We've kind of already got that with Shaman of the Forgotten Ways . Granted, the design would be slightly different I imagine, but I'm hoping we get something that hasn't previously been done in some capacity.
There are a couple of new cards so far that I dig (notably the goblin pirate and the GB troll) but the majority of it has felt underwhelming. The "Keyword Commanders" that were spoiled last week have some interesting uses, but they feel one dimensional to me. What are you going to do with the Morph and Flashback commanders outside of stuff them with the very best spells with those keywords attached, or the best cards that interact with those keywords? That's it. There's not much more room for deck innovation beyond that.
Just for example, I've built Kynaios & Tiro of Meletis as both an Enchantress deck and a Landfall deck, two archetypes that had nothing to do with the precon that they came from. I want to see the kind of commanders that we can approach in multiple ways instead of just acquiring all of the best cards for an archetype and calling it a day.
I don't think having strongly-indicated synergies is necessarily a bad thing. Madness, morph, and flashback all saw at best minor usage in commander. Now suddenly those cards, and strategies around those cards, will become possible. That's a lot more interesting imo than commanders that slot into existing archetypes with minor tweaks. I think it's pretty hard to do that without making the card pretty tailor-made for a certain strategy. Feather comes to mind as a fairly pigeon-holed commander that doesn't actually spell out a specific keyword - but most feather decks will share many of the same cards anyway.
And while sure, every Kadena deck will probably be playing a lot of the same morphs as every other Kadena deck - but it's not as though you're just going to put the top 60 morphs into a deck and call it a day (I guess you could if you wanted to?). You'll probably use 30 slots for morphs, but that still leaves half your deck open - you could play it as control with lots of counters and removal, taking advantage of her ability to create board presence without paying for it. You could play it as combo with lots of ways to give flash and bounce your creatures. You could build it as aggro with anthems to buff your face-down creatures and try to overwhelm. The point is, you've got options. I really enjoyed my Feather deck - it shared a lot of the same cards as other feather decks, but it subtly emphasized different things, and I think it was better for it. There's still innovation to be had, even if the starting place is pretty obvious.
And if you really want something a little less directed, it looks like the secondary commanders are a fair bit more open-ended.
You make a fair point that there's not a dedicated commander that aligns with those particular strategies. I still would have liked to see a little more innovation on Kadena other than cost reduction and card draw. Sure, it's powerful, but there's Animar who does the cost reduction angle a little better and there are plenty of card draw engines these days that synergize with playing creatures.
Maybe something like "whenever you turn a creature face up, you may turn another creature face down" or "pay xyz: exchange control of target face down permanent you control and a permanent that an opponent controls". Something a little off the wall that would also make good use of manifest mechanics.
There are a couple of new cards so far that I dig (notably the goblin pirate and the GB troll) but the majority of it has felt underwhelming. The "Keyword Commanders" that were spoiled last week have some interesting uses, but they feel one dimensional to me. What are you going to do with the Morph and Flashback commanders outside of stuff them with the very best spells with those keywords attached, or the best cards that interact with those keywords? That's it. There's not much more room for deck innovation beyond that.
Just for example, I've built Kynaios & Tiro of Meletis as both an Enchantress deck and a Landfall deck, two archetypes that had nothing to do with the precon that they came from. I want to see the kind of commanders that we can approach in multiple ways instead of just acquiring all of the best cards for an archetype and calling it a day.
It does seem that the effort and quality of the commander products have gone down steadily as we've seen an increase in "commander plants" among the other regular set releases, but that might be just some tin foil hat theory.
No big surprise on Paradox Engine , except that it lasted as long as it did. It was always a big shiny "I win" button, I can't think of a time that I saw it hit play and not be degenerate.
Iona makes sense, I just don't know why it took so long for it to get the axe.
Painter's Servant is a neat unbanning. I can't think of any immediate decks I want to put it in, but having access to another unique-ish effect is cool.
