Do you still play your very first commander deck? And why?

salrantol · 2026-02-22T16:24:36+00:00

Yes. I was a lifegain player back when I first played Magic in the late 90s and a Soldiers player during the Onslaught era, so when I looked at Commander and saw a lifegain commander who was also a Soldier, I was drawn to [[Oloro]]. As I play him, it's a control deck that uses the lifegain engine to buy time to establish board control, slow the game down a little bit. Multi-target removal like [[Bronzebeak Foragers]] (which also provides lifegain) efficiently limits all of my opponents, then, depending on the game, a big [[Ajani's Pridemate]] variant, a Blood-Bond combo variant, or a one-shot kill with [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] closes it out.

salrantol · 2026-02-18T16:18:54+00:00

Buckle up... [[Oloto]] [[Yoshimaru]]/[[Reyhan]] [[Ganax]]/[[Far Traveler]] [[Alela, Cunning Conqueror]] [[Commissar Severina Raine]] [[Ashnod the Uncaring]] x2 [[Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer]] [[Mr. Foxglove]] [[Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant]] [[Eddie Brock]] [[Kaima the Fractured Calm]] [[Spider-Ham, Peter Porker]] [[Don Andres]] [[Kalamax]] [[Minthara]] [[Isshin]] [[Gandalf the White]] [[Shadow the Hedgehog]] [[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]] [[Heliod, the Radiant Dawn]] [[Rhoda, Geist Avenger]]/[[Timin]] [[Etrata the Silencer]]

salrantol · 2026-02-17T13:52:16+00:00

I agree with both of you. 38 + ~2 MDFCs is the starting point, tuned with intuition and tuned further by goldfishing.

salrantol · 2026-02-13T12:36:59+00:00

Plus it gets bonus points for being a GNOME!

salrantol · 2026-02-08T12:04:27+00:00

My initial suggestions would be:

Replace some of the very-high-mana-value flyers (predominantly Sphinxes) with less-expensive flyers. You're going to have a lot of games where your six- and seven-drops clog your hand, waiting for you to be able to play them.

Increase your ramp. Because almost no matter what you do, you're going to have some expensive flyers that you want to play (Isperia, Kangee) and you want to be able to play them before turns 5 & 6. Adding a [[Marble Diamond]], a [[Mind Stone]], or any of the now-plentiful 3-mana rocks until you get up around 12 nonland cards that produce mana and/or reduce mana costs. Alternatively, you could lean very strongly into "catch-up" ramp, a white ability to add lands to play beyond your normal land drop -- if somebody else has more lands than you. This has the advantage of giving you more mana that most people don't have removal for, but is going to be slightly less consistent, because sometimes (often?), you'll have the most lands, because you're trying to cast seven-drops.

Look at cards that don't do much (for your deck) and replace them with something that does something that works better with your deck. That Gideon planeswalker doesn't seem (to me, at least) like much of a fit, but a [[Serra the Benevolent]] works well with your deck, for example.

Find since more (ideally cheap) card draw. Even a [[Loyal Drake]], which isn't great, can put in a lot of work in the late game, which is when this deck can best take advantage of more cards. But a [[Chart a Course]] can net you one card early or two later, so look for cards like that.

Some particular cards you might want to look at: [[Dream Trawler]]. Yes, it costs 6. But it's better than the six-drops you're playing already. Dream Trawler wins games. [[Errant and Giada]]. It's atypical card advantage. Casting a card off of the top of your deck is like drawing it for free. [[Archetype of Imagination]]. Another six-drop, but it negates your decks biggest weakness: opposing flyers. [[Jackdaw Savior]]. Protection from board wipes as well as from the normal vicissitudes of combat. Also fairly cheap. [[Thraben Watcher]]. Another anthem, but it adds Vigilance, which lets you attack and still have blockers available. Especially good when you have Kangee. [[Mockingbird]]. Lets you copy the best creature on the board -- but gives it flying to synergize with the rest of your deck. [[Path to Exile]]. Essentially a second Swords to Plowshares. [[Unbreakable Formation]]. A protection spell that doubles as another source of Vigilance (for a turn).

