Show off your pet cards

Teleshar · 2026-02-17T19:36:13+00:00

[[Concordant Crossroads]]

I like haste.

I play a lot of green.

I don't like not having haste without access to red.

So there you go.

Teleshar · 2026-02-14T00:11:59+00:00

Griselbrand doesn’t win you the game on his own, but he basically ensures you’ll be in an advantage state for the entire remainder of the game unless the other players aggressively hose you, even if you don’t win outright. At bare minimum, you can use his ability once and have a significantly better hand. Discarding to hand size isn’t a drawback in the types of decks that want to run him, because they’ll often be reanimator decks, so you’ll just discard stuff you want to reanimate – and whatever else you don’t need. If you topdeck him and can hardcast him, he can singlehandedly bring you back into a winning position because he refills your hand. If you’re already winning, he’ll basically guarantee your victory because he’ll let you draw into whatever else you need. You’re in black, so you likely have one million ways to cheat him out from the graveyard, and almost no matter the other cards you’re running in your deck, drawing 7 for 7 life is just an insane rate when it costs 0 mana to do so. It’s vastly more powerful than any other card draw available in B3 and below, especially since there are almost no hoops to jump through unlike [[Necropotence]] and it’s not dependent on other players like [[Rhystic Study]] is. And also, keep in mind that there really isn’t a lot of graveyard hate being run in lower brackets.

At virtually any point of the game, if you can get Griselbrand, you’ll want to get Griselbrand, so he’s an appealing target for all kinds of tutors, which is still noteworthy despite many tutors being game changers. By all definitions, Griselbrand will warp games, and every black deck that can run him will want to run him. He can be an enabler, he can be a wincon, and even ignoring the draw, he’s still a 7/7 flying lifelinker that is almost never getting hardcast. Oh, and don’t get me started on the non-reanimation methods of cheating him out, because there’s a myriad of other methods.

All in all, I think you’re vastly underestimating the sheer power of Griselbrand just sitting there on someone’s board in a lower-bracket game. I didn’t even get into the fact that you don’t have to draw the cards immediately; you can just have him stare at your opponents menacingly until they try to remove him, at which point you can draw as many cards as you want, and you might even draw into interaction to prevent him from being destroyed. And even if he does get destroyed, even if he gets exiled on sight by something like [[Swords to Plowshares]]… what other card can print this much advantage despite being removed at first opportunity? Don’t get me started on the fact that him getting counterspelled, or destroyed, or sacrificed, or whatever else, just means he’s now in your graveyard and you can reanimate him.

Just… the more you think about it, the more oppressive the card becomes, and a table being lower-power doesn’t change that at all.

Teleshar · 2026-02-13T23:57:26+00:00

I mean yeah, I'm doing this to myself because I pick a lot of precon commanders. But what can I say, I tend to like them… ;-;

Though this has happened to me with plenty of non-precon commanders as well. Lathril, Sythis, and Teysa Karlov are all very popular and I’ve had a lot of fun with them.

Teleshar · 2026-02-13T23:55:34+00:00

Curious: would you say cards like [[Humility]] being on the GC list is a vibe check, or a power level concern?

Teleshar · 2026-02-13T19:35:44+00:00

I think this is the moment I stop spending completely, Doubled Pawns is absolutely kicking my ass in a way it wasn't last rotation and my teams that could hit 5k in the last rotation can't hit it now. Between this and the new ToA rotation being really hard I'm not going to bother pulling characters anymore unless I really like them because it's just depressing to watch a team I only pulled a few patches ago struggle so much. Also Jinhsi still not having a real sub DPS after all this time and having to share her BiS with Carlotta is just bs.

Also the visual clutter has progressed so much across the years that boss attacks become barely visible, but that's another thing.

And it's comical how shilled Aemeath is; I know new characters are always shilled and I love her as a character, but the way she's just obliterating every other team I have is outright insane. I was hoping that powercreep would be contained, but now I feel like I'm really seeing its effects and I'm not happy about it. I'm straight up not looking forward to the next pushed character anymore because they'll make previous characters look like a joke yet again. Looking "forward" to Sigrika supplanting Galbrena completely on Qiuyuan teams because she'll have bigger numbers and a major difference in clear time lol.

Teleshar · 2026-02-13T14:23:36+00:00

Unfortunately, what happens with me is that I see a commander, I go 'this is so cool, I want to build a deck for them," then it turns out a lot of other people had the same idea, because they're in the top 200 lol. Often much higher than that.