I'm looking into making an Elemental tribal deck for him, honestly. We got some new goodies in M20, and there are a surprising number of efficient elementals in EDH (including the aforementioned Soul of the Harvest ). Toss in Omnath 2.0 and 3.0 for flavor and you've got a pretty decent and fair tribal build.
I run him in a Breya Superfriends/Thopters deck which I finally got to pilot (pun intended) the other night, and had this in my opening hand. I almost lived the dream of getting to play this in conjunction with Mycosynth Lattice, but a Nature's Claim shattered that dream before it came true. Tezz lasted 5 rounds, and I rolled him up each round for 4-6 life drained per activation. Ultimately he put me so far ahead before he was finally disposed of that I had the game pretty wrapped up even before players started dropping.
I actually dismissed this card, but seeing the feedback on it makes me want to play around with it. I also had no idea that it could give copies of spells the splice effect, which greatly increases it's usefulness imo.
So my understanding is clear, could you splice this onto a spell cast with an Isochron Scepter activation? To my knowledge, copies of spells aren't "cast" by most rules definitions, but Scepter states that you're casting the copy, so would that make it a valid Everdream target?
As others have mentioned, the casting cost is a huge hurdle, but I like this card in a few specific decks, most notably my Kynaios & Tiro moonfolk lands deck.
I actually won a game with it at my LGS a couple of weeks ago. I got K&T out on turn 4 and kept it all game, with most of the other players opting to play additional lands at most of the K&T triggers and the opposing Momir player copied K&T at one point for even more lands hitting the battlefield. About 5 minutes before the end of the round the turn came back to me and I gleefully windmill slammed Treacherous Terrain and copied it 3 times with the Uyo, Silent Prophet that had been ignored by the table for several rounds. I don't foresee getting to do that again any time soon.
On the chance of repeating myself, but i loveGonti, Lord of Luxury for the fact, that it scales amazingly well.
Stealing and reanimating your opponents' stuff is very entertaining and can make for some surprising moves. Can be 5C in a MBC shell.
Additionally for going 2c, I would go with Rakdos, Lord of Riots. The deck can take advantage of otherwise useless or mediocre cards that your table most likely won't be overly threatened by (and maybe take some aggro off of you) and it synergizes well with the big flashy creatures that are fun to play with, but often get overlooked in more competitive metas.
Confiscate is a 6cmc uncommon that's arguably harder to remove. Granted these are apples and oranges - Agent has a potential upside in being able to become a solid draw source, and removing him from the battlefield doesn't lose any stolen permanents you've picked up with him, but that cost is huge.
Obviously he could be good in Roon or Brago, and maybe even in a theft themed Rubinia Soulsinger deck, but I want to get it out of the way that for anyone thinking "oh, they'll play this everywhere in EDH" that this ain't it, chief.
Excellent EDH card, fantastic art and flavor, this one is a home run.
It's not totally irrelevant that this could be even more powerful in B/x mill strategies like with Geth. A 1 cmc tutor that the downside can be eliminated or even take advantage of isn't bad at all.
As mentioned, the versatility of this spell is what gives it such power. Imagine someone dumping all of their mana into a game ending Exsanguinate, Torment of Hailfire, Villainous Wealth or any other big X spell, and then you steal the glory with this. At worst, it can buy you and maybe the table a turn to deal with whatever your opponent was trying to do which can completely change the outcome of a game. I'm a fan.
I see that you already went with Varina, which I've found to be a fun deck to build with a tribal token focus.
As you continue to build your collection, I'd give a strong recommendation to Animar. He can be near top tier with the right deck, but even a budget build can be fun, interactive, and versatile. I posted a budget decklist a while back that I'll copy over here. Good luck!
I've definitely been thinking about playing Animar. I've slowly been buying commanders that I'm interested in and I've had my eye on Animar for quite a while. The only reason I don't have Animar is because I typically buy cards from Ebay auctions and I feel that it gets a little pricey and end up backing down.