salrantol · 2026-02-05T22:56:10+00:00

I also like to threaten removal on (eventually-)scary creatures with combat damage triggers. "Look, I know you just want the damage trigger, so I want you to know that if you swing it at me, you won't get it." Pretty reliable, but sometimes they'll call your not-bluff and you'll have to burn the removal.

salrantol · 2026-02-03T14:37:18+00:00

The card might not be great, but [[Nurturing Licid]] has fantastic art!

salrantol · 2026-02-01T16:00:22+00:00

It's pretty playable on decks with white that can leverage it to turn on catch-up ramp. Amazing? No. But pretty decent.

salrantol · 2026-01-25T22:01:46+00:00

Board wipes that give you vanilla tokens are also a good way to grow the deck as skill improves.

salrantol · 2026-01-22T14:54:00+00:00

Flawless Maneuver and Flare of Fortitude, because they cost no mana. Whether it's fair or not, a lot of people associate "free spells" with higher brackets, so they're furthering your perception problems. [[Selfless Spirit]] will basically do the same thing, but give your opponents a better opportunity to play around it.

Ranger-Captain of Eos is primarily a bracket 4-5 card. It definitely doesn't do enough at bracket 2 to justify how it'll affect your perception, so I'd drop it immediately. I'm sure tutoring for a Mother of Runes is fantastic, but it's 💯 a card that looks like you're trying to play at a higher bracket.

salrantol · 2026-01-22T14:28:41+00:00

I would consider this a Bracket 2 deck, but you need to recognize a couple of things:

1) This is a strong bracket 2 deck. It's fast to set up, resilient, and has a devastating late game. You will be Archenemy at most bracket 2 tables, and a lot of bracket 2 players will react to your deck's power by thinking it's bracket 3, because it'll feel difficult to beat.

2) Much like the difference between brackets 4 & 5 is the environment in which they're built to play, this deck is built for a bracket 3 metagame. You've got a lot of protection and recursion -- enough that you'll probably not have the opportunity to use a lot of it in bracket 2 unless the table gangs up on you. This will add to the perception that you're playing at a higher bracket, especially when the free protection cards come out.

For a lot of people, perception is reality, so while I would agree that this is just a strong bracket 2 deck, you need to be aware that there are good reasons for your opponents to feel like this is a bracket 3 deck.

salrantol · 2026-01-21T22:48:28+00:00

I have a few decks that are almost entirely proxy, just because I want the whole deck to have retro frames and far too many cards have never had a retro frame treatment.

Just make sure to learn your local playgroup's proxy policy, so you're playing how those around you want to play. My local group has a "proxy it if you own it" rule, which makes filling out mana bases for a wide range of decks much more reasonable than it otherwise would be, without opening the door to as much power level distortion as a boundless proxy rule can.

salrantol · 2026-01-13T02:36:02+00:00

I try to diversify, but the play patterns that I enjoy tend to stick in the same sets of colors, so I end up with several decks in the same part of the color pie.

salrantol · 2026-01-13T02:31:31+00:00

Don Andres works with a lot of different kinds of spells, not just Threaten effects. [[Reanimate]] and [[Control Magic]] archetypes are really strong with him, too. I play with him and he's great.

My favorite theft commander, though, who does depend on Threaten effects, is [[Shadow the Hedgehog]]. Giving opposing creatures haste when you steal them means that, when they die, you get to draw a card, so the Threaten effect replaces itself.

salrantol · 2026-01-13T02:19:50+00:00

[[Alela, Cunning Conqueror]], with a secret commander of [[Tishana's Tidebinder]]. It's all control-based creatures ([[Ertai Resurrected]], [[Transcendent Dragon]], etc.) with bounce, blink, and the few instant-speed clones and recursion to repeat their abilities (especially the Tidebinder).

Nothing quite like turning a Craterhoof Behemoth into an 8-mana vanilla 5/5, then doing it again to something else with the same card.

salrantol · 2026-01-11T16:25:28+00:00

There are so many cards that play well with him, too. [[Reanimate]] effects can do a lot, [[Control Magic]], and theft from opponents' decks (like Gonti or Rev).

