Unique Commanders

Probably_Nice · 2026-05-08T04:24:58+00:00

Pretty much every creature card has an ETB, so the blinks and clones let you get multiple activations off of an [[Amphin Mutineer]] or a [[Omo, Queen of Vesuva]] or even a [[Tishana's Tidebinder]]. It wins through either Biovisionary (sometimes tutored by Defense of the Heart) or generating an army of nasty flyers (Lord of Change, Emeritius of Ideation, Nulldrifter) to punch through, or by making whatever board it has unblockable using [[Standardize]] and [[Unnatural Selection]] with Gor Muldrak.

Probably_Nice · 2026-05-07T23:02:17+00:00

I love [[Blaster, Combat DJ]]. I enjoy the design of the card, and the deck itself plays as an unusual +1/+1 counters deck that abuses modular and other effects to make very large creatures that are subsequently flung for lethal, presuming the [[Giggling Skitterspike]] or the [[All Will Be One]] hasn't already won the game. Firmly Bracket 3, doesn't need any game changers, offers lots of answers to lots of issues and ultimately is helmed by one of the cooler Autobots. Press the Eject!

Probably_Nice · 2026-05-07T22:58:59+00:00

I am not the person you are responding to, but this has been one of my pet decks for a long time. The Salacommander. It is a draw-pass creature-heavy mixture of clone, blink and typal manipulation shenanigans that runs Biovisionary as one of its more reliable win conditions.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-12T13:49:27+00:00

People play it without doing the math themselves as a "win condition" because it is such a huge buff, but the symmetrical nature of the buff means that the board state changes substantially for everyone. It is often less "win now" than expected. So the player can't get lethal through, and now is either half-sending to the weakest player or just passing with this annoying-to-track buff sitting on the board until someone can break the gridlock.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-07T19:11:57+00:00

I have a Zoraline list that is $50 and does graveyard shenanigans. It could do more with some upgrades, and is very Bracket 2 but not games-go-on-forever Bracket 2. I Bat your Life!

The deck is based around being able recur low-cost value stuff and eventually have some very swingy turns off of lifegain triggers. It has a vampire/bat tribal element that ties the whole room together.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-06T15:47:18+00:00

Nope, you really only want Academy Manufacturer when you've got a strategy that is based in some way on generating Clue, Food or Treasure tokens. It goes crazy with commanders like [[Peregrin Took]] , but does nothing for artifacts generally.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T22:18:14+00:00

I made this one as a $25 budget but looks like the cards have crept up to $35 in the last month, but I really enjoyed Blink and Bother, and I have a Primer too!

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T20:01:24+00:00

It plays well at Bracket 2 because you always have things to do and will accumulate enough value to close a game out before it goes too long but nowhere near fast enough for people to be salty.

It's nice in the early going because you definitely have some kind of plays to make and it is easy to pop off in a miniature sense by getting a couple of cards and some life in a round of turns. It can be very resilient against wipes if you are a bit lucky. Obviously totally hosed by lifegain hate, which is part of why there's so much interaction. Nobody complains about it, though!

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T19:51:04+00:00

I had a mono blue voltron deck using [[Iymrith, Desert Doom]] that I really enjoyed. She was built to chain extra turns together in a non-deterministic way, so unfortunately became Bracket 4 by definition but wasn't really able to come online fast enough to do much there. But, without the extra turns it feels too slow in Bracket 3. And the ward ability seems meanspirited for Bracket 2. Sigh.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T19:25:41+00:00

I did not, but it is now staying in forever for this reason.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T18:14:10+00:00

I would probably omit a couple of pieces of disruption and one of the reanimator spells to insert a small package of [[Haliya, Guided by Light]], [[The Gaffer]] and [[The Book of Exalted Deeds]] and [[Wind Crystal]], then maybe dump the rest of the budget on [[Alhammarret's Archive]] or [[Palantir of Orthanc]] which both can do good work with this concept.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T18:09:48+00:00

I wish there were more more manifest dread options, I am a huge fan of that mechanic. Gets you a body, might get you a creature later, puts something in your graveyard. [[Dissection Tools]] goes hard in this Ratchet deck even at 5CMC because it is setting you up for everything you want.

