I like Saskia the Unyielding as a Samurai commander. WBRG colors allow you to include any (or even every) Samurai printed so far. She also effectively upscales your damage to the entire table, which is quite important if you focus on bushido creatues which are balanced around dealing 20 damage to a player instead of 120 damage total. Alesha, who smiles at Death is another good option that is also more on flavor style-wise, but Samurais don't really benefit from entering the battlefield so her recursion value is limited.
I am all for reducing word clutter, especially "converted mana cost" was not very elegant. What worries me however is the reason they are doin this. It seems like they held off changin these wordings until now because a change was not strictly needed. But now? Kaldheim ist already crazy complex, most cards are walls of text and many of the MDFCs are even two walls of text. Some complexity creep is unavoidable I guess, but this does not bode well....
This set seems very fluffy and lighthearted, which is a nice contrast to the grim and harsh tones of Kkaldheim, but will get some getting used to. The art on the Lorehold Command and the Witherbloom Theme Booster could be straigh from Unsanctioned set art.
You already put together a list with pretty high powered cards, so you clearly know whats good in the format.
Most of your card draw draw will come from Gonti himself, so you won't have much trouble with your low card draw count. However, your manabase is lacking. 36 Lands is already on the low side (imo 37 is better) and you run very little ramp. Aim for roughly 45 Mana sources counting lands and mana rocks/ramp. Since Gonti lets you cast spells disregarding colors, I really suggest running efficient colorless mana rocks like Thought Vessel, Worn Powerstone and Thran Dynamo. You really want to be able to cast more than one spell each turn, especially if you have Gonti ETBing at least once each turn cycle with all of your flicker and reanimation effects.
Your list also lacks any interaction with artifacts and enchantments. I suggest running Feed the Swarm and catch-alls like Meteor Golem, which synergizes very well with your reanimation/flicker effects. Unstable Obelisk helps with ramping as well as removing must-answer-permanents in a pinch.
When it comes to cards you would like to include but have no room for, I suggest simply playing the deck to identify the cards that underperform for you or simply aren't to your taste. EDH is a format thats very much about self-expression, and it is perfectly reasonable to cut powerful cards that create play patterns you (or your opponents) can't enjoy in favor of pet cards or things that seem fun to you. To me, your decklists looks pertty much like the copy-paste average Gonti decklist from EDHrec. Maybe that is exactly what you want, but I find that playing pet/niche/fun cards is what makes me want to play a deck again and again. So this is me encouraging you to try stuff out and personalize your deck.
The fact that their backside indicators are "equipment" and "god" makes me think that all gods in the cycle will be DFC cards with an equipment on the backside.
You could try Tuvasa the Sunlit, she gives you Bant colors and card draw. Most competitive decks don't heavily rely on their commander to function and card draw in the command zone is an excelent way of getting ahead. This allows you to play your control strategy and drop Tuvasa for value early or right before you drop an enchantment. She won't allow you to combo off with her, but that makes her a low priority target so maybe she's allowed to live a turn cycle or two.
I'd be pretty funny if "Cosmo Wolf" and "Cosmo Serpent" turned out to be the actual card names.
Something about that seems off to me, I don't think Wizards would name a card cycle just "Cosmo XXX". Could they represent Minions of the evil forces on Kaldheim? They depict a Wolf and Serpent, both have norse mythological antagonistic characters associated with them (Wolf = Fenrir, Sperpent = Jörmungand).
Anyway, these really makes me happily curious about Kaldheim. I really like how R&D designed different pantheons so far, they really felt distinct in both lore and card design.
This is the right call. It is absolutely not the RC's place to enforce how the community feels about wizards products or their distribution methods/pricing. Their job is to care about the health of the format, which means nothing else than keeping it fun. I might add that I have no love for this product and I don't like where wizards is going witht his, but thats not the RC's fault nor is it their job to correct that. If any of these cards turn out to be super busted and unfun in EDH, I'm sure the RC will take another look at them.
If you think "The Walking Dead" should not be in Magic or commander or black border or mechanically unique cards should not be released as a super limited product, those points should be directed at Wizards, the company that made these decisions, and not at the RC.
Of course they werent going to.
The rc lost its spine ages ago, and its reflective of the continued decline in their involvement in the format.
Whatever hide behind rule zero about it some more
Calmly making a decision instead of folloing the demands of an angry internet mob is the exact opposite of being spineless. The RC didn't shy away from voicing an opinion. What you're upset about is the RC voicing an opinion that different to yours.
I play with a lot of different groups. We usually go FFA with groups of 3-5, and two-headed giant with groups of 6, just to speed up the game. I also like to play two-headed giant in groups with peaople new to the game, that way they have a partner who can teach them as they play.
In groups of 5 we sometimes play pentagram (although without the color rules restriction, just our normal decks), which I love for the interesting politics that it brings to the table.
Its hard to be excited about this so soon after ikorias release, and hot on the heals of double masters announcement, and knowing commander legends is coming, with secret lairs and more commander precons mixed in too
If your deck completely falls apart because you do not have access to your commander you made a bad deck, plain and simple. You can certainly build a deck that's primary strategy involves your commander, in fact I much prefer decks that do (or at the very least benefit greatly from their commander), but you should always have a contingency plan. Removing the tuck rule simply encouraged bad deck building by removing a check for decks that were overly reliant on a single card they always have access to.
