Is a vehicle deck viable?

[Hermes_]

I'm looking at the possibility of putting together a vehicle-themed deck, I know that if it's winnable is down to my own meta. But I'm wondering if at this point it's if it's viable. Could I even use the Buckle Up pre-con ( Kotori, Pilot Prodigy ) as a starting point and just upgrade it?

[Mookie]

As a point of reference, I'll call out the fact that Shorikai, Genesis Engine was banned in Duel Commander... so yes, it's definitely viable, at least for some metas and some definition of 'vehicle deck'. More broadly, I don't see why a vehicle deck wouldn't be viable. You do have the traditional aggro problem of 'it's hard to burn through 120 life points', but Shorikai gives you a lot of lategame gas. Vehicles are also generally resilient to board wipes, which is nice (although you will need to play new creatures to crew them). I don't know that I would take it to a high-power table, but it seems like a reasonable choice at a low / medium power level.

I think my default plan for a vehicle deck would probably be Shorikai in the command zone surrounded by an Azorius control shell (somewhat heavy on board wipes), and a few vehicles / synergy pieces as win conditions (like Peacewalker Colossus and Mobilizer Mech). Maybe also stuff like Rise and Shine and a general artifact theme? (or just Smothering Tithe and a bunch of mana rocks)

[kraus911]

I had fun with my Greasefang, Okiba Boss deck. Orzhov control that doesn't so much flood the board with vehicles but aristocrat away other people's creatures and swing with a vehicle or two.

[Treamayne]

I'm looking at the possibility of putting together a vehicle-themed deck, I know that if it's winnable is down to my own meta. But I'm wondering if at this point it's if it's viable. Could I even use the Buckle Up pre-con ( Kotori, Pilot Prodigy ) as a starting point and just upgrade it?

I have fun with my Sydri, Galvanic Genius Vehicle deck; and I would expect that multiple vehicle themed decks are viable in almost any color combination. Unless, of course, by "viable" you mean "competitive" . . . WHile I'd imagine it's possible, I don;t know of any cEDH level vehicle decks (except maybe the above-referenced French Banned general)

Example:

SPOILER

Show

Hide

Of course, having an alternate animation method doesn't hurt. . .

[Toshi]

As a man of culture, I have a Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel vehicle deck, which is well below $100 and doing just fine. You can find it here.
Some cute artifact interactions, some mono blue control genes and off we go.
Sure, nothing for a high powered pod, but certainly something to smash faces and a fairly rare sight.

As with most other decks, i think you can always make it "work", as long as you can handle expectations and have a meta that does play fitting pods every now and then.

[ISBPathfinder]

I played several vehicles in a Winota, Joiner of Forces deck because they were non humans that lived through a number of creature based sweepers but I wouldn't say I was a vehicle deck per say. I also saw someone in a previous meta play Emmara, Soul of the Accord as a vehicle concept to get access to tapping her at any time.

I think that there are playable vehicles for the format. I think that if you want to push hard to run a large number of vehicles rather than running a few that are good when the time comes up you are going to be disappointed at the low quality of vehicles as a whole. I think some of the vehicle commanders like Shorikai, Genesis Engine are fine I just think that if your goal is to put 10+ vehicles into a deck you are going to be disappointed at some of the lower quality ones. I think essentially anything is doable in commander its just the question of how low powered you get to with anything too fringe. You probably won't ever bee too disappointed in Smuggler's Copter but if you are going for a large quantity of vehicles you are going to scrap the bottom of the barrel fairly fast.

[JovialJovian]

Is Greasefang, Okiba Boss too obvious?
I find her to be very effective, if a bit linear to play.

[Jemolk]

I've had a Depala, Pilot Exemplar Dwarf/Vehicle deck since Kaladesh, and it's pretty capable. Not talking anything particularly high on the competitiveness scale, more a battlecruiser meta, but still. I go harder on the dwarf synergies than on vehicle ones, but I'm pretty confident it could work in the other direction too.

[TheGildedGoose]

Kykar, Wind's Fury and Breya, Etherium Shaper strike me as the two best Vehicle commanders.

[wildfire393]

So the "problem" with the Vehicles deck, specifically Kotori, is that there's not a ton of payoff at the moment. Like sure, you can use Kotori to pilot some big vehicle, but after Parhelion II and maybe Colossal Plow, the payoff for crewing a vehicle with a crew cost of >3 is mostly just... a big dumb beater. You're not going to get a ton of mileage out of Consulate Dreadnought or Demolition Stomper or Aradara Express just turning sideways slight more efficiently, nor Shorikai, Genesis Engine in attack mode.

