Ixalan Commander Decks Impressions?

[yeti1069]

Just wondering what everyone's experience with the precons has been.

I like the idea of pirate, dino, and vampire typal, but I also know that I don't tend to stick with decks that are very linear. Dinos was the deck I'm most intrigued by (inner Timmy, I guess), but looking at it, I feel like I'll tire of it swiftly. Not sure. I like precons that have more depth to them than I thought on first blush. I've had a dino deck in Historic Brawl on Arena for a while, and I kind of enjoy it, but also absolutely loath playing Historic Brawl at this point, so part of the attraction to the precon would be getting to play dinos in a better environment.

Part of me keeps wanting to rebuild my Marchesa, the Black Rose from being (nominally) wizard tribal ('typal' feels so odd) to be pirate tribal (and rogue, for that matter), but I'm not playing that deck very often at this point. It's in that in between space where it's too slow and combo-averse to hang in most high-power games, but can be too challenging to interact with for most mid-level tables. There are several pirates I've been wanting to run in a deck somewhere, but haven't.

I'd had an Edgar Markov deck, built to be low CMC, and highly aggressive, that had something like a 75% winrate in 3-person pods, and a 0% winrate in 4-person pods (in part, because I've always felt that focusing down 1 player at a time makes for unfun gameplay for the table), and took it apart. Still, I have a ton of vampires I'd like to have back in a deck, along with many that have been printed since Edgar got shelved. By the same token, I have an Orzhov clerics deck that looks like it overlaps with this enough that I don't know that I'd want to be focused on upgrading an Orzhov vamps precon.

I have zero interest in merfolk, but don't let that stop anyone from chiming in with their impressions of the fishy precon. Also, why are there so many flying merfolk these days?

[yeti1069]

I just read two upgrade guides to the dino deck, and both were mindboggling awful--the worst upgrade guides I've ever read. Both showed little understanding of how their deck was supposed to work, how the cards in the deck worked/interacted with each other, and eschewed big value pieces for junk inclusions (such as cutting card draw without replacing it).

An example: mentioning Savage Order as a means of cheating out Wakening Sun's Avatar.
Another: both cut Rhythm of the Wild.

[PrimevalCommander]

The dino deck looks great.
Merfolk looks pretty good.
I'm not in tune with vamps to say how that one looks.
Pirates look to have good synergy and fun creature type. I didn't pay too close attention to the decklist though.

Dino's has my #1 interest, but my buddy already said he is buying it and building a dino deck, so that's out unless I get it to add to my very small precon collection. That one probably has great long term resale value if the last batch of tribal decks were anything to compare to.
Merfolk is my #2 because the commander looks really good. But I'm soft on simic as a color pair just due to "easy mode" connotations.

[MrBloo]

So I was playing around with Admiral Beckett Brass in an 8+ playgroup and the main issue with pirate tribal was that

1. There weren't great commanders that directly support it. Admiral was good but she was basically a more expensive lord most of the time as the requirement to trigger the second ability is VERY high. Like if I connect with 3 or more pirates, they deserve to have their stuff taken anyway.

2. Pirates on average have poor stats and thus poor board presence and the good ones are few and far between. Most of them do not pose a threat on their own and thus require you to commit more resources to the board which means you're that much further behind after a sweeper and you aren't the best at recovering compared to other tribal or combat-based decks since setup time is also longer.

3. There weren't enough good pirates to reach critical mass and you were forced to run lower quality ones just to get by.

The new Admiral Brass is a much better pirate commander and solves the resource and board presence issue by allowing you to recur dead (or discarded) pirates and they come back usually twice as big as they normally are. It's two birds with one stone. You still are playing one of the weaker tribes though so it's still going to be a tough nut to crack. I'm brewing a version of Brass and a Don Andres deck to see which one feels better. Currently I feel with Brass you really need to be able to pitch cards in the yard before she comes down instead of solely relying on her etb to get the engine going since you'll usually mill at most 1-2 pirates.

[RxPhantom]

Tribal decks, as someone else said, are very linear. I had a zombie deck for a little while, and it got stale pretty quickly.

I always see people discussing playing with precons, but I don't think that would be fun for me. I like building decks myself and getting to know their patterns and quirks. I also like good mana bases.

[yeti1069]

Tribal decks, as someone else said, are very linear. I had a zombie deck for a little while, and it got stale pretty quickly.

I always see people discussing playing with precons, but I don't think that would be fun for me. I like building decks myself and getting to know their patterns and quirks. I also like good mana bases.

I don't know about that necessarily. I have a Varina zombie deck that has some variety to it. Ur-Dragon, too.

[aliciaofthevast]

I think @3drinks is going though a struggle over finding pirates for under $40 shipped. He doesn't want to buy it but he's clearly interested and I'm gonna keep poking at him when he shows up with them 🤣. Definitely caught him rebrewing in his head a time or two at work 👀🙈

Really though, of something speaks to you, buy it! If not, don't. All there really is to it I think.

[RxPhantom]

I've seen several copies of it at my local Target.

[3drinks]

I think @3drinks is going though a struggle over finding pirates for under $40 shipped. He doesn't want to buy it but he's clearly interested and I'm gonna keep poking at him when he shows up with them 🤣. Definitely caught him rebrewing in his head a time or two at work 👀🙈

Really though, of something speaks to you, buy it! If not, don't. All there really is to it I think.

...Keep it up and I'm gonna make you Walk the Plank.

[Cyberium]

Tribal decks, as someone else said, are very linear. I had a zombie deck for a little while, and it got stale pretty quickly.

In a sense that makes the Pirate deck best of the bunch, since you take advantage of stealing your opponents' stuff and every game is different.

[3drinks]

Tribal decks, as someone else said, are very linear. I had a zombie deck for a little while, and it got stale pretty quickly.

In a sense that makes the Pirate deck best of the bunch, since you take advantage of stealing your opponents' stuff and every game is different.

I know I'm leaning into the theme with Fell Flagship, Smuggler's Copter and the two construct lords, but also Skysovereign, Consul Flagship because sky pirates are rad too. I even want to include Wrexial, the Risen Deep as the Admiral's Moby Dick but I don't want to spend $3 on the dang thing. I don't expect it to be good in that sense of the word, but it'll be both fun and refreshing to build into a theme instead of the natural stax conclusion all my decks lead to.