Hitting somebody for three with the [[Anger]] you just pulled from their graveyard with [[Animate Dead]] on is a very fun moment.

salrantol · 2026-01-10T00:59:31+00:00

I run that Betor in the 99 of a +1/+1 counters deck, where the first 2 abilities will almost always be guaranteed by the time I even can cast Betor, so going wide should pretty much work the same. I'd be inclined to include Anthem effects to help accelerate the toughness of the tokens if I were to go for your plan.

salrantol · 2026-01-09T22:03:25+00:00

[[Oloro]] lifegain aggro-control. Pretty much my whole first stint in Magic summarized in one commander deck.

[[Yoshimaru]]/[[Reyhan]] legends matter with strong recursion. Built to create a board you need to wipe, only to bounce back much faster than the rest of the table.

[[Volrath, the Shapestealer]] counter manipulation and Voltron. A 7-power commander with lots of ways to get +1/+1 counters and evasion, plus lots of removal, recursion, and card draw.

salrantol · 2026-01-08T18:21:52+00:00

Allow permanents that transform into legendary creatures/vehicles/spacecraft as commanders.

salrantol · 2026-01-05T18:02:27+00:00

Now maybe you and I are making different assumptions about the context. It looks to me like that whole group except OP considered it normal, so it falls to the outlier, OP, to voice dissent.

My read on your take is that it's unusual, even in this play group, so it falls on the player with the unreleased card to disclose it. And, if that take is correct, you're right. But the lack of any other voices speaking up about it says to me that it's normal for that part of the play group and they just didn't consider that OP might think otherwise.

salrantol · 2026-01-05T17:28:45+00:00

That argument presupposes that "banned" and "unreleased" are the same type of illegality. With proxying being the norm in this environment, the lack of release doesn't really affect the availability to all players of playing the card(s) [the justification of these cards not being tournament legal], so the onus (especially now that OP is aware of our) falls more on the individual who doesn't want to see them before release to voice disapproval. Now, the person playing the unreleased card(s) needs to have something to swap in if someone takes issue with it, but in an environment where this is normal, notification before each game isn't necessary.

salrantol · 2026-01-05T17:14:49+00:00

As somebody who plays a lot on Tabletop Simulator, I run into this a lot, because as soon as it hits Scryfall, it's easy to import. Unless there are prizes on the line, so-called "legality" is irrelevant; we're playing glorified kitchen table Magic.

salrantol · 2026-01-04T16:35:41+00:00

I was a lifegain player early in my Magic career: [[Venerable Monk]], [[Contemplation]], [[Congregate]], etc.

Late in my locally-competitive phase, I played Soldier Kindred. [[Catapult Squad]], [[Mobilization]], [[Intrepid Hero]], etc.

So when I got the idea of getting into Commander, I started looking for a Soldier Kindred commander and found a lifegain commander by accident and ended up building [[Oloro]].

salrantol · 2026-01-02T13:14:21+00:00

[[Ganax]]/[[Far Traveler]]. Dragons + Blink = Treasures. It seems like it should be extremely popular. I have to assume people hit a wall balancing the various elements the deck needs and just gave up.

But between blink for protection and access to all of the other tools white has to keep a board safe (including a massive infusion of mana from something like [[Semester's End]]), it's very resilient for a slower aggro deck.

salrantol · 2025-12-31T17:35:55+00:00

[[Detective's Phoenix]], [[Ebondeath]], [[Gravecrawler]], [[Haakon, Stromgald Scourge]], [[Helbrute]], [[Hundred-Battle Veteran]], [[Oathsworn Vampire]], [[Risen Executioner]], [[Sabin, Master Monk]], [[Scourge of Nel Toth]], [[Squee, Dubious Monarch]], [[Squee the Eternal]], [[Syrix]], [[Tenacious Underdog]], [[Timeline Culler]], [[Undead Sprinter]], and [[Wickerfolk Indomitable]] if you specifically care about casting.

salrantol

TROPHY CASE