I understand you argument, but that is a very spikey perspective. What about the Jhonnies and Timmies? Commander allows me to build decks around mechanics unique to specific legendary creatures, decks that could never funcion in a format where i don't have guaranteed avaiability of a certain card. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer is a prime example of this. Would that deck work once the commander is tucked? Definately not. But why should that make it a bad deck? It plays well (in the absence of tuck), its fun, its unique and it has cool flavor. Now YOU may not care about any of these things, but a lot of people do, and in my perspective that makes it a pretty good deck. Maybe putting together a deck that is filled with options to wiggle out of every corner is super fun to you, but thats not true for everyone. I don't want to fill half my deck with tutors and counters, both of which make commander games unfun (for me) in large numbers. Point is, preventing tuck opens up a lot of interesting deck builds and that is a good thing imo. My Commander playgroup nearly died because tuck was so frustrating and it flourished since the tuck change.
Diversity is always cool, so I think alternative art pieces, masterpeces or collector booster versions are awesome as long as the cards are also avaiable as normal cards. I think Nexus of Fate sufficiently illustrated why a standard legal promo is a bad thing if it is not avaiable through boosters (although that card was also a toxic design in a vacuum), they did much better with BaB promos like Kenrith, the Returned King, which also saw standard play and never got rediculously expensive.
I do hate all the alternate arts and disagree with everyone who said alternate arts are welcome. You've heard of power creep and complexity creep, but what about visual complexity creep? It may not be an issue in Standard, where you only have to worry about the last two years and can forget everything that has rotated, but in Commander, you want to look across the table and recognize what cards are on the battlefield. Everytime they print new art on an old card, they make it harder to recognize the cards and remember what they all do.
I see your point, but I think its not relevant in the larger picture. New sets will continue to release, bringing both new cards and new art on reprintt, both of which are desirable. Some may prefer old art, but few would disagree that a card with art from 10 years ago would stick out like a sore thumb in a set released nowadays. The enjoyment new and unique art brings to some far outweighs the annoyance it may bring to others imo.
Sure, for new players the alternative versions are more cards to learn, but if a player has to read cards anyways, checking what a promo does hardly matters. And if an enfranchised player has to read a card they don't recognise every once in a while it won't kill them.
Alesha, who smiles at Death is another good option that is also more on flavor style-wise, but Samurais don't really benefit from entering the battlefield so her recursion value is limited.
You already put together a list with pretty high powered cards, so you clearly know whats good in the format.
Most of your card draw draw will come from Gonti himself, so you won't have much trouble with your low card draw count. However, your manabase is lacking. 36 Lands is already on the low side (imo 37 is better) and you run very little ramp. Aim for roughly 45 Mana sources counting lands and mana rocks/ramp. Since Gonti lets you cast spells disregarding colors, I really suggest running efficient colorless mana rocks like Thought Vessel, Worn Powerstone and Thran Dynamo. You really want to be able to cast more than one spell each turn, especially if you have Gonti ETBing at least once each turn cycle with all of your flicker and reanimation effects.
Your list also lacks any interaction with artifacts and enchantments. I suggest running Feed the Swarm and catch-alls like Meteor Golem, which synergizes very well with your reanimation/flicker effects. Unstable Obelisk helps with ramping as well as removing must-answer-permanents in a pinch.
When it comes to cards you would like to include but have no room for, I suggest simply playing the deck to identify the cards that underperform for you or simply aren't to your taste. EDH is a format thats very much about self-expression, and it is perfectly reasonable to cut powerful cards that create play patterns you (or your opponents) can't enjoy in favor of pet cards or things that seem fun to you. To me, your decklists looks pertty much like the copy-paste average Gonti decklist from EDHrec. Maybe that is exactly what you want, but I find that playing pet/niche/fun cards is what makes me want to play a deck again and again. So this is me encouraging you to try stuff out and personalize your deck.
Something about that seems off to me, I don't think Wizards would name a card cycle just "Cosmo XXX". Could they represent Minions of the evil forces on Kaldheim? They depict a Wolf and Serpent, both have norse mythological antagonistic characters associated with them (Wolf = Fenrir, Sperpent = Jörmungand).
Anyway, these really makes me happily curious about Kaldheim. I really like how R&D designed different pantheons so far, they really felt distinct in both lore and card design.
If you think "The Walking Dead" should not be in Magic or commander or black border or mechanically unique cards should not be released as a super limited product, those points should be directed at Wizards, the company that made these decisions, and not at the RC.
Calmly making a decision instead of folloing the demands of an angry internet mob is the exact opposite of being spineless. The RC didn't shy away from voicing an opinion. What you're upset about is the RC voicing an opinion that different to yours.
Where did you find the info that its only one set? Can't see that anywhere in the Twitter post. Or is that old news I missed?
In groups of 5 we sometimes play pentagram (although without the color rules restriction, just our normal decks), which I love for the interesting politics that it brings to the table.
I see your point, but I think its not relevant in the larger picture. New sets will continue to release, bringing both new cards and new art on reprintt, both of which are desirable. Some may prefer old art, but few would disagree that a card with art from 10 years ago would stick out like a sore thumb in a set released nowadays. The enjoyment new and unique art brings to some far outweighs the annoyance it may bring to others imo.
Sure, for new players the alternative versions are more cards to learn, but if a player has to read cards anyways, checking what a promo does hardly matters. And if an enfranchised player has to read a card they don't recognise every once in a while it won't kill them.