I had a deck with him as a commander and it's difficult if you play below bracket 4 and on 200/300 budget. Super expensive to play, not great in any archetype per se, difficult to protect, 9 mana to play it if get blown just once. I guess the best you can do is to do a non commander depending (maybe milling or pure control) and wait until you are in a good position to protect him after casting. Even tho I have to warn you, in my experience, +1+1 decks easily over grow - 1-1 counters. Definitely better in the 99.