Most brain-dead commanders in existence

[DirkGently]

I've talked a lot about Mike and Jon, who were very weak players a year ago and are now decent-ish. However, there's another player who has played with us only occasionally, but seems to be showing up more frequently now, who is...whew, whole other level of bad. I could write an AI that plays better than him in 5 minutes. His main operating procedure is to evacuate cards from his hand as quickly as possible completely irrespective of any board state. And his deckbuilding is so bad that he has no reload and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing of relevance for the rest of the game.

And also he has a wife/gf who is maybe slightly worse but honestly it's basically the same deal. However she's apparently more averse to learning new decks.

All this to say, I want to brew some decks they can borrow that will make them decent competition despite these barriers. At least decent competition against precons. But I've got to go dumb. Reeeeaaaaaal dumb.

I'm thinking Purphoros, God of the Forge - no combat math involved (he rarely attacks). Any other commanders that can compete? Ideally mono-color, I don't want to spend 8 hours building this and choosing the right colors is challenging for him.

[Ruiner]

If you convince him to actually attack, Xenagos, God of Revels is about as simple as it gets. Don't even bother with interaction, just make it "play big dumb creature, attack".

Really, monored aggro is probably your best bet though. Whether it's Purphoros, God of the Forge, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, Krenko, Mob Boss, or something similar. Just vomit that hand out and hope for the best.

[Mookie]

Maelstrom Wanderer is my suggestion. Ramp → cast Wanderer → attack with a bunch of hasty beaters. If Wanderer dies, do it again.

Otherwise, yeah, I could see Xenagod or Purphoros being good. Some aggro decks can be difficult to pilot due to the math involved, but those two pump out large enough numbers for it to rarely matter.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Heh, I know a few players like this too. After a few games I usually lend them my Mayael the Anima deck. It's the dream of every Timmy. The deck is basically ramp, some fatties + support and a little bit of interaction. Mayael isn't great anymore as a commander in general, but I think she'll be able to hang with precons and the like.

The only decisions they have to make is who to attack and what to pick when they spin Mayael. Sometimes they'll only see one creature, so the choice is made for them.

[Treamayne]

On the other side of the equation, you could try a General that does things even with an empty hand. If you are the one building for them you can avoid the Degenerate at the deckbuilding stage - so Generals like Horde of Notions, Ghave, Guru of Spores and Karador, Ghost Chieftain will almost always have something to do or cast, even with an empty hand. And, who knows, maybe they can learn from the experience too. . .
(probably not)

[Chromaticus]

I think Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is pretty ideal for this. I built one for a friend of mine and she now wins games. Dragon dragon dragon cyclonic rift.

[void_nothing]

On the other side of the equation, you could try a General that does things even with an empty hand. If you are the one building for them you can avoid the Degenerate at the deckbuilding stage - so Generals like Horde of Notions, Ghave, Guru of Spores and Karador, Ghost Chieftain will almost always have something to do or cast, even with an empty hand. And, who knows, maybe they can learn from the experience too. . .
(probably not)

What about one that does something while the player blindly dumps their hand, like General Ferrous Rokiric?

[PrimevalCommander]

Maelstrom Wanderer gets my vote. Most annoyingly linear strategy that is powerful even with junk cards. Ramp + Wander = value. Simple as that. I am convinced even a $50 Wanderer deck could roll tables with little strategy involved. Even resistant to typical control since Malestrom puts 3 spells on the stack, which is good against typical counterspells. Also the cascade is random, so no pesky decisions to make on what to cast. Spin the wheel and bash face with whatever pops out. No summoning sickness, so just swing with abandon. Play some cheap bounce/Wash Out variants for board control that can dodge Wanderer if needed. Basic removal suite, probably zero counterspell because bad players shouldn't use counterspell. Value gaining 6-7 drop creatures (TITANS) and some ramp. Done.

[Lifeless]

In my experience Animar, Soul of Elements is the biggest dummy in Dumbtown. You do have to attack, usually, but you could always just put in some cards that force everyone to attack to avoid that failure state.

[toctheyounger]

Heh, I was gonna suggest Purph 2.0.

Honestly an elfball commander like Ezuri, Renegade Leader probably fits the bill. Literally could not be easier to pilot. Vomit elves, turn them sideways, profit. In the same vein, Krenko, Mob Boss probably does the same thing from the other side of the arrangement. I know you find tribal distasteful, but we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel, so these would get you there.

