these kinds of things. Almost akin to a pregame discussion.

[RxPhantom]

I'll vote Lathril. I just want to remind everyone of few things:

1. Be cool.
2. Listen.
3. Be open to others' ideas.

[kirkusjones]

I'm on board with Kathril…cycling comes to mind immediately, but mostly because I've wanted to play an EDH version of the extended Slide deck forever. Closest I got was Tamanoa, before I read the dang card and realized it wasn't legendary.

[aliciaofthevast]

Oh hey we got done better choices! Eww, Medomai turns 🤮

Yep, Kathril is the pick I think! Nope, I'm not even gonna dignify Najeela with a blurb.

Speaking of Kathril, does it see Thran Golem's abilities in the graveyard? This will shape some of my picks.

[Dunharrow]

Oh hey we got done better choices! Eww, Medomai turns 🤮

Yep, Kathril is the pick I think! Nope, I'm not even gonna dignify Najeela with a blurb.

Speaking of Kathril, does it see Thran Golem's abilities in the graveyard? This will shape some of my picks.

nope, though I do love thran golem

[3drinks]

Concerning the goal of the deck and its context:

My assumption is that we're playing at the high level, with regular copies of efficient answers a la Nature's Claim, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Leyline of the Void in frequent use. I expect to see Cyclonic Rifts with Eternal Witness support. I don't anticipate lots of moxen into Underworld Breach or Thassa's Oracle lines. I don't anticipate Hermit Druid wins. I anticipate one player getting greedy and going for the win on t5 and getting stopped because they tried to win too soon. Most importantly, it's my intent with these projects to be that a player could take one of these lists with no tweaking at all, and be able to sit down at "the average" commander table and be able to hold their own, contribute meaningfully at all points in the game (early, mid, & late). They should understand the value of removal, sacrifice outlets, sequencing plays and counter plays.

I hope my intent is clarified going forward, and I'm very eager to pool the community's discussions in regards to this!

Your high level almost reads like cEDH-adjacent
Is leyline of the void that common in high level? Additionally, breach and Thassa's lines are cEDH, it might've bled into lower power levels, but let's not kid ourselves. I don't really see how Kathril could swing with those kinds of non-thematic lines of play without forgoing it's mechanics and just be abzan combo.dec. Especially when T5 wins are to be expected.
Admittedly, I'm incapable of judging this accurately (like most on here I guess?), but does what you describe as high level also count as what you think the 'average commander table' plays? Because I would dispute that being the case.

I find graveyard hate is wildly underplayed at almost every table, both to my favour and detriment. Leyline of the Void|tsr is one of the most efficient ways to completely neuter such strategies, and would certainly stop me from stealing games with grave-based strats. I like it much more than Dauthi Voidwalker as enchantments typically speaking are far more resilient than creatures. What's the issue?

I think you may have misread the second point that I don't expect to see the aforementioned breech/thoracle lines. I suppose I could have made that a separate paragraph in the original post for clarity's sake, though, so I'll take some responsibility for that.

And yes, I do consider "the average commander table" to be "High Power". Players want to do powerful things, cast powerful spells like demonic tutour and yawgmoth's win, they want to use gaea's cradle with mina and denn, they want to cast, blink, and reanimate Lord Xander. And they don't want to be interacted with or disrupted, despite said disruption being the cornerstone of healthy play. Are we having a fundamental difference in the philosophy of the type of game we're looking for/used to experiencing? Because I get the impression from the last few posts that I wouldn't be welcome to sit down at your table, nor would you enjoy sitting at mine and I'd like to explore that if it wouldn't be too invasive or combative.

[duducrash]

Kathril, Aspect Warper it lets me give one creature one counter or I can give any number of creatures a counter?

[Henlock]

And yes, I do consider "the average commander table" to be "High Power". Players want to do powerful things, cast powerful spells like demonic tutour and yawgmoth's win, they want to use gaea's cradle with mina and denn, they want to cast, blink, and reanimate Lord Xander. And they don't want to be interacted with or disrupted, despite said disruption being the cornerstone of healthy play. Are we having a fundamental difference in the philosophy of the type of game we're looking for/used to experiencing? Because I get the impression from the last few posts that I wouldn't be welcome to sit down at your table, nor would you enjoy sitting at mine and I'd like to explore that if it wouldn't be too invasive or combative.

I would stay away from speaking in the name.of what players want, becaise, as you said, not all playgroups work the same and many of tje uses and customs when playing are shaped by the agreements made by the table. When speaking for me, I like pulling out big, dramatic, memorable plays such as fetching seven lands with Harvest Season after an Hour of Reckoning, and for that reason, I embrace variance.

Thta doesn't mean that if we agree on bringing a powered deck to the table, I won't do it.

It all depends on abiding the agreements we make.

[3drinks]

Kathril, Aspect Warper it lets me give one creature one counter or I can give any number of creatures a counter?

