Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[Ruiner]

I could see Aragorn as pretty much any aggro variant (Voltron, Go Wide, Go Tall). There are some pretty decent cards for Monarch like Court of Grace and Palace Jailer, and I'm sure some new ones in the new precon. Maybe you run some blink and haste enablers to guarantee the Monarch.

I think he's a pretty simple but solid commander that could have a number of different playable decklists.

[DirkGently]

I really like it when there are combat enablers outside of green that can actually get the job done in commander but also are vulnerable to removal. Jeskai Aragorn is a solid b+ from me at least.

Disagree strongly with bolded.

But on the plus side, he's not really vulnerable to removal since he doesn't contribute anything of value in the first place.

I envision Aragorn, King of Gondor as a control deck, actually. Then again, most commanders I interpret through a lens of, "Can I make this a control deck?"

EDIT: Hypothetical Aragorn list:

1 Aragorn
40 Lands
10 Cantrips
7 Card Draw/Engines
11 Counterspells
8 Wraths
12 Spot Removal
7 Protection/Sustain
4 Tutors

Speaking of which, the only other commander that caught my eye was Saruman, the White Hand. I've always enjoyed Shark Typhoon and Metallurgic Summonings so having this effect in the command zone that isn't Kykar, Wind's Fury might be cool. Giving him Amass instead of raw token creation is a good balancing choice, and having a big booty helps with preserving your life total.

I feel like basically anybody could helm that deck and do a better job. You aren't even taking any advantage of his main payoff at that point. And you really want to defend the monarchy with pure creatureless control? That sounds miserable tbh.

Aragorn is a pretty solid stoneblade deck for sure.

What synergy does he have there?

I could see Aragorn as pretty much any aggro variant (Voltron, Go Wide, Go Tall). There are some pretty decent cards for Monarch like Court of Grace and Palace Jailer, and I'm sure some new ones in the new precon. Maybe you run some blink and haste enablers to guarantee the Monarch.

I think he's a pretty simple but solid commander that could have a number of different playable decklists.

At least aggro makes sense insofar as it takes advantage of his actual abilities. That said, messing about with blink does not sound very aggro to me, and I don't really see the payoff of creatures not blocking being substantive enough for a commander. Keeper of Keys has been a card for ages, it sucks and nobody plays it.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I can't say I really care for any of the Aragorns except Aragorn, the Uniter. I really just want to play multicolored charm tribal with him to try and double dip on as many triggers as possible, but alas, my man is only four colors in one of the rare cases I'd really want all five. Sad!

Edit: @DirkGently I don't think @TheGildedGoose's UWR control skeleton is all that unreasonable with Aragorn. Just create the monarch and never take it back, let the other players kill each other for it until you can grind the game to a 1v1 AND THEN take back the monarch to smash the final player with CA and control. Seems pretty fine to me tbh.

[Arebennian]

I can't say I really care for any of the Aragorns except Aragorn, the Uniter. I really just want to play multicolored charm tribal with him to try and double dip on as many triggers as possible, but alas, my man is only four colors in one of the rare cases I'd really want all five. Sad!

Ramos, Dragon Engine? It's something I've thought quite a bit about. Spellslinging instants so I can trigger Ramos on every turn (don't really want to blink him) with lots of land tutors to find The World Tree. You can run single mana cantrips too as they are seen of equal colour value to Ramos.

[pokken]

What synergy does he have there?

Evasion, Vigilance and lifelink are *fantastic* keywords for an equipment midrange deck. You race well and you block. Plus he's the monarch so he brings card draw, which is another thing that's a struggle for those decks.

Jeskai colors are by far the best colors for interaction as well, and he costs the perfect 4 for signet ramping into an early card draw engine, and having Fierce Guardianship online. Alternatively you can play haste enablers on 2 (e.g. Crashing Drawbridge which is hilariously on theme) but I think I'd just jam signets here, since you really want monarch live on turn 3 if you can to start the stream of cards.

Being the monarch with a vigilant giant lifelinking blocker is fantastic, especially on turn 3 where no one is likely to steal it from you and if they do you can take it right back because they won't have blockers and you'll have a sword.

[TheGildedGoose]

Yes, dogpile and disagree, that will certainly change his mind.

[pokken]

Yes, dogpile and disagree, that will certainly change his mind.

I don't need people who think evasion, lifelink and vigilance is zero synergy with equipment to agree with me

and oh god you have a second copy of Runechanter's Pike that casts free spells now. Glamdring yeesh.

[TheGildedGoose]

Yes, dogpile and disagree, that will certainly change his mind.

I don't need people who think evasion, lifelink and vigilance is zero synergy with equipment to agree with me

Sure. I don't need someone to agree with me about pretty much anything. My point is that you don't argue with forest fires, you cut fire lines and get out of the way. That's all.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Yes, dogpile and disagree, that will certainly change his mind.