[materpillar]

I'm thinking Purphoros, God of the Forge - no combat math involved (he rarely attacks). Any other commanders that can compete? Ideally mono-color, I don't want to spend 8 hours building this and choosing the right colors is challenging for him.

He rarely attacks? I'm not sure how to make him a deck that'll do something if it just never attacks. My first thought was Gishath, Sun's Avatar since that is just smash face and get dinosaurs but if he doesn't attack that's kinda bad. Maybe you could do Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge and just throw in a zero thought pile of bomby creatures? Eventually, he'll hit enough upkeeps and have a big enough boardstate even he should realize he can kill people. Nekusar, the Mindrazer and random card draw might let him kinda randomly kill the table by accident? Giada, Font of Hope and a pile of angels is probably decent too.

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait feels like it'd be really hard to play poorly. If he knows how to cast his general and hit land-drops he should eventually overpower the table? I think Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait is probably your best bet.

[DirkGently]

Thus far I've built Purphoros and Fynn, the Fangbearer (mostly because it was very fast to build - each deck took me <40 minutes, which is insanely fast for me - I don't think Fynn is nearly as good of a fit as Purphoros). Both got played and did pretty decently. Everyone else wanted to play a Mafia-style variant with a king and assassins etc, which did some weird things with Purphoros in particular. I was the king vs Purphoros and was able to gain like 100 life with Umezawa's Jitte and Shadowspear with my Kellan deck. I think they were probably playing too cautiously though. Anyway, I may need to tailor my ideas a bit to fit this particular environment if we play that variant more, open to suggestions for how to do that.

Lot of suggestions that, while simple compared to plenty of other commanders, don't really compare to Purphoros. Even if you're just playing a bunch of fat dudes and swinging, you still need to have a rough idea of who the best person to attack is, wtf all those little blocking creatures might do, etc. I'm looking primarily for commanders that are largely agnostic of enemy board states and don't require threat assessment. Otherwise it feels like we're leading him around by the nose, and it becomes a sort of contest of "who can shout at him the loudest to convince him that someone else is the right target?" and that's not fun for anyone (partly because Jon is always the loudest shouter).

Nekusar is a solid fit, though kind of an expensive deck at least to make good. I'll probably keep it with Purphoros and Fynn for now but we'll see how it goes.

[materpillar]

What does this person like doing in magic? I know you might hate it but this person might enjoy winconditionless group hug. That operates pretty agnosticly in regards to board state. Zero thought, no attacking is an extremely narrow niche.

Pile of enchantments Sythis, Harvest's Hand pillowfort?

Alternatively, I've gone the opposite route that you're proposing. Sometimes when we have a newer player I loan them my elfball storm deck only telling them it's my most complicated deck and not describing its gameplan. It's my most powerful deck by a wide margin and newer players tend to have a fun time just trying to puzzle out wtf they're supposed to be doing with it. Maybe giving them extremely powerful decks that are hard to pilot will end them up at a similar powerlevel as precons. Depends on how curious/much they like reading new cards though.

[Igzex]

I think Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is pretty ideal for this. I built one for a friend of mine and she now wins games. Dragon dragon dragon cyclonic rift.

Don't you even. Just like I have to say a lot in Poke'mon and Fighting games: being salty that you lose to something does not mean its braindead. At least with my build of Miirym I actually have a calculator to do the math for the amount of tokens I'm getting and the amount of burn damage I'm doing. Oh and all the triggers I have to keep track of. The triggers...

Yeah she can be a real a pain in the butt to pilot.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Pile of enchantments Sythis, Harvest's Hand pillowfort?

I have loaned my Sythis deck to novice players - it's generally not a great match . If an enchantress decks gets its engine going the pilot has to resolve quite a few triggers, which can be overwhelming for newer/slower players. Also, they draw a lot of cards, which leads to an abundance of choices for them ('what to play now that I have 10 cards in my hand?' and 'how to sequence these cards?'). Also, bad players have an aversion to discarding cards at the end of a turn, which may also take a while.

[materpillar]

Pile of enchantments Sythis, Harvest's Hand pillowfort?

I have loaned my Sythis deck to novice players - it's generally not a great match . If an enchantress decks gets its engine going the pilot has to resolve quite a few triggers, which can be overwhelming for newer/slower players. Also, they draw a lot of cards, which leads to an abundance of choices for them ('what to play now that I have 10 cards in my hand?' and 'how to sequence these cards?'). Also, bad players have an aversion to discarding cards at the end of a turn, which may also take a while.