It just says "a creature", not "another creature", so yeah you could spread the ability counters around or stack them on one target. It also means you're going to want to dump keyword soup creatures like Akroma, Angel of Wrath into the bin for maximum effect.

[Crazy Monkey]

I think that every deck runs disruption to keep opponents from winning. It sounds to me like the questions at this stage are the quality vs theme of said disruption. It's comparing Hour of Need to Pongify in sphinx tribal. This is, imo, a descision that we can make now, for the generic plan for each deck.

It's also a question of the type and quantity of interaction and how that impacts the game. Should every deck run a way to deal with common strategies? I would argue yes, but not so much that a proactive deck is allocating 30% of its card slots to disruption. Similarly, a control oriented deck running a bunch of aggressive threats. This is more a deck specific question.

I like to find corner case cards for my interaction suite in decks, see the Hour of Need example. I would argue that anything below a cEDH level of deck can make those favor oriented card selections work well enough to be involved in the average game. However, the argument that, in fact Nature's Claim is strictly better than Nullmage Shepherd holds enough value that a community deck would make that choice, even if the deck focus is a token swarm.

To be as clear as possible, I think these decks should run graveyard interaction (or some other method to blank that type of opposing strategy), but I will argue for Faerie Macabre over Leyline of the Void for decks that care about flying instead of enchantress. If the consensus is different, I can recalibrate.

[Gentle Giant]

Concerning the goal of the deck and its context:

My assumption is that we're playing at the high level, with regular copies of efficient answers a la Nature's Claim, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Leyline of the Void in frequent use. I expect to see Cyclonic Rifts with Eternal Witness support. I don't anticipate lots of moxen into Underworld Breach or Thassa's Oracle lines. I don't anticipate Hermit Druid wins. I anticipate one player getting greedy and going for the win on t5 and getting stopped because they tried to win too soon. Most importantly, it's my intent with these projects to be that a player could take one of these lists with no tweaking at all, and be able to sit down at "the average" commander table and be able to hold their own, contribute meaningfully at all points in the game (early, mid, & late). They should understand the value of removal, sacrifice outlets, sequencing plays and counter plays.

I hope my intent is clarified going forward, and I'm very eager to pool the community's discussions in regards to this!

Your high level almost reads like cEDH-adjacent
Is leyline of the void that common in high level? Additionally, breach and Thassa's lines are cEDH, it might've bled into lower power levels, but let's not kid ourselves. I don't really see how Kathril could swing with those kinds of non-thematic lines of play without forgoing it's mechanics and just be abzan combo.dec. Especially when T5 wins are to be expected.
Admittedly, I'm incapable of judging this accurately (like most on here I guess?), but does what you describe as high level also count as what you think the 'average commander table' plays? Because I would dispute that being the case.

I find graveyard hate is wildly underplayed at almost every table, both to my favour and detriment. Leyline of the Void|tsr is one of the most efficient ways to completely neuter such strategies, and would certainly stop me from stealing games with grave-based strats. I like it much more than Dauthi Voidwalker as enchantments typically speaking are far more resilient than creatures. What's the issue?

I think you may have misread the second point that I don't expect to see the aforementioned breech/thoracle lines. I suppose I could have made that a separate paragraph in the original post for clarity's sake, though, so I'll take some responsibility for that.

And yes, I do consider "the average commander table" to be "High Power". Players want to do powerful things, cast powerful spells like demonic tutour and yawgmoth's win, they want to use gaea's cradle with mina and denn, they want to cast, blink, and reanimate Lord Xander. And they don't want to be interacted with or disrupted, despite said disruption being the cornerstone of healthy play. Are we having a fundamental difference in the philosophy of the type of game we're looking for/used to experiencing? Because I get the impression from the last few posts that I wouldn't be welcome to sit down at your table, nor would you enjoy sitting at mine and I'd like to explore that if it wouldn't be too invasive or combative.

I guess we both misread: I didn't ask why leyline of the void is a good card, merely whether it's a card so commonly played in high powered games that you'd mention it here. I misread the 'lots' in your sentence on breach et al., sorry about that.

I'm keen to discussing the context these decks would end up in, but I also feel it would detract from the goal of this topic a bit too much depending on the depth of the discussion (we could do it in a different topic perhaps? It would be nice for everyone to maybe give a bio on their playgroups/play style ). I don't think our different perspectives are a problem for making this community deck building process work though. Like others have said so far, we can disagree about picks in a polite manner and simply vote on what we'd like to see. As long as there is a coherent direction to go in, we'll be fine.
So yes, I do think we have a different outlook on the game and that your decks and playstyle with said decks wouldn't gel with my playgroups. Additionally, I agree with Henlock: you shouldn't generalize a specific segment of the community (i.e. the people who play for fulfilling a power fantasy). Any discussion/topic on controversial commanders like Xander shows that such motivations to play are not universal and definitely not the average. But again, that's not a reason not to have a community deckbuilding exercise, which is fun to do!