I don't need people who think evasion, lifelink and vigilance is zero synergy with equipment to agree with me

Sure. I don't need someone to agree with me about pretty much anything. My point is that you don't argue with forest fires, you cut fire lines and get out of the way. That's all.

Well, you're no fun anymore. Dirk isn't a forest fire, he's some dude with a flamethrower. He can be beaten and I'd rather fight and lose than spend time in an echo chamber.

Admit it, without Dirk this place would be way duller. This is a FORUM. Since time immemorial, forums are places to share ideas and pit one's wits against another in debate! Why not just enjoy what the man provides instead of taking it personally?

Just play the game, Harding.

[TheGildedGoose]

Well, you're no fun anymore. Dirk isn't a forest fire, he's some dude with a flamethrower. He can be beaten and I'd rather fight and lose than spend time in an echo chamber.

Admit it, without Dirk this place would be way duller. This is a FORUM. Since time immemorial, forums are places to share ideas and pit one's wits against another in debate! Why not just enjoy what the man provides instead of taking it personally?

Just play the game, Harding.

Let it burn.

You presume too much. I do enjoy a lot of his contributions to the forum, such as decklists and theory. I don't enjoy the verbosity or dismissive hostility. I'm sure a lot of people around here could do without my terse disapproval as well, but we are who we are. It's possible to criticize and still value.

After all, we're just one big awful family. We even have a racist uncle.

[DirkGently]

I can't say I really care for any of the Aragorns except Aragorn, the Uniter. I really just want to play multicolored charm tribal with him to try and double dip on as many triggers as possible, but alas, my man is only four colors in one of the rare cases I'd really want all five. Sad!

Edit: @DirkGently I don't think @TheGildedGoose's UWR control skeleton is all that unreasonable with Aragorn. Just create the monarch and never take it back, let the other players kill each other for it until you can grind the game to a 1v1 AND THEN take back the monarch to smash the final player with CA and control. Seems pretty fine to me tbh.

Yeah Uniter is the only Aragorn that does anything for me. The rest look reaaaal mediocre. And Uniter doesn't look super powerful either, he just looks fine (which is what I want to be clear). Spoiler alert but I only rated one commander from LTR and LTC together as "ugly". Feel free to makes guesses as to which one!

I rarely see people fight that hard over monarch tbh but maybe y'alls metas play differently. Based on past experience I'd expect a few early attacks over it, and then someone sits on it and keeps forgetting they were supposed to draw until other players' turns.

Evasion, Vigilance and lifelink are *fantastic* keywords for an equipment midrange deck. You race well and you block. Plus he's the monarch so he brings card draw, which is another thing that's a struggle for those decks.

I'm not a modern expert, you said stoneblade so after a google I was under the impression it was a deck that relied upon SFM and batterskull synergies. If we're talking about equipping the commander, why wouldn't you just call it voltron?

Sure, those keywords are fine and do have synergy with a voltron strat, they're just not that interesting or powerful in the context of commander imo. Voltron is essentially an aggro deck, so having defensive keywords seems of lesser importance than aggressive ones. And while evasion is valuable, it's not the best evasion and equipment tends to give evasion pretty effectively on its own.

But more than any of that, it's just very small ball imo. Slicer, Hired Muscle // Slicer, High-Speed Antagonist is obviously a disgusting and ridiculous voltron commander, but something more reasonable like Wyleth, Soul of Steel, Zurgo Helmsmasher, Akiri, Fearless Voyager, Raiyuu, Storm's Edge, Astor, Bearer of Blades, Galea, Kindler of Hope, Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, Rafiq of the Many, Ramses, Assassin Lord, Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice, Frodo, Determined Hero, Zur the Enchanter, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Geist of Saint Traft...these all seem WAY more compelling to me as voltron options. They either give tempo - something you really want in an aggressive strategy - or a lot of value, or both, or they're able to protect themselves from removal, the voltron deck's worst nightmare. Aragorn maybe gives a mild amount of value and gives no tempo and has no protection. I just don't see how he competes against existing options.

Also, while this is purely personal preference, just having a couple keywords seems really boring as a commander choice to me.

Jeskai colors are by far the best colors for interaction as well,

Blue is obviously king of the stack, and white is king of the board. But after that I'd take black personally so I can tutor for niche answers and have more removal options, idk what red brings to the table. Reasonable people can disagree but I definitely wouldn't say it's "by far" the best. Anything UWx is going to be pretty close to each other.

Hey, if you just want some keyword soup you could play Atraxa, Praetors' Voice.

and he costs the perfect 4 for signet ramping into an early card draw engine, and having Fierce Guardianship online. Alternatively you can play haste enablers on 2 (e.g. Crashing Drawbridge which is hilariously on theme) but I think I'd just jam signets here, since you really want monarch live on turn 3 if you can to start the stream of cards.