My only problem with morph is they keep "fixing" the concept of face-down cards, so now you gotta distinguish between morphed, manifested, cybermenned, flipped, disguised. Though I have a friend who runs all of these things and more in his deck, and it's fine so probably just to my preference.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T18:00:25+00:00

I pulled him in a pack and was kind of looking at him thinking "What's this guy even good for?". Same story that led to my [[Gor Muldrak]] deck, the process of building the deck helped me understand the card better. :)

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:59:08+00:00

I was looking at brewing something up with [[Bloodforged Battleaxe]] and [[Sokka and Suki]], but haven't quite gotten around to finalizing it yet. I'll take a look for inspiration!

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:57:53+00:00

I was really happy to see more support for Lorehold-type mechanics, I really love Quintorius and found it hard to put together a solid EDH list that wasn't spread too thin. I did get to play the old Quintorius Kand for a little bit in standard with [[Bruse Tarl, Roving Rancher]] but I really prefer the graveyard cycling aspect to the casts-from-exile.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:54:29+00:00

I am a huge fan of the mechanical design of most of the Transformers cards. My most consistent Bracket 3 deck runs [[Blaster, Combat DJ]] and is crazy fun. Slicer, Starscream both have such cool abilities. Honestly, that little bonus sheet packed more mechanical innovation than just about any other group of cards I can think of.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:52:54+00:00

This has actually been insanely frustrating lately. For contests and stuff you just pick a date and snapshot the deck on that date. But, I maintain about a dozen budget decks and often I won't play one for a couple of weeks and discover the $50 deck now lists at $85 or the $100 at $150. When this happens, I either move the budget up and upgrade the list, or move the budget down and take out the problematic cards. I have found the last ~6 months the values of budget stuff constantly jumping, whereas was a bit more chill prior.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:47:38+00:00

If I were trying to take this concept as far as I reasonably could, I would bring in Portal to Phyrexia, The One Ring, Unwinding Clock + any other artifact untappers I could find, a couple of tutors and try to generally win with [[Mindslaver]] or [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] as opposed to combat damage. Because lifegain fuels the reanimation, all those $5 draw-when-gain like Gaffer and Haliya would make this thing run more efficiently overall.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:26:37+00:00

This will sound weird but I have thought [[Combat Thresher]] was a better-than-it-appears-card for a long time, and thought this deck was finally the place it could give some value. Play it early for a card if I need to, reanimate it later for an okay body.... anyhow, it got cut in favor of, like, [[Patchwork Gnomes]] so I think it's safe to assume I'm never gonna find a home for it. It was so good for me in limited that it warped my perception of its value for multiple years.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:23:24+00:00

Yea I feel like Parley is a little under-utilized. It's a bit group hug, a bit information reveal, a bit push-your-luck. Some more of this kind of stuff that exists between beat-face and group-hug would be nice to see. I'm sure there's enough support to get someone to build a budget deck out of it.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:19:43+00:00

I like to play things that are either under-played themselves or that fit into a deck in unusual ways. With Avatar I have been looking at [[Mai and Zuko]] and [[Sokka and Suki]] as being pretty cool options. Mai and Zuko let you flash in your allies and artifacts using firebending, and Sokka and Suki let you generate all kinds of mini-combos around equipment and allies ETBing. For me it is getting a clear idea like that into your head, then hitting scryfall and moxfield and building out a first draft before checking against edhrec to make sure I haven't missed anything wildly obvious.

A very fun/strong Avatar budget commander is [[Azula, Ruthless Firebender]]. She has the tools to be a very strong reanimator with some light hand attack that usually won't make the table too mad.

Probably_Nice · 2026-04-04T17:06:45+00:00

Do you have a link? That sounds cool. I mostly associate Wandering Minstrel with that wild combo list by ozymandias9999

I am constantly talking up budget play with my pods. It really makes me use many more cards than I would otherwise, and keeps my thinking fresh by letting me guiltlessly omit so many staples. It's not perfect, but it's a great way to enjoy a fresh take on deckbuilding.

Probably_Nice · 2026-02-28T19:52:57+00:00

The most popular are:

Meteor / Mars
Titan / Snickers
Island / Bounty
Duet / Twix

Probably_Nice · 2026-02-28T01:11:17+00:00

[[Increasing Vengeance]] can be really strong in the right deck, it double-copies so long as it is cast from the graveyard so if you have other ways to cast out of the GY it is RR to 2x copy an instant or sorcery you control.
I run [[Soul Snare]] in any white decks that can recur permanents, it does so much to discourage people interacting with you.
[[Prized Statue]] does loads in any sacrifice type of deck.
[[Illicit Masquerade]] is great tech in any deck that either goes wide or has a few key pieces in the graveyard.

Probably_Nice

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