EDIT: completely agree with @Crazy Monkey here: it's about where we make sacrifices and it's the communal process which determines where. We're not a hive mind that thinks, weighs, and approaches the game similarly, so it's silly to expect that. It might lead to decks having a suit of almost the best removal, but with a Divine Gambit because we simply voted that way.

[duducrash]

My fear with Kathril is that we will build the absolutely most generic version of the deck possible. What is a build we could do that would be more creative?

I'll throw ideas out. Najeela + 99 noncreatures .

Medomai superfriends

[Gentle Giant]

My fear with Kathril is that we will build the absolutely most generic version of the deck possible. What is a build we could do that would be more creative?

I'll throw ideas out. Najeela + 99 noncreatures .

Medomai superfriends

Ooh, that Najeela sounds interesting, but we'd have to set more boundaries than that

[3drinks]

I'll throw ideas out. Najeela + 99 noncreatures .

That...doesn't make any sense. Why. Might as well do Ashling + 99 mountains. I don't understand, this is that clash of are we building a specifically suboptimal deck, or are we working together to build the best we can as a group?

At any rate, I think Kathril is the overwhelming odds-on pick based on the all the responses herein,

[kirkusjones]

Kathril Slide. Cycling, some stuff with discard as an additional cost to bin keyword heavy critters, Life From the Loam?

[Crazy Monkey]

Honestly, I really like the idea of Kathril, Aspect Warper hatebears aggro. Make Gaddock Teeg hexproof and indestructible to be near-immune to board wipes, have very resilient Archon of Emeria and whatnot, buff up and aggro out with Kathril. I think this can hang out in the power level intended and be a relatively novel version of a somewhat explored concept.

Add cycling or discard-as cost as the engine to keep triggers and cards flowing and that seems like a fun concept.

[Dunharrow]

My fear with Kathril is that we will build the absolutely most generic version of the deck possible. What is a build we could do that would be more creative?

I'll throw ideas out. Najeela + 99 noncreatures .

Medomai superfriends

I am sure there is an optimal way to build Kathril, but I am also sure we can find a theme. Discard theme was suggested. I am medium on that since I think Kathril is good with Discard + Self Mill, so we are just doing a halfway standard build.
I think the obvious thing to do is to find ways to bin Akroma and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn and then voltron for the win.
So we just have to come up with something different.
Hatebears, cycling, reanimator are all ways to go

What if we focus on specific abilities though? I kinda like the idea of Walking Ballista, Triskelion, Cloudthresher, etc having deathtouch and lifelink. The the goal of the deck is to get one Vampire Nighthawk-type card in the graveyard and using your pingers to clear the board for an alpha strike?

[duducrash]

I'll throw ideas out. Najeela + 99 noncreatures .

That...doesn't make any sense. Why. Might as well do Ashling + 99 mountains. I don't understand, this is that clash of are we building a specifically suboptimal deck, or are we working together to build the best we can as a group?

At any rate, I think Kathril is the overwhelming odds-on pick based on the all the responses herein,

Eeh, I think it does make sense. Najeela is a snowball that gets out of hand easily with multiple attackers. Building with that restriction would lead to more creative/fun suggestions and builds. Idk, feels like the way it is meant to be its to suggest top EDHRec pics and come out with a stock list without any personality instead of getting a bit of everyone's personality.

Nothing against putting together stock lists, just isnt my idea of a fun time. Hope you all pull some sick lists together though

[Gentle Giant]

Agreed with @duducrash: without some interesting angle to take something, how would we not end up with a stock list?

That...doesn't make any sense. Why. Might as well do Ashling + 99 mountains. I don't understand, this is that clash of are we building a specifically suboptimal deck, or are we working together to build the best we can as a group?

For most commanders (barring the insanely weird partner combination we had before) making the best there is is a much less tantalising experience for the veteran players we have here: most have already been done to death in their most obviously strong iterations. Hence the desire for going off the beaten path. Turning your question around: what's fun about making it the strongest version if there's not that much creativity needed to make it anymore? How will that lead to a deck we can proudly call our own, if it's almost the same as a plethora of other lists (outside of whatever jank I manage to vote in there )
I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) you find the challenge in theme-agnostic deckbuilding puzzles (optimal ramp package, trimming CMC, balancing removal suit, etc.), Whereas others (not saying everyone else!) prefer puzzles on making non-top50 cards shine and exploring untapped angles of play for a commander.

I like Crazy Monkey, Dunharrow, and Kirkusjones' ideas: I've never built hatebears as it's not an archetype that fits my playgroups. It's an interesting angle with potentially powerful plays (and enough flexibility for interaction), cycling is a neat way to fill the yard whilst fueling Kathril, and I have a soft spot for Vampire Nighthawk-esque creatures. Although reanimating a keyword soup creature only to throw more keywords on it also sounds like fun, albeit probably not strong enough for our intended power level?

I mean, I would try to build a deck that tries to hit all keywords (as a challenge each game) or that uses the counters as a resource for other cards. I don't think we should do that as it's too far out, but I thought it would help you get an idea of what makes me tick.