Well less on the semi-storm side of things than your list. Less Flickering Ward and more chonky 4cmc enchantments.

[toctheyounger]

I actually wonder if something like Ruric Thar, the Unbowed would make a good novice deck. It does what it says on the tin, scorches the table for interacting. In that sense it keeps the game from getting too complex for a newbie to manage. Literally all you need to do is get your land drops, play your commander and play other creatures. Kind of a set and forget. Sure there's more nuance there is you want it, but it's totally capable of doing well on autopilot.

[TheGildedGoose]

Zo-Zu the Punisher

[DirkGently]

@TheGildedGoose Zo-zu is a lot trickier than @toctheyounger's suggestion of Ruric Thar, though, because (unless you've got some REALLY wild build) Zo-zu is still playing lands and has to weigh whether to play those lands despite getting dinged by his commander. Whereas Ruric Thar can just play a 100% creature deck and not worry about it at all.

I do also like the forced attack on Ruric, since that removes at least one decision lol.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think brain dead and I think of things that just always draw cards especially the landfall draw kind of crap. It just pilots itself its so one dimentional.

[Chromaticus]

I think Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is pretty ideal for this. I built one for a friend of mine and she now wins games. Dragon dragon dragon cyclonic rift.

Don't you even. Just like I have to say a lot in Poke'mon and Fighting games: being salty that you lose to something does not mean its braindead. At least with my build of Miirym I actually have a calculator to do the math for the amount of tokens I'm getting and the amount of burn damage I'm doing. Oh and all the triggers I have to keep track of. The triggers...

Yeah she can be a real a pain in the butt to pilot.

I built it very noob-friendly for her, rather than a possibly more powerful clone shell. Just the big dumb dragons, the enchantments that enable haste and draw cards when you play large creatures, and a couple one-sided board wipes. Specifically no counter spells because she dislikes the concept of them.

I haven't seen her resolve a Scourge of Valkas - otherwise I don't think a calculator would be necessary for this build.

[Igzex]

I haven't seen her resolve a Scourge of Valkas - otherwise I don't think a calculator would be necessary for this build.

Unfortunately I'm the kind of person who Astral Dragons a Doubling Season and/or a Panharmonicon and immediately regrets it. Oh I almost forgot I had 3 other Miiryms on board because Sakashima lemme recalculate my turn. Someone please help me I'm having a siezure.

Maybe I could newb it down to help me not feel stressed out by running dragons anymore lol

[Dunadain]

I think you hit the nail on the head w/ Purphoros, God of the Forge. Combat math and threat analysis are hard (which is good for the game overall). Group slug doesn't need either.

Dina, Soul Steeper also seems pretty simple, play commander → gain life. Gollum, Obsessed Stalker would be the mono-color version of the effect, but getting a hit on everyone adds a level of complexity.

[Moxnix]

Mono black is where I like to start new players. My daughter was mulling for mana crypt/ sol ring game 2 without me explaining anything at all so she does pick things up fast. Her sheoldred deck even if piloted poorly is quite annoying to face i put sheoldred at the helm and even if she misses her winning storm lines spamming that card over and over with things like bloodchief and peer in the deck make it very easy to win even if you cant properly storm a reservoir but that might be too strong. That being said I do think the mono black control good stuff shell is pretty good for newer players to learn. 1 color mana lots of ways to refill hand lots of ways to make big mana plenty of control cards tons of commanders to choose from. I made a "dark rick" deck to lone out aginst my human deck that is pretty much zombie tribal where i left out the necro yawgwin type cards and let the deck lean on how broken the commander is using fair and thematic zombie cards. Even if they could not figure out how to tutor grey merchant and mikaus to finish i think almost anyone could drop zombies and use thran to draw cards. Could also do xeangos ramp > bloodthirtster swing is a fairly easy line of of my old friends just starting playing I made him xenagos and he had a pretty good time even if he didnt use the sac outlets like greater good properly to go off he still wins games.

[onering]

Omnath Locus of Rage. You ramp, you play Omnath, you ramp some more and it poops out tokens, then he doesn't even have to attack because they deal damage when someone wipes the board. Throw in some sac outlets so he can close the game if nobody wipes and he somehow can't just attack. I've literally never seen this deck built in a way that takes more than a dozen brain cells to pilot. It basically just pilots itself.