Fun Commander
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 12, 2021, 11:25 p.m. by grennpowerhouse
I was wondering what some favorite commanders out there are. I am looking for a fun commander to build a budget deck around.
My favorite and first commander was Kaho, Minamo Historian with her ability you can fetch a flicker spell so she can re enter the battlefield to get more spells and there are other spells that let you shuffle said spells back into your library. Obviously you are restricted to instants with her but with the right set up you can loop your entire deck indefinitely. Some fun budget options are to use Mystical Tutor to fetch Mana Severance to empty your library and if you are running 95 islands you can win by casting Thassa's Oracle .
May 13, 2021 1:29 a.m.
My favorite is Feldon of the Third Path . Just big, reanimating stompy stuff like dragons, eldrazi, and arbitrarily large artifacts. It was this commander that originally got me into EDH, so I think that's why I fancy it so much.
May 13, 2021 1:44 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #5
Toshiro Umezawa maybe? It was my first commander, and I've just revamped it. You can simply stuff the deck with Doom Blade s of all kinds, some card draw and any obscure wincon you wish for. Mine currently are Aetherflux Reservoir , Torment of Hailfire and Revel in Riches , but I originally went with a Voltron approach. The deck can basically be mono kill storm and doesn't need any expensive cards to do what it needs to do.
May 13, 2021 1:59 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #6
Btw, can we take a sec appreciate that the last three comments spoke of three old monocoloured legendaries in three out of of five colours? Who's coming for White and Green?
May 13, 2021 2:01 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #7
Odric, Lunarch Marshal is very cool to build around, and has lots of budget options to gather every keyword you could get your hands on in mono white. All you need is ways to make a lot of tokens, creatures and equipment with all important keywords, and Odric can share them to everyone. What's your opponent going to do when there's 10 tokens coming their way with Haste, Vigilance, Indestructible, Hexproof, Double Strike, Deathtouch, Flying, Trample and Lifelink?
May 13, 2021 2:29 a.m.
My all time favorite is Balthor the Defiled but I also really like Kami of the Crescent Moon and Xira Arien . I've also seen really cool builds around Volrath the Fallen too! I play in quite an underpowered play group so these might not be best picks for you but I would still try giving them a shot! You never know, a janky old lengendary might be the perfect match :)
May 13, 2021 3:24 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #9
plakjekaas: There we have white, thanks for joining in with this awesome commander!
May 13, 2021 4:03 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #10
Shall we complete the pie then? This is not an old one, but it's a versatile and powerful mono green commander that could be budget friendly, it's Kogla, the Titan Ape !
This card just does so much. It removes creatures by etb, artifacts and enchantments by attacking, it has the convenient 7 power for 3 hits to be lethal commander damage, if you put enough humans in your deck, he's not easy to kill, and those humans can provide lots of synergy by being replayed after you bounced them. Notably Eternal Witness , or Hyrax Tower Scout + Karametra's Acolyte will work great, but also Champion of Lambholt , Foul Emissary , Mwonvuli Beast Tracker , Setessan Petitioner and Slippery Bogbonder can be incredibly useful to reuse over and over again.
May 13, 2021 4:52 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #11
plakjekaas: There we go, WUBRG is completed :D
May 13, 2021 7:20 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #12
Gruun, the Lonely King is a lot of fun for monogreen, and I have mentioned my love of Nekusar, the Mindrazer in other threads because it (a) puts the game on a clock, and (b) still lets people play their decks by giving them some cards.
May 13, 2021 10:41 a.m.
libraryjoy says... #13
I think my favorite fun commanders are Mayael the Anima for big guys, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard for a fun mono-green (I like elves), or Kenrith, the Returned King with Zirda, the Dawnwaker as companion and cards with cycling. Here are a few budget decks I've put together with them, although I have dozens and dozens of others on my profile you can look at.
Mayael the Anima Stompy EDH $35 Budget
Yisan's Elvish Sing-Along - $100 budget EDH Not as budget, but definitely could be built more that way
Kenrith Returns with Zirda by His Side *Got this idea from Commander's Quarters and ran with it.
May 13, 2021 5:42 p.m.
Hardhitta7 says... #14
My favorite budget commander I’ve built is Adeliz, the Cinder Wind . Mine has a Snapcaster Mage in it cause I already owned it but you don’t need it. Primal Amulet Flip has went up in price recently so you could replace that with something as well.
I also built a pretty budget Samurai deck, it’s on my profile if you wanna check it out.
May 13, 2021 6:51 p.m.
Anowon, the Ruin Thief is really fun. You fill up the deck with cheap unblockable creatures and draw cards. Some removal to get rid if key threats. Mindcrank and Bruvac the Grandiloquent can do silly things
May 13, 2021 10:13 p.m.