Sure, I'd agree with that deckbuilding decision ofc, although I'd rather have something like Frodo, Akiri, Ardenn, or Wyleth (or slicer) that don't need ramp, or can be ramped out on 1/2 with fast mana.

Having enough 2-mana ramp to reliably hit 4 on 3 takes quite a few slots tbh. Even with 10 slots the odds are less than 2/3. I don't mind dedicating that number of slots (or more) when I've got an insane payoff like Zur, but Aragorn really doesn't justify it imo.

Being the monarch with a vigilant giant lifelinking blocker is fantastic, especially on turn 3 where no one is likely to steal it from you and if they do you can take it right back because they won't have blockers and you'll have a sword.

That sounds like the sort of thing that would be super good in draft. 1 card a turn in a format like commander as an absolute ceiling seems real mid to me, especially when the floor is someone kills your commander and takes the monarch.

and oh god you have a second copy of Runechanter's Pike that casts free spells now. Glamdring yeesh.

Tbh I'm pretty off glamdring too. The fact that you need to actually hit, and that you're casting the spells at one of the weakest possible times to cast them (on your own turn, after you've already gotten through blockers) makes it look real mediocre to me. If it triggered on any combat damage it'd be pretty solid. As-is, eh, I think I'd rather play Runechanter's Pike, and that doesn't see a lot of play already. Not saying there aren't decks where I'd play Glamdring, I just think it's pretty niche.

Well, you're no fun anymore. Dirk isn't a forest fire, he's some dude with a flamethrower.

Lol am I really being that inflammatory here?

[Mookie]

Alright, I've gone through the set and compiled my thoughts. There are a number of cards in the set I'm interested in for my cube (which has a legend / historic theme), but constraining my selections to just EDH stuff here.

• Spiteful Banditry gives The Meathook Massacre vibes and looks quite strong. I don't think you want to run it out on turn 2 as a janky mana rock, but it's not a bad baseline. Red is pretty light on enchantment synergies though, so I would feel a bit awkward adding it to Kess or Mizzix. Hmmm...
• Last March of the Ents is Rishkar's Expertise, but bigger. Seems good for many big green decks.
• Display of Power and Fiery Inscription are fun spellslinger / storm cards.
• Elven Chorus is a nice draw + mana engine for creature-heavy decks. It's not quite Future Sight, nor is it Cryptolith Rite, but the combination has historically been quite strong.
• Orcish Bowmasters is my pick for 'must-play cross-format staple'. It's not quite Hullbreacher as a hate card, but it has some interesting political implications that mean you may actually get extra triggers.
• Reprieve is probably going to have some cross-format implications - Remand has gone down in value over time relative to other countermagic options, but white doesn't really have many other options for stack interaction (and it looks much better than Lapse of Certainty).
• Sauron's Ransom is a slightly cheaper Fact or Fiction for some decks.
• Barad-dûr and the other legendary lands will probably see some play.

I'm a bit low on tempt cards and the food cards. Most of the legends don't particularly excite me in the 99, although I am planning to add Shelob, Child of Ungoliant and a few others to my cube.

[pokken]

I'm not a modern expert, you said stoneblade so after a google I was under the impression it was a deck that relied upon SFM and batterskull synergies. If we're talking about equipping the commander, why wouldn't you just call it voltron?

Stoneblade is originally a legacy deck but in commander it'd be a control heavy swords deck, at least that's how I'd interpret it--basically swords and a few value dudes who hold/get swords.

They haven't played batterskull for a while, it's like Umezawa's Jitte and Kaldra Compleat these days.

stuff like this would translate very well into Aragorn I think --> https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5026091#paper

re: Glamdring

You definitely have to bias toward card draw and removal, but thankfully white and blue and red are great at that casting Ignite the Future or Fact or Fiction for free is pretty great ramp, and a vigilant unblockable dude is reasonable.

The 3 mana tempo hit to equip is reasonable to concern yourself with I guess, but if your deck is loaded with interactive spells and card draw I feel like you'll be doing really well with it

Particularly if you run modal type counterspells, pretty much a posterchild for Mystic Confluence and Cryptic Command and such.

[DirkGently]

Stoneblade is originally a legacy deck but in commander it'd be a control heavy swords deck, at least that's how I'd interpret it--basically swords and a few value dudes who hold/get swords.

If non-commander creatures are carrying your swords, then of what relevance are Aragorn's keywords? Is he just a 4 mana way to introduce monarch? That seems so inefficient and unimpressive to me.

stuff like this would translate very well into Aragorn I think --> https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5026091#paper

I don't really understand what Aragorn does for that deck outside of being a significantly-less-efficient carrier of swords? Of course it'd be pretty difficult to build anything that functions the same way given that a lot of the synergy seems to be using SFM to cheat big equipment into play. I don't think we have a commander that does that reliably. I guess Nahiri, Forged in Fury does it via topdeck but ofc it's typically luck of the draw. Much easier to cheat on the equip cost than the initial cost. But then there also aren't enough powerful living weapons imo to make cheating equipment into play terribly strong in commander anyway.

