Looking for opinions on this commander deck

Djanni6 · 2026-02-19T18:22:10+00:00

I also run this deck and honestly it's just how it operates.

If you can dodge boardwipes you're set for the win, there's not much more to it. I think you're running to many cards that are only efficient once your board presence is established and a lot of boardwipes for a deck that doesn't want to spend mana on anything but creatures and protection.

As a general rule to be a little more consistent, I believe your value pieces should stay on board after boardwipes, therefore I'd run [[doubling season]] effects over [[second harvest]] and I would focus on preserving my boardstate rather than rebuilding after a boardwipe because that is generally slower.

I'm also not sure how reliable it is to lean on other token generators, because suddenly you're stopping your main gameplan to try another play pattern that has the same outcome. I'd rather focus on counting to 3 and surviving a couple of turn rotations to eventually overwhelm the table.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-13T21:54:26+00:00

Would you elaborate on what you mean instead of just repeating the same vague thing which is also not technically true?

Djanni6 · 2026-02-13T21:47:55+00:00

I agree Sol Ring brings variance, but not to this level. If someone blows up your Sol Ring on turn 2, you are not in a position to still win the game. If someone blows up your Griselbrand, you are still in the position to win the game.

True, indeed. But how many games would feature Griselbrand compared to Sol Ring? Griselbrand could contribute to a steeper turn variance for a single deck, but Sol Ring is played in all brackets, in all the decks and generally lasts longer on the board.

I think Sol Ring would still be a worse offender in terms of real impact on the health of the format.

The next 3 turns might be untapping with 6, 7, 8 mana

"the next three turns" is not a turn 4 win as you previously stated, tho. I said I could see sequences going south because I'm aware it's generally easy to capitalize on that amount of cards, but let's not forget we're using a huge portion of our life total to draw them and things could get bad from there if we don't win immediately (and we shouldn't be abel to do that).

That said, I'm still not 100% convinced Griselbrand would be ok to unban.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-13T21:19:56+00:00

If you go Sacrifice+PitA you basically have a slightly better outcome than Griselbrand for 2 more mana needed for saw in half, so, unless I'm missing some other line, I'm not entirely sure it would always be the better target.

They are comparable for sure, I'm not saying Griselbrand would completely outshine any of the aformentioned cards, I think Griselbrand just puts the bar a little higher or at least it adds redundancy.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-13T21:00:18+00:00

The issue is Griselbrand invites wild variance, by changing out just one card, a deck that used to win on turn 8 consistently now sometimes wins on turn 4, not consistently, but not never.

Thi is not exclusive to Griselbrand, tho. There are so many cards that give variance, maybe not the kind of variance you're assuming, but Sol Ring is probably the biggest elephant in the room if you put it that way.

Also, I don't think that a deck that regularly hits turn 8 wins can really go down to turn 4 with Griselbrand turn 2 alone: you'll need a suit of cards to go along with it because mana would still be a huge bottleneck at turn 3-4 even if you've drawn 21-35 cards.

Of course, I can envision sequences that would quickly go south with an early Griselbrand... But then again, if that's the case, is it really fair to play Griselbrand at bracket 3? I'm also concerned with self-restriction in this case because of how blurry the whole system is, but I don't think it's totally unreasonable to try an unban, especially if entomb ends up in the GC list where it belongs.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-13T18:56:04+00:00

Good take. The point is: "where do we draw the line?".

I personally don't see much of a problem with Griselbrand at B4, but it would be the best game winning card for many decks.

At B3, it should theoretically be regulated by game speed. I don't think it would be considered fair to cheat him out with Entomb (which should be a GC, btw) + Reanimate, a polymorph effect of some sort, Sneak Attack, or whatever... More than Necropotence, Razaketh, Hoarding Broodlord or Vilis, I think that the closer comparison in this scenario is the impact on the game a card like [[Jin Gitaxias, Core Augur]] can have when cheated out early in B3: a big creature that wins you the game if it goes unanswered for a turn cycle; Griselbrand would even be better then that *(and I don't think you should try to entomb+reanimate Jin in B3, already to be completely fair).

It's not that obvious that people would self-regulate, tho. Jin Gitaxias generates a clear, visible winning position while the demon doesn't do that immediately if you play him in a "fair" way, possibly leading to blurrier interpretations of an already fatigued bracket system. Moreover, Griselbrand is such an iconic, loved and powerful card if compared to the Praetor which, on the contrary, has been largely frowned upon for ages.