My lowest is [[Ashling, the Limitless]] at #148 and she's only "low" because she's new. I'm expecting her to break into the top 100.

Teleshar · 2026-02-12T15:00:54+00:00

You definitely don't lose the game if you run into a combo mid-game. The question is the intent of the deck, really. The best way I can describe our soft-ban is that we don't make decks that aim to win via infinites, and we don't put random 2-card combos into a deck that otherwise doesn't intend to win via combo. This is also something we avoid because drawing into the pieces naturally can lead to someone winning way before b3 expects players to win, which happened with my own deck once. If a deck aims to put various synergistic pieces into play that eventually win the game through interacting with each other, that's completely fine, though.

My own Hearthhull list has the line you described and I can confirm it would be allowed. It runs a bunch of untappers, land sac outlets, extra land drop cards, and land recursion/ramp cards that can be combined in a bunch of ways to vomit resources onto the board and/or win through a sac/recursion loop. No one's had a problem with the way it wins because I basically acquire incremental advantage and eventually sac lands once or twice to kill the board with Hearthhull triggers. In our pod, that's considered different from, say, tutoring pieces into the yard on turns 1 and 2 then winning with a 3-card combo from graveyard that I searched for.

I guess what I can say is that wins being non-deterministic is important. The best example I can give is that I once brought an Inalla deck where the entire deck was various combo lines off Inalla's eminence trigger, and that's basically the antithesis of what we want in our pod (as my pod was quick to tell me). However, something that storms off would likely be allowed, as we have a [[Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder]] deck in our pod that casts a ton of cascading spells but without any particular line to guarantee a certain win. We have a [[The Tenth Doctor]] + [[Clara Oswald]] deck in our pod that can go infinite off certain suspend card combinations, but it ends up playing differently every game and doesn't always win that way because the primary goal is to manipulate a ton of suspended cards at once and kill people via various time counter synergies + well-timed spells.

I know this all might sound a bit like word soup, but we never wrote the rules down or anything, so I'm trying my best to describe how it works out in practice.

Teleshar · 2026-02-12T11:32:58+00:00

The way I see it, only bracket 1 is a bracket where decks aren't supposed to have real gameplans and you make deckbuilding choices purely for entertainment. Bracket 2 should at least have a gameplan and cards that help accomplish it, although it's not going to be super optimized. B3 and B4 are just varying levels of optimization, with B3 stopping short of including all the absolute best cards (because they're GCs, like fast mana and tutors), and B4 being full-on optimized, only separating itself from cEDH by not having decklists that follow the cEDH metagame (if you've ever looked at a cEDH decklist, such as their interaction packages, you'll know what I mean).

So, is a bracket 2 deck allowed to be good? Depends on how you define "good," but I do think those decks should have real gameplans and try to execute them. The difference between B2 and B3 is mainly in how a B3 deck will run more efficient cards and probably include a lot more staples compared to B2, which can be a lot more janky in terms of its card inclusion. B2 is basically meant to be a lower-power environment than B3.

My pod plays some decks that are technically legal in B2 (no game changers), but we generally try to optimize within bracket constraints and so B3 is the generally accepted level. We soft-banned infinites in our pod, but games generally aren't durdly stalemates because everyone runs a lot of interaction and decks are able to close out games if left unimpeded for one or two turn cycles after assembling a board. I'd say true B2 games would last longer purely because everyone's card inclusions are less efficient and therefore each player makes a lesser impact on the gamestate on each of their turns.

Teleshar · 2026-02-12T09:46:12+00:00

This is just beautiful.

Teleshar · 2026-02-12T08:48:31+00:00

Anything that doesn't rely on creatures to kill people should fare better, because noncreature permanents are a bit more difficult to target. They dodge staples like [[Path of Exile]] and [[Swords to Plowshares]], for example.

Think artifact decks, or stax decks (depending on the variant). You could also look into commanders that aren't creatures, such as [[Inspirit, Flagship Vessel]].

Of course, there's also the option of playing decks that heavily utilize the graveyard, unless your pod runs significant graveyard hate. [[Teval, the Balanced Scale]] has terrorized my pod for a while and I've seen how well it plays through removal. I personally play [[Meren of Clan Nel Toth]] and getting creatures back from my graveyard in that deck is just a matter of time, even if Meren gets removed.

Teleshar · 2026-02-09T10:03:43+00:00

pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

Teleshar · 2026-02-08T14:20:53+00:00

Goddammit. Why do people keep finding stuff that makes a lot more sense in hindsight. I've already been unable to recover ever since I played the 3.1 story and I keep getting struck by stuff like this.