You definitely have to bias toward card draw and removal, but thankfully white and blue and red are great at that casting Ignite the Future or Fact or Fiction for free is pretty great ramp, and a vigilant unblockable dude is reasonable.

Card draw seems fine, I guess I just don't run that many instant/sorcery: "draw some cards" spells these days, most of my draw tends to be more on-board engines or at least repeatable stuff from hand like LFTL that doesn't get a huge boost from freecasting. That's a personal preference though.

But I think my bigger issue is that, for the few decks that do want to run runechanter's pike, they can usually put the opponent in a position where they'd really prefer to block. Getting a saboteur trigger on an equipment that already makes them want to block and doesn't grant any evasion feels kinda win-more imo. I guess early in the game if it's only like +3 maybe it creates some pressure that didn't already exist but otherwise it seems like they'd probably be blocking anyway. If it was trample instead of first strike it'd be a totally different story ofc.

If you're planning to cheat the cost of removal I think that's a poor justification for it tbh. Most good targeted removal is cheap anyway, you're effectively sacrificing instant speed, and you can't use it to get through blocks in the first place. And if you're happy gambling your ability to cast the removal on getting damage through, I question whether it was worth casting the removal at that juncture.

Particularly if you run modal type counterspells, pretty much a posterchild for Mystic Confluence and Cryptic Command and such.

Honestly I think CC is pretty lame in that context. The counterspell mode is by far the most powerful, so you'd be firing it off for a bounce and a cantrip? Honestly I think in most circumstances I'd rather just keep it in my hand. Though I've also been a lot more down on the concept of value-added answers in general.

[ukkuhrmakhai]

Stoneblade is originally a legacy deck but in commander it'd be a control heavy swords deck, at least that's how I'd interpret it--basically swords and a few value dudes who hold/get swords.

If non-commander creatures are carrying your swords, then of what relevance are Aragorn's keywords? Is he just a 4 mana way to introduce monarch? That seems so inefficient and unimpressive to me.

stuff like this would translate very well into Aragorn I think --> https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5026091#paper

I don't really understand what Aragorn does for that deck outside of being a significantly-less-efficient carrier of swords? Of course it'd be pretty difficult to build anything that functions the same way given that a lot of the synergy seems to be using SFM to cheat big equipment into play. I don't think we have a commander that does that reliably. I guess Nahiri, Forged in Fury does it via topdeck but ofc it's typically luck of the draw. Much easier to cheat on the equip cost than the initial cost. But then there also aren't enough powerful living weapons imo to make cheating equipment into play terribly strong in commander anyway.

Initially I had the same reaction as you that Aragorn just seem kind of inefficient and unimpressive but after I looked at the other Jeskai options I realized he isn't as bad as I thought. His draw doesn't scale and he isn't ending games on his own BUT he seems like he would be consistent value for a stoneblade style deck (IE use removal and counters to control the board and drop efficient creatures and equipment to grind out value).
He has a few things going for him:
1) His draw is very consistent if you are playing evasive creatures and you can get it even if he gets removed.
2) His keywords (especially lifelink) scale well with equipment.
3) He can give teamwide evasion letting your ETB creatures swing in to get equipment triggers or getting an alpha strike through.

He is not a standout in any particular category so you are never going to highroll a crazy hand cause of him but you probably won't be low rolling too often either. I also like him because he doesn't cheat on mana in any way which means he he will never be the best commander but at least he won't be causing problems at every table he shows up at.

You definitely have to bias toward card draw and removal, but thankfully white and blue and red are great at that casting Ignite the Future or Fact or Fiction for free is pretty great ramp, and a vigilant unblockable dude is reasonable.

Card draw seems fine, I guess I just don't run that many instant/sorcery: "draw some cards" spells these days, most of my draw tends to be more on-board engines or at least repeatable stuff from hand like LFTL that doesn't get a huge boost from freecasting. That's a personal preference though.

But I think my bigger issue is that, for the few decks that do want to run runechanter's pike, they can usually put the opponent in a position where they'd really prefer to block. Getting a saboteur trigger on an equipment that already makes them want to block and doesn't grant any evasion feels kinda win-more imo. I guess early in the game if it's only like +3 maybe it creates some pressure that didn't already exist but otherwise it seems like they'd probably be blocking anyway. If it was trample instead of first strike it'd be a totally different story ofc.

Personally, I'm viewing it as the reverse. Any deck that is running runechanter's pike should already have a way to give evasion to the creature, have evasive creatures or get the damage through. The opponent should always want to block the pike but they shouldn't always get to. Evasion would be better of course but evasion is almost going to be better

If you're planning to cheat the cost of removal I think that's a poor justification for it tbh. Most good targeted removal is cheap anyway, you're effectively sacrificing instant speed, and you can't use it to get through blocks in the first place. And if you're happy gambling your ability to cast the removal on getting damage through, I question whether it was worth casting the removal at that juncture.