There's a decent few utility vehicles that'll do stuff like draw cards, and there's a few payoff cards like Sram, Senior Edificer and Surgehacker Mech, but for the most part if you're putting 5 vehicles onto the board it's going to be a bunch of conditional, slightly-undercosted fatties, and that's really not where you want to be in Commander.

[Treamayne]

So the "problem" with the Vehicles deck, specifically Kotori, is that there's not a ton of payoff at the moment. Like sure, you can use Kotori to pilot some big vehicle, but after Parhelion II and maybe Colossal Plow, the payoff for crewing a vehicle with a crew cost of >3 is mostly just... a big dumb beater. You're not going to get a ton of mileage out of Consulate Dreadnought or Demolition Stomper or Aradara Express just turning sideways slight more efficiently, nor Shorikai, Genesis Engine in attack mode.

There's a decent few utility vehicles that'll do stuff like draw cards, and there's a few payoff cards like Sram, Senior Edificer and Surgehacker Mech, but for the most part if you're putting 5 vehicles onto the board it's going to be a bunch of conditional, slightly-undercosted fatties, and that's really not where you want to be in Commander.

While it depends on the deck and what you want to play (and your group play against), in my experience the "Payoff" of vehicles is their "only creatures sometimes" nature. Like more control? Pre-combat sweepers, Noetic Scales type effects, maybe even something stax-ish like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Like combat tricks? Cranial Plating and other "equals number of creatures" effects to throw combat math into the woodchipper or make Rube Goldberg-esque chains of crew/animation to get the right attacker/blocker for the situation. Like niche applications? Find something to do that most opponents won't expect; like Cipher Stolen Identity onto a vehicle so the Cipher spell avoids most creature wipes.

Granted, none of these are Sylvan Library/Abundance level value engines, but there is a payoff available if that is the kind of deck you want and the kind of deck your group finds interesting.

[Dunharrow]

I like my Sydri vehicle deck. I think I copied someone's list from Sally and made some tweaks. The whole idea is to animate things like Winter Orb and use them to crew your vehicles just before you untap.
It plays like a weird stax deck, gets a bit grindy sometimes, but when it works you can end the game quick.

I enjoy it, but it is rough when someone disrupts your plan because you just end up playing a bad stax deck or a bad vehicle deck.

[wildfire393]

So the "problem" with the Vehicles deck, specifically Kotori, is that there's not a ton of payoff at the moment. Like sure, you can use Kotori to pilot some big vehicle, but after Parhelion II and maybe Colossal Plow, the payoff for crewing a vehicle with a crew cost of >3 is mostly just... a big dumb beater. You're not going to get a ton of mileage out of Consulate Dreadnought or Demolition Stomper or Aradara Express just turning sideways slight more efficiently, nor Shorikai, Genesis Engine in attack mode.

There's a decent few utility vehicles that'll do stuff like draw cards, and there's a few payoff cards like Sram, Senior Edificer and Surgehacker Mech, but for the most part if you're putting 5 vehicles onto the board it's going to be a bunch of conditional, slightly-undercosted fatties, and that's really not where you want to be in Commander.

While it depends on the deck and what you want to play (and your group play against), in my experience the "Payoff" of vehicles is their "only creatures sometimes" nature. Like more control? Pre-combat sweepers, Noetic Scales type effects, maybe even something stax-ish like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Like combat tricks? Cranial Plating and other "equals number of creatures" effects to throw combat math into the woodchipper or make Rube Goldberg-esque chains of crew/animation to get the right attacker/blocker for the situation. Like niche applications? Find something to do that most opponents won't expect; like Cipher Stolen Identity onto a vehicle so the Cipher spell avoids most creature wipes.

Granted, none of these are Sylvan Library/Abundance level value engines, but there is a payoff available if that is the kind of deck you want and the kind of deck your group finds interesting.

This was mostly in reference to Kotori, since he's the one that rewards you for playing high-crew Vehicles by making them easy to crew.

Shorikai is another thing altogether. Being a non-creature is, as you said, huge, as you can play all kinds of stuff to just completely neuter all opposing creatures while you have access to an 8/8 when it comes time to swing. But that isn't so much what I'd call a vehicles deck and rather more of a stax-leaning deck, which is why I never ended up making it.

[Hermes_]

I think i'll just put this idea on the back burner for now