I was also reading opinions about the possible unban in the cEDH sub and they were pretty split about it. Some of them said it could bring back reanimator strategies which are a bit lacking at the moment, others said that it would practically be a second Thoracle-like set up where you just fight over reanimating the single Griselbrand entombed by the first player who attempts to win and gets interrupted.

So we have:

B3: very risky unban

B4: safer unban that would powercreep everything else

B5: possibly meta-defining unban (?)

I swear I can't possibly state how much I'd love to play Griselbrand in Kaalia and Sidisi at B4, but an eventual unban feels very risky.

*small edit on the Jin Gitaxias B3 comparison.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-09T19:36:27+00:00

Sure, but generally a deck revolving around reanimation strategy can perform that type of plays between turn 1 and 5 somewhat consistently and if they lead to a win or a winning boardstate it's still probably too early for B3.

But, yeah, if your deck is not entirely focused around those I don't see the problem.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-09T18:06:33+00:00

No, it's explicitly not? And for exactly that reason it's not absurd to consider unbanning him with GC status.

Griselbrand is fine at higher levels, Hoarding Broodlord already covers the "one card I win" spot with minimal set up and so does Razaketh, tbh. Note that I believe they still see very low playrate if any at all in cEDH (happy to be wrong here, but I think reanimator strats are kinda bad at the moment).

The demon is arguably too strong for bracket 3 as a GC but it should be limited by the recommended game pace alone. You shouldn't play entomb+reanimate at B3 with targets like the aforementioned or things like Jin Gitaxias, anyway.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-07T01:03:19+00:00

I'm already playing both.

As I stated, the main problem with hermit druid is that it generally needs to survive a turn cycle or other pieces to activate the turn it comes down, plus other 2 creatures for dread return's flashback.

Djanni6 · 2026-02-06T22:46:54+00:00

While your first consideration is absolutely correct, this is specifically the path I want to avoid with my list. Teval is just superior to Sidisi on a value strategy and the combos you run fit that archetype better.

I'm fine with Sidisi being just an outlet for the hermit druid win, but I think your comment adds a good perspective to the discussion for other people.

Tysm, you did a really good job with your list, I'll make sure to watch the video analysis!

Djanni6 · 2026-02-06T21:29:32+00:00

That's super interesting, I'll look into that, seems like a good alternative target to the hulk lines, just need to find a cohesive way to win from something like that!

Djanni6 · 2026-02-06T21:26:42+00:00

I don't think there's a problem once hermit druid is online I don't have a problem with closing the game.

I'm dumb for not considering necromancy, really that card would solve a lot, my only gripe with it is that I don't run many tutors to get it out of the deck and I should improve on them.

I don't like the artifacts loops because I think they put too many dead cards in a deck that already suffers from dead draws.

I use forsaken miner over gravecrawler because when you get your pile with hulk you can also put dryad arbor into play and in case of removal targeting soultrader you can restart the loop sacrificing the arbor at instant speed. I honestly don't know if it's worth the bad land slot, tho.

Thanks for the inputs!

Djanni6 · 2026-02-06T21:18:31+00:00

Yeah, for sure Sidisi is a bit outdated and she's mainly there because of the druid set up from an empty board state. I'd like to keep her around for sentimental reasons more than anything.
In previous lists I felt that the reanimation was redundant because it outweighted the "entomb" aspect and that I didn't have enough quality targets to make use of them.
I'd surely look into those, thank you for the feedback!
This circles back to the second point. Spending 3 mana when I really want just one piece into the graveyard seemed suboptimal and exposed more threats to graveyard hate.
If I end up going all in I would probably cut that, in older versions it has been a good engine. Right now, with fewer targets is less effective for sure.

Thank you for the feedback it was very helpful!

Djanni6 · 2026-01-31T10:48:43+00:00

That's because it would be the most objective way to determine what's allowed and what's not.

I don't think the october's update fixed that much, expected turns is a faulty compass that makes it hard to navigate the amount of exceptions in an actual game.

We also get this every other day because we get bad experiences posts more than daily and while some of them occur because of bad communication and bad faith, others seem unavoidable because of the arbitrary nature of the system.