Particularly if you run modal type counterspells, pretty much a posterchild for Mystic Confluence and Cryptic Command and such.

Honestly I think CC is pretty lame in that context. The counterspell mode is by far the most powerful, so you'd be firing it off for a bounce and a cantrip? Honestly I think in most circumstances I'd rather just keep it in my hand. Though I've also been a lot more down on the concept of value-added answers in general.

I completely agree about using it on removal. Value added removal/answers usually aren't worth it and free casting removal is the least reliable use of it. But, for an instant and sorcery heavy deck it is free mana (and cheating on mana is almost good) and potentially a lot of it. Free casting draw, ramp or another spell and still keeping up mana to cast Cryptic is much more likely. You can also use it to cast a wrath and still have mana to rebuild after. Sometimes there are good targets for casting removal during your turn (Grand Abolisher/Smothering Tithe). Other times it will just be a free cantrip. And then sometimes you will get the high roll and cast Apex of Power for free.

[Mookie]

re: Aragorn, King of Gondor - I've been contemplating building a Queen Marchesa forced combat deck for a while, and Aragorn looks like a reasonable alternative (since I'm not a fan of Pramikon, Sky Rampart). I'd lose out on Revenge of Ravens / No Mercy effects, but gaining Propaganda / Firkraag, Cunning Instigator / Collective Restraint is relevant. Aragorn could also clear the way for me to be aggressive with my own creatures, and lifelink is a nice way to buffer the life total if opponents are able to attack me. I'm not sure he's better than Isshin, Two Heavens as One (the other obvious option), but seems worth consideration.

[DirkGently]

Initially I had the same reaction as you that Aragorn just seem kind of inefficient and unimpressive but after I looked at the other Jeskai options I realized he isn't as bad as I thought. His draw doesn't scale and he isn't ending games on his own BUT he seems like he would be consistent value for a stoneblade style deck (IE use removal and counters to control the board and drop efficient creatures and equipment to grind out value).
He has a few things going for him:
1) His draw is very consistent if you are playing evasive creatures and you can get it even if he gets removed.
2) His keywords (especially lifelink) scale well with equipment.
3) He can give teamwide evasion letting your ETB creatures swing in to get equipment triggers or getting an alpha strike through.

He is not a standout in any particular category so you are never going to highroll a crazy hand cause of him but you probably won't be low rolling too often either. I also like him because he doesn't cheat on mana in any way which means he he will never be the best commander but at least he won't be causing problems at every table he shows up at.

1) The decklist mentioned in this thread didn't have evasive creatures, it was relying pretty much exclusively on the commander to hold monarch from what I saw. But even with evasive creatures to grab it back, if your opponents also have evasive creatures, you might still be drawing cards but you're only keeping pace, not pulling ahead on CA, and potentially taking a beating while doing it.
2) I'd say double strike alone is worth twice as much as both of his keywords combined when it comes to equipment synergies. But if you want a lifelink commander that works with equipment, how about Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder? Then you can pick whichever additional color(s) you want as well.
3) I do think an aggro list probably makes the most sense for him to get maximum value from the falter effect. That said it's still typically very telegraphed and very easy to disrupt, either by snagging back monarch or by removing him at beginning of combat (which tbf is basically the only way to stop him going off if you play him with haste and attack in the same turn - but most haste outlets are on-board so it's still telegraphed).

Not sure what you mean about comparing well to other jeskai options. Jeskai has plenty of powerful commmanders, certainly many stronger than him. I guess he has an "I suck" shield (certainly compared to KILL IT WITH FIRE commanders like Narset and Kykar), but that's not really a selling point imo, you can always play a crappy commander.

Lowrolling seems very easy. Step 1, play your commander when your opponents already have creatures on board. Step 2, they kill your commander and swing in. Or they have an evasive attacker and a good defensive position. Now you're giving your opponents free cards. The only reason this might not be likely is because Aragorn, as mentioned, is crappy enough that they probably won't bother using removal on him tbh, at least not until you try to strap a sword onto him.

Personally, I'm viewing it as the reverse. Any deck that is running runechanter's pike should already have a way to give evasion to the creature, have evasive creatures or get the damage through. The opponent should always want to block the pike but they shouldn't always get to. Evasion would be better of course but evasion is almost going to be better

I don't agree with that at all. We're already narrowing the focus down to spellslinger decks to play either card, typically ime runechanters is just a way for a controlly spellslinger deck to turn "I played a bunch of cantrips" into a way to win the game, via putting it onto their commander and swinging for lethal commander damage. But most of the time that commander doesn't have inbuilt evasion, so you're either blowing the blockers up with removal or you're chipping away at them by forcing blocks every turn.