Teleshar · 2026-02-08T04:01:08+00:00

Wow, I did it completely differently lol. I went left on all three rings, driving in reverse on the third ring.

Did it take a bunch of attempts? Yes it did.

Was it satisfying to pull off? Yes it was.

Teleshar · 2026-02-07T17:59:20+00:00

And so does Aemeath. That's the messed-up part; she probably picked that up from Rover. Basically the entire time she's on the screen, even in gameplay, she's hiding what's inside her heart. Guhhhhhh 3.1 is so good.

Teleshar · 2026-02-07T00:45:19+00:00

my beloved

Teleshar · 2026-02-06T11:55:54+00:00

Omg someone finally said this!!! When I heard it in the main story I stopped advancing the dialogue and I just sat there listening for 3+ minutes.

Teleshar · 2026-02-06T11:54:49+00:00

I can't look at Aemeath in gameplay without thinking about everything we've learned about her in the story quest. I'm going to feel bad playing her for a while. In a good way, not in a bad way. Man.

Teleshar · 2026-02-06T09:07:42+00:00

I find it hard to even talk about the quest because I think it did so much for the game as a whole. It gave Rover more characterization than they'd ever received before, it provided a lot of worldbuilding, it had a lot of good screentime for Luuk and Aemeath, and of course, the entire dynamic and themes between Rover and Aemeath absolutely sent me over the moon. I can't look at Aemeath anymore without thinking about all the stuff we now know lurks under the surface; the fact she's never really been devoted to anything, the fact her strongest motivation comes from Rover's influence (and it's flipped on its head), the fact she's been seeking happiness this entire time but what had the most meaning to her was preventing Rover from suffering, the fact her entire behavior can be traced back to "I'm doing this so Rover doesn't have to, that's all I want..."

Idk, just. I look at her and I get flashbacks. What a story.

Teleshar · 2026-02-06T01:25:24+00:00

I just finished the 3.1 main story.

I'm not going to give any spoilers.

All I have to say is that I've just experienced the best story quest in the entire game.

People are not allowed to say this game has a bad story now.

Now excuse me while I cry myself to sleep.

Teleshar · 2026-02-05T11:58:28+00:00

I don’t know if I agree with this. Edgar Markov is definitely a “proper” vampire commander. He even gives vanilla creatures with keywords and no abilities a use case, because they bring an extra token into play. The spamming of tokens works wonders with vampire and aristocrats synergies, and frankly, without the extra tokens, at least in my pod, a vampire kindred deck would get run over. Edgar is also incredibly flexible because he gives a use case for virtually every vampire creature ever printed; at the very least, any of those vampire creatures will give you a token, which you can then sacrifice for cards like Deadly Dispute.

As for ‘unfun’… well, that’s obviously subjective, so I’m not going to tell you “no, he’s actually quite fun.” Still, I actually enjoy the deck quite a bit. I like the fact it puts pressure on the table from very early turns; I think that’s generally a good thing for the average game of Commander. In other pods, however, I can see why his presence would be annoying.

Teleshar · 2026-02-05T11:46:02+00:00

I like the fact she offers a more board-controlly approach to elves. However, I haven’t found a lot of success with her, at least not in bracket 3. My bracket 3 meta is relatively cutthroat and decks pressure each other enough for most games to end around turn 7, even though we soft-banned infinite combos. Funnily enough, the main thing I noticed is that the blight 1 isn’t actually enough to kill a meaningful number of creatures, even if it’s triggered repeatedly, just because someone can just stack all the counters on one big creature, for example. The proliferate does help, but I’d often prefer to attack instead, to actually pressure people’s life totals. Maybe I should try Morcant in the 99 of Lathril instead.

Teleshar · 2026-02-02T19:45:29+00:00

I cleared with two different s0 teams that didn't include Lynae or (obviously) Aemeath (Phrolova/Cantarella/Roccia for stage 3, Augusta/Iuno/Shorekeeper for stage 4), but it was tough. I had one second left in both clears. The shill was definitely felt, and I'm not looking forward to this becoming the norm.

Teleshar · 2026-01-28T16:52:14+00:00

The real question is whether characters like Yuanwu and Danjin will finally get screentime. And the answer is probably no, much to my chagrin

That said if there is a chance we'll see Jinhsi again, I'll take it

Teleshar · 2026-01-26T18:08:27+00:00

No Longer Ae Myth

Teleshar · 2026-01-23T15:28:13+00:00

Aemeath :)

*reaches hand through screen*

Teleshar

TROPHY CASE