That's completely understandable. The list I posted here shouldn't run you much more than $50 and each of the pieces can be upgraded over time. Whatever you decide to go with, good luck!
I second the GW or maybe Naya enchantments, though you'll probably have to go in a different direction than a normal Enchantress build since your challenge automatically excludes most Enchantress effects. I would personally look at a go wide strategy with aggressively costed creatures and buff enchants/anthems.
Gahji, Honored One night be a good option if you decide to go the Naya route.
Gahiji is not vanilla.
but i do like the idea of Naya enchantments.
Sorry, didn't see you'd specified that the general also had to be vanilla. That's going to limit your color choices, so I agree that Gruul is your best option after that.
This is my hope.
We've kind of already got that with Shaman of the Forgotten Ways . Granted, the design would be slightly different I imagine, but I'm hoping we get something that hasn't previously been done in some capacity.
You make a fair point that there's not a dedicated commander that aligns with those particular strategies. I still would have liked to see a little more innovation on Kadena other than cost reduction and card draw. Sure, it's powerful, but there's Animar who does the cost reduction angle a little better and there are plenty of card draw engines these days that synergize with playing creatures.
Maybe something like "whenever you turn a creature face up, you may turn another creature face down" or "pay xyz: exchange control of target face down permanent you control and a permanent that an opponent controls". Something a little off the wall that would also make good use of manifest mechanics.
Just for example, I've built Kynaios & Tiro of Meletis as both an Enchantress deck and a Landfall deck, two archetypes that had nothing to do with the precon that they came from. I want to see the kind of commanders that we can approach in multiple ways instead of just acquiring all of the best cards for an archetype and calling it a day.
It does seem that the effort and quality of the commander products have gone down steadily as we've seen an increase in "commander plants" among the other regular set releases, but that might be just some tin foil hat theory.
Iona makes sense, I just don't know why it took so long for it to get the axe.
Painter's Servant is a neat unbanning. I can't think of any immediate decks I want to put it in, but having access to another unique-ish effect is cool.
He is scary good, imo.
So my understanding is clear, could you splice this onto a spell cast with an Isochron Scepter activation? To my knowledge, copies of spells aren't "cast" by most rules definitions, but Scepter states that you're casting the copy, so would that make it a valid Everdream target?
I actually won a game with it at my LGS a couple of weeks ago. I got K&T out on turn 4 and kept it all game, with most of the other players opting to play additional lands at most of the K&T triggers and the opposing Momir player copied K&T at one point for even more lands hitting the battlefield. About 5 minutes before the end of the round the turn came back to me and I gleefully windmill slammed Treacherous Terrain and copied it 3 times with the Uyo, Silent Prophet that had been ignored by the table for several rounds. I don't foresee getting to do that again any time soon.
This is a good idea imo, as it allows you to scale your power level to whoever you're playing against. Some suggestions, should you go this route, would be Geth, Lord of the Vault, Praetor's Grasp, Sepulchral Primordial and a pet card of mine, Treacherous Urge.
Additionally for going 2c, I would go with Rakdos, Lord of Riots. The deck can take advantage of otherwise useless or mediocre cards that your table most likely won't be overly threatened by (and maybe take some aggro off of you) and it synergizes well with the big flashy creatures that are fun to play with, but often get overlooked in more competitive metas.
Obviously he could be good in Roon or Brago, and maybe even in a theft themed Rubinia Soulsinger deck, but I want to get it out of the way that for anyone thinking "oh, they'll play this everywhere in EDH" that this ain't it, chief.
It's not totally irrelevant that this could be even more powerful in B/x mill strategies like with Geth. A 1 cmc tutor that the downside can be eliminated or even take advantage of isn't bad at all.
That's completely understandable. The list I posted here shouldn't run you much more than $50 and each of the pieces can be upgraded over time. Whatever you decide to go with, good luck!
Sorry, didn't see you'd specified that the general also had to be vanilla. That's going to limit your color choices, so I agree that Gruul is your best option after that.