Ofc it's not impossible to have a spellslinger deck that also has an evasive commander (i.e. kykar) but that's an even narrower subset of decks. Which was kinda my point. It's not necessarily a bad card, it's just real niche.

[DirkGently]

Ok I want to build a commander from this set but I'm having serious decision paralysis. I'm definitely building Sauron, the Dark Lord for my set commander deck, that's obvious. Once people get sick of that I'll probably switch to Galadriel of Lothlórien, but currently I don't have enough cards from the set to make it good.

But as far as "real" decks, here are my top 6:

Shelob, Child of Ungoliant - pretty light spider tribal - there are a few that are just too good not to use, like Chainweb Aracnir and Curse of Clinging Webs. But most of the deck is going to be fight/bite spells. I just love the idea of making food versions of enemy creatures as a payoff, it's so freaking cool. Maybe repeatable ping/forced block stuff, but that can create lock-adjacent situations that make me a bigger threat. I like the idea of just sniping things off and having awesome food tokens. Beyond that, lots of protection and some ramp to get to 6, since getting and keeping Shelob on the field is imperative.

Cirdan the Shipwright - very atypical build for me, since it will almost certainly be a lot of ramp and fatties. Fatties I think are compulsory since you need a payoff for when nobody targets you. But the main reason to play it would be for the mind games, and knowing when to choose yourself for maximum card draw, and when you expect everyone will stop targeting you and you can switch to someone else in order to drop a huge bomb.

Grima, Saruman's Footman - voltron I think makes the most sense - double strike is obviously desirable, and once you've got double strike swords become desirable, plus he's already unblockable. Beyond that, he's in UB so you know I'm playing some control nonsense as per usual. I just love Chaos Wand, happy to see it in the command zone.

Shelob, Dread Weaver - MBC with lots of removal. Yeah, yeah, I'm very predictable. As I said in the offtopic thread, I think Shelob is basically a fixed Geth, Lord of the Vault that doesn't risk monopolizing the clock. Overall it's probably worse than Geth since it can't be so single-mindedly focused on ramp - probably mostly 2-drop rocks + a coffers package for late-game splashiness - but it does have more room for removal. I do love stealing people's creatures, but it's also nice that I can just turn them into draw if they aren't useful.

Lobelia, Defender of Bag End - Considering how popular Gonti, Lord of Luxury is and has been, I'm surprised Lobelia has gotten basically zero fanfare. I always felt like Gonti suffered a bit for not having much to build around beyond retriggering him over and over, and Lobelia solves this problem by giving you a decent eggs payoff, the ability to freecast so you're not so dependent on big mana, and something to do when you're out of stolen cards. She does have less selection than Gonti, but she also gets to play all 3 cards given time so overall I think that's a win.

Gilraen, Dúnedain Protector - I never liked Roon of the Hidden Realm, but I think Gilraen is a lot more interesting - she provides the option to blink or flicker, which enables instant-speed responses in various ways, plus the ability to permanently upgrade a creature with a few decent keyword counters. She's also a lot lower on the curve which is very desirable for a tap ability.

If I'm being honest, I think Shelob, Child of Ungoliant would probably be my pick except that she's extremely popular and I hate going with the flow. At least the fight-focused version of the deck seems significantly less common than the tribal version. Grima, Shelob Dread Weaver, Lobelia, and Dunedain are seeing basically zero play which makes me a lot more partial to them. But idk, does anyone else have opinions? Anything you'd want to see built DirkGently style? I notice we've seen precisely zero LTR or LTC commander decks posted so far, which is a little depressing.

[Mookie]

But idk, does anyone else have opinions? Anything you'd want to see built DirkGently style?

Legendary creatures from the main set I find interesting / worth building around:

• Radagast the Brown (although somewhat redundant with Volo, Guide to Monsters
• Samwise Gamgee
• Saruman of Many Colors
• Sauron, the Dark Lord
• Shadowfax, Lord of Horses (although somewhat redundant with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death)
• Shelob, Child of Ungoliant
• Sméagol, Helpful Guide

If I were to build one myself, I'd probably go for Samwise or Sméagol, who I think have the most interesting unexplored deck design space. Shelob is sweet, but the deck feels a little on-rails (spiders + fight / Lure effects).

[Hawk]

I am almost totally committed to Samwise Gamgee since it just hits all my wants in a deck and Sam's my favorite character in the books and movies.

- Saffi Eriksdotter is a way to keep Sam very safe and keep the food flowing with more triggers, and Sam can keep picking her back up. To a lesser extent King Darien XLVIII, Boromir, Warden of the Tower, Samwise the Stouthearted, and Arwen, Mortal Queen do similar stuff.
- We have a critical mass of cards that auto-prepare enough food to loop on their own - Treebeard, Gracious Host and Bill the Pony are infinitely recurrable by base, and Farmer Cotton gets there at x=2+. Galadriel, Gift-Giver and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit aren't quite as efficient as those three, but they get a significant way down the field.
- There's also some ways to double Sam's triggers - Gandalf the White, Peregrin Took, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Panharmonicon, and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines all double his triggers and are all recurrable by Sam.
- And then we can also turn our doom-piles of food into mana (Academy Manufactor, Jaheira, Friend of the Forest, Inspiring Statuary, Elanor Gardner) and more cards (Peregrin Took again, Academy Manufactor again, Celestine, the Living Saint, The Gaffer).