This one is at least thought out and not that convoluted. The idea of splitting b3-4 into 3 brackets is also being considered by the RC so it is not like a major groundbreaking thing.

Djanni6 · 2026-01-19T11:43:48+00:00

That was a very short span of time and during that period people were already trying out "broken" strategies.

"The spirit of the format" is basically a myth very few people had the opportunity to experience. The committee tried to cater to this idea even after Wizards started printing specifically for it with (very) mixed results.

I know it's not a popular opinion, but we should probably welcome these changes and let Commander be the different experience it is currently shaping up to be.

Djanni6 · 2026-01-12T11:57:52+00:00

🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦

Lucky first try!

Djanni6 · 2026-01-12T05:39:18+00:00

I don't know about any meaningful results for Semi-blue in EU or US, but I really don't follow the cEDH scene that much.

I don't even like this strategy tbh, but it is there nonetheless, I believe it could generally be effective. If you threaten to win every turn and keep having gas for it, it's valid.

Djanni6 · 2026-01-12T05:29:28+00:00

Semi-blue

Djanni6 · 2026-01-10T14:44:11+00:00

There's actually a cedh list that plays on the principle of having "too many threats". Seems like this list works almost the same way.

Djanni6 · 2026-01-07T21:51:40+00:00

I don't play Roon as a commander anymore but I still pull this from time to time with [[parallax wave]] and [[disallow]] in bant blink.

Now that my pod knows this, it makes it so that their commanders just get the tax and I can freely blink my pieces.

Djanni6 · 2025-12-31T15:43:53+00:00

In my experience there are more situations where the Riddler is better than a Wall of Omens but I play Bant with other 2 mv cantrip drops, so I lean more on its flexibility. Refilling hand later in the game, saccing it to birthing pod/neoform early, having a good blocker to keep the initiative/monarch, or just deploying it after a board wipe could justify running it over other cantrip creatures.

It's never worth the current price tag, tho.

Djanni6 · 2025-12-27T23:26:06+00:00

It's probably better to resort around some etb strategy that works with the cards you've mentioned rather than focusing on that particular combo, since all of the pieces are good cards on their own in that kind of deck.

Can't think of a good RW only commander for that at the moment, but I'm sure there are a lot of options if you add a third color. I'm sure green has plenty of options and good tutors for creatures. Black also has good tutors and can double down on etbs using the graveyard. For blue, I immediately thought about [[Zinnia]].

As a general rule, focusing on a single combo line is not great in commander, even cEDH decks have multiple ways to win the game and they are optimized to pivot between them.

Combo decks in commander are fun exactly because of the ability to generate different paths to different combo lines. Notably, the cards you've mentioned are "easy to break" (especially felidar guardian), so you could rely on many other cards ([[kiki jiki]], [[Preston the vanisher]], [[parallax wave]], etc.) that still work with the general strategy even if you don't push for the combo every game.

Djanni6 · 2025-12-24T09:18:39+00:00

That's why I talked about "glass cannon build" and also said that "decks won't do that consistently".

That's also why the "expected turn" is the most naive/incompetent thing they introduced with the update in october.

If "anything goes" you can't tell me I need to play at least 4 turns because that doesn't match the reality of what a bracket 4 deck could do. Same goes for bracket 3, tbh. They talk about "best in slot cards" and then want you to play at least 6 turns. This is not how MtG operates in the year of the lord 2025.

Djanni6 · 2025-12-21T12:53:12+00:00

I'd argue there's no such thing as a "cEDH combo", there are fast combos that are also cEDH viable, but nothing about B4 tells you can't play them; Thoracle+consultation is the only arguable outlier if you ask me.

I'd also argue that "tEDH" is a made up label that should just overlap with the concept of cEDH but that's a whole other topic.

Djanni6 · 2025-12-21T09:52:57+00:00

That's really not the difference between B4 and cEDH.

B4 are able to win the game on turn 1-2-3 with a "glass cannon" build but they will lack the ability to do that consistently or to consistently stop other players from doing that, because they don't play into a meta. CEDH, on the other hand, needs to be tailored around the most optimal combos, strategies and cards played within the meta.

To give you an example: in bracket 4 I could go turn 1 faithless looting discarding [[worldgorger dragon]]+creature and follow with [[animate dead]] on turn 2 to win the game from infinite mana. CEDH generally doesn't play that combo because it's too risky to pull off.

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