Ayula, Queen Among Bears is the only commander I play. I tried a lot but for me nothing is more fun than just having a blast with some bears. Build a cuddly army of fluffy doom and just have fun XD. Playing bears like River Bear and Pale Bears will even be quite the surprise for all the blue players at the table. Especially if they already starting to ignore you because they think you aren´t a threat. Or just play Bear Cub , buff him up a little and let the little guy fight every big scary thing out of the way due to Ayula's trigger. Thanks to Strixhaven, I recently had a new addition to the deck in form of Ruxa, Patient Professor which makes token generators like Words of Wilding or Bearscape even better.
May 14, 2021 1:38 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #17
Of course, but with 1134 legal legendary creatures and 13 planeswalkers that can be your commander in the format, it can be intimidating to start looking from scratch for what you'll find fun. The budget request in the OP narrows it down a slight bit, but still. Learning how other people choose their way to have fun and why, can at least point in a right direction to be inspired.
It's a pretty open-ended request, and I'm having fun learning how others have fun. I'm not much of a budget player, I have a habit of overinvesting in an idea I'm hyped for. Which doesn't mean my decks are the most powerful, I don't get that hyped for cEDH, although I dabbled in that a bit. But usually, I'm making expensive versions of janky archetypes. Mono W +1/+1 counters, with a Cleansing subtheme; mono G storm; Rakdos Magecraft Aristocrats; Temur landfall without ramp spells, just additional lands from hand; they're just ideas that get stuck in my head until I brewed a decently functional deck around them.(I'm a big mtgGoldfish Against The Odds fan)
I especially love hilarious unexpected plays; like yesterday, in a 1v1 cEDH game, I played Naru Meha, Master Wizard against a Tymna the Weaver / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus Thoracle Consultation deck, I was able to Narset's Reversal the first attempt at Ad Nauseam , and when the next turn my opponent tried to Silence me before going again, I had a Twincast ready. We both had a great laugh about that one.
May 14, 2021 4:08 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #18
I just found something new that's pretty cool btw: Nassari, Dean of Expression foretell/suspend/adventure. I just finished a first version, and I really like the play pattern so far.
May 14, 2021 7:43 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #19
Mcat1999 be sure to boardwipe before you go for that, I've seen people establish that lock, only to be beaten down by all the creatures already on board, and lose within the turncycle, because Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir can't be used to block very well without breaking the lock.
May 14, 2021 8:16 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #20
Mcat1999: This is terrible...I really don't want to play this. Great lock still.
May 14, 2021 8:34 a.m.
Crockosneef says... #21
My all-time favorite is probably Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant Flip. A deck using her plays rather different from most decks, and I like that. For this deck, I play a lot of cards that allow you to get lands into your hand, such as Winding Way or Nylea's Intervention . You can even run cards like Sylvan Ranger so that you're not completely vulnerable while you're trying to reach that seven-lands-in-hand clause. When you're able to flip Sasaya, you can use cards like Book of Rass or Abundance to draw into nonland cards that you can actually play. I like using cards like Goblin Cannon , Ant Queen , or Hydra Broodmaster to close out the game. Due to the fact that you're running more lands than you'd run in your typical EDH deck, the price of the deck is already a little lower. But yeah, this is one of my favorites!
May 14, 2021 3:06 p.m.
Mcat1999 I've been planning on building Nassari, Dean of Expression , and I feel like the lock ties in neatly enough with many of the cards I was going to run already that its almost more effort to not run it.
Just a heads up, but Possibility Storm interacts with Knowledge Pool in a somewhat more fair way, while working with Nassari even better.
May 14, 2021 8:55 p.m.
metalflame says... #23
Mono colored decks can be the most fun and easy to build budget. Omnath locus of mana, keiga the tide star, Torbran, marrow gnawer, and rune-tail, kitsune ascendant are all awesome, and i have examples of these on my profile.
May 14, 2021 9:31 p.m.
I like to build decks constantly, so I have recently enjoyed discovering partners as affordable commanders that create cool synergies without requiring expensive staples to work.
I built this one around Ghost of Ramirez DePietro and Tormod, the Desecrator from commons only, but it is still quite playable in regular casual: A Night At The Mausoleum 2 - DePietro & Tormod
Another fun deck I built using partners is my pirate tribal. Commanders are Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and Breeches, Brazen Plunderer I went all-in but it would work without the big rares, just add more pirates. The Crimson Permanent Assurance | Malcolm&Breeches
Hope that gives you ideas!
Omniscience_is_life says... #2
Atla Palani, Nest Tender can be a whole lot of fun with cheap big'uns like Savage Ventmaw , Akroma, Angel of Wrath , etc.
May 13, 2021 12:09 a.m.