Yeah baby, we definitely got a cony and taters stew going.

[yeti1069]

Lobelia, Defender of Bag End - Considering how popular Gonti, Lord of Luxury is and has been, I'm surprised Lobelia has gotten basically zero fanfare. I always felt like Gonti suffered a bit for not having much to build around beyond retriggering him over and over, and Lobelia solves this problem by giving you a decent eggs payoff, the ability to freecast so you're not so dependent on big mana, and something to do when you're out of stolen cards. She does have less selection than Gonti, but she also gets to play all 3 cards given time so overall I think that's a win.

Lobelia looks interesting, but falls way short of Gonti in some important ways: pisses everyone off at once, instead of one at a time, can't use the exiled card forever (only as long as she sticks around), can't use immediately without haste, and you need a resource to sacrifice to the activation.

If I pull one, I'll almost certainly try it in my Prosper deck, and may try it in my Marchesa, the Black Rose deck, but I can't see building around it with how many hoops you have to jump through, compared to Gonti.

[Hawk]

But idk, does anyone else have opinions? Anything you'd want to see built DirkGently style?

[*]Saruman of Many Colors

Would love to see you or Dirk crack Saruman here. My friend pulled one and we were talking about how to build it, and he just seems too hard to wield

- At 6 mana he's really ponderously slow. 6 mana in Esper (so no green ramp or red ritual/treasure spam) feels like a billion. His ward helps you from having to recast him once he's down, but he's just so slow.
- As a 5/4 with no combat abilities, he is unlikely to get a lot done voltron-wise and isn't big enough to reliably dissuade attacks and protect your hide.
- His text is really awkward. He only triggers on your second spell, and your ability to steal is based on the MV of the second spell cast. That means cantrip-mancy is weird with him, since you need to cast a small cantrip and then cast a 3+ cost spell to trigger him and reasonably steal a card. While he says "each turn" and not "your turn", practically speaking it'll be hard to make that happen.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, or enchantments, meaning the risk of bricking out is very real especially just milling 2.
- He encourages you to jam mill for more options, which isn't a winning line.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, and enchantments, which means he's unlikely to steal win-cons.

He just feels so overdesigned to me, but perhaps a more brilliant soul can show me what he can do since he looks sick.

[yeti1069]

But idk, does anyone else have opinions? Anything you'd want to see built DirkGently style?

[*]Saruman of Many Colors

Would love to see you or Dirk crack Saruman here. My friend pulled one and we were talking about how to build it, and he just seems too hard to wield

- At 6 mana he's really ponderously slow. 6 mana in Esper (so no green ramp or red ritual/treasure spam) feels like a billion. His ward helps you from having to recast him once he's down, but he's just so slow.
- As a 5/4 with no combat abilities, he is unlikely to get a lot done voltron-wise and isn't big enough to reliably dissuade attacks and protect your hide.
- His text is really awkward. He only triggers on your second spell, and your ability to steal is based on the MV of the second spell cast. That means cantrip-mancy is weird with him, since you need to cast a small cantrip and then cast a 3+ cost spell to trigger him and reasonably steal a card. While he says "each turn" and not "your turn", practically speaking it'll be hard to make that happen.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, or enchantments, meaning the risk of bricking out is very real especially just milling 2.
- He encourages you to jam mill for more options, which isn't a winning line.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, and enchantments, which means he's unlikely to steal win-cons.

He just feels so overdesigned to me, but perhaps a more brilliant soul can show me what he can do since he looks sick.

I'm thinking he might work in a similar vein as Captain N'ghathrod mill, where instead of stealing creatures and artifacts, you're stealing from 3 other card types. Building it, I'd think you'd want a fair amount of cheap draw and removal, following by big mill effects. Even that strikes me as a little awkward, since the big mill won't go off until after the trigger resolves, but it sets you up for the next one.

• Maddening Cacophony
• Fractured Sanity
• Consuming Aberration
• Mind Grind
• Traumatize
• Terisian Mindbreaker
• Shadowkin
• Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
• Gyruda, Doom of Depths
• Memory Plunder
• Cut Your Losses
• Breach the Multiverse

Having some foresight on what you want to cast can help you set up, and I'd imagine you'd want a lot of instants/flash in the 3-5 mana range, besides the desire for a lot of 1-mana cantrips in order to utilize interaction spells you've milled.

Overall, it looks super-awkward. Even Captain can be when I run into multiple decks that aren't running any/many valuable artifacts or creatures, which are more prevalent than valuable instants, sorceries, and enchantments. Plus, Captain requires fewer hoops to jump through, and can more easily be triggered for value the turn it comes down.

[DirkGently]

Lobelia looks interesting, but falls way short of Gonti in some important ways: pisses everyone off at once, instead of one at a time, can't use the exiled card forever (only as long as she sticks around), can't use immediately without haste, and you need a resource to sacrifice to the activation.

If I pull one, I'll almost certainly try it in my Prosper deck, and may try it in my Marchesa, the Black Rose deck, but I can't see building around it with how many hoops you have to jump through, compared to Gonti.

Can't really say I've seen Gonti piss people off, at least at a gameplay level. I don't love people handling my cards but it's not like I'm going to target someone based on that.

She's got some plusses and some minuses vs Gonti. Restricted to the most recently exiled cards and requiring artifacts/tap are definitely restrictions, but freecasting and having a backup ability are pretty big upsides. And I think it's easy to underestimate the value of costing 1 less too. Saves you a lot of deck slots otherwise spent on 2-mana ramp, and opens the reasonable possibility of a T2 if you do run ramp.

I don't see requiring artifact sac as a big downside tbh. There are quite a few eggs that want to be sacrificed, it's pretty easy to build around and get extra value off the top.

I'm working on that deck now actually.

Would love to see you or Dirk crack Saruman here. My friend pulled one and we were talking about how to build it, and he just seems too hard to wield

- At 6 mana he's really ponderously slow. 6 mana in Esper (so no green ramp or red ritual/treasure spam) feels like a billion. His ward helps you from having to recast him once he's down, but he's just so slow.
- As a 5/4 with no combat abilities, he is unlikely to get a lot done voltron-wise and isn't big enough to reliably dissuade attacks and protect your hide.
- His text is really awkward. He only triggers on your second spell, and your ability to steal is based on the MV of the second spell cast. That means cantrip-mancy is weird with him, since you need to cast a small cantrip and then cast a 3+ cost spell to trigger him and reasonably steal a card. While he says "each turn" and not "your turn", practically speaking it'll be hard to make that happen.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, or enchantments, meaning the risk of bricking out is very real especially just milling 2.
- He encourages you to jam mill for more options, which isn't a winning line.
- He only steals instants, sorceries, and enchantments, which means he's unlikely to steal win-cons.

He just feels so overdesigned to me, but perhaps a more brilliant soul can show me what he can do since he looks sick.

He was on my list of options, but didn't make my short list.

I don't think any of his limitations taken individually are a big problem, but taken altogether it's hard for me to see it.

6 mana is easy enough to ramp into if you're dedicated, but it takes a lot of slots to reliably get there on 4.

Honestly I'm kinda down on stealing instants/sorceries (obviously enchantments are also available but they're rarer and more likely to be synergy-focused in a way you can't properly use). Too often you just won't have targets, or won't have good targets, with those restrictions.

Most decks are using those card types for removal, sometimes draw, and sometimes ramp. Draw and ramp is fine, but that's just grease to get the wheels turning, it doesn't do anything on its own. And removal, much of the time, won't have a high priority target worth the effort, especially not at sorcery speed, which is the easiest time to use Saruman. The issue with this is that none of these things are typically assembling a win condition in any meaningful sense. So you're dedicating all this deck space to enabling this thing to happen, and then you still need to figure out what you're actually going to use to win.

Ultimately, between needing setup, being unreliable, and not directly advancing a wincon, I think Saruman is best used as a somewhat minor piece in an esper ramp deck. Your deck needs to already have a plan that basically ignores Saruman but involves double-spelling a decent amount of the time, and then when you play Saruman you can get some random value or removal. But I don't really think it's even possible to build around him enough to "break" him, per se.

I'm a lot more interested in Gríma, Saruman's Footman, who has a similar effect ultimately (lets you freecast enemy instants/sorceries) but has much less setup. He costs 4 instead of 6 so you aren't nearly are reliant on mana rocks, and he basically guarantees you one spell per turn. But maybe more importantly, he gives you a relatively obvious wincon by being an unblockable commander that wears equipment just fine.

[Mookie]

He just feels so overdesigned to me, but perhaps a more brilliant soul can show me what he can do since he looks sick.

If I were to build Saruman, I would focus less on cheap cantrips and more on spells that cast other spells. Brilliant Ultimatum, Knowledge Pool, Aminatou's Augury... stuff like that. You miss out on the best enabler (Possibility Storm), but there should be enough support. I'm not entirely sure what the payoff would be, but piles of free spells are arguably their own reward.

I'm a bit low on Gríma, Saruman's Footman - Chaos Wand has consistently underperformed for me, so I value having some selection on my free stolen stuff pretty highly. It's possible that he's better in practice though, given that you don't have to spend extra mana on him.