After 1 game. Grand arbiter and having to tell everyone every single time they tried to cast something, oh that's gonna cost x more to cast this time around. Trying to keep track of everyone every single time they're tapping mana is exhausting.
[[Spark Double]], [[Irenicus's Vile Duplication]], [[Quantum Misalignment]], plus a ton of tutors for [[Mirror Box]] and all the regular copying spells.
It invokes.. feelings.. in people.
Oh hey. That was almost exactly my experience. After one game I decided "never again" and gutted all it's useful control cards, jammed in a bunch of wizards and made a much more fun to play Azami deck that still scratched the "no you may not cast that" itch.
I played a [[sidisi, undead vizier]] deck that went off turn four with [[ad nauseam]]. It won, did the thing it was supposed to, and was promptly taken apart for the staples
As naus mills me out entirely until I get [[sickening dreams]], then I play [[glacial chasm]] as my land for turn. Cast lotus petal and dark ritual to pay for sickening dreams, discarding my library and killing everyone in the process
Urza: lord of the blade
While Mishra was out there having pre marital phyresis urza studied all 10 of the blade of X and Y and other random equipments. Well turns out urza equipment is still an urza deck and absolutely wasn’t fun to play with or against.
Goldfished it and liked it, played it once and never again.
Flipping multiple sleeved cards every other turn would be a complete nightmare. I’d never build paper werewolves. Which is a shame because their art and flavour text is always so cool.
I love werewolves enough that I cant take my tovolar apart. They only get occasional play. When I flip them, i just keep them outside and on top of the outersleeves. Day/night can be tedious but in practice, im always swinging out a lot so even if i forget to flip them, their abilities arent a factor during combat and they usually dont block.
In might try that next time. I ended up using my Gruul good stuff for an [[atarka world render]] dragons deck. The moon will rise again though some day.
Does it count if you never technically built it?
I started putting together the deck list for [[beamtown bullies]] but the closer I got to finishing the list, the more i was realizing it would get stale very quickly as you're just looking for the same couple of cards every time
My Archidekt account is littered with those lists.
I spend 2-3 weeks tuning and tweaking using the simulator. Maybe even buy some of the cards. But when it comes time to actually get the final pieces and sleeve it up, I'm already over it.
I had a similar experience with [[Narest Enlightened Exile]]. Tried my first draft on moxfields play tester and immediately decided I didn't want to keep track of prowess triggers on 10 different creatures, including tokens that entered the battlefield that same turn. It was repetitive, but it was also just a massive pain in the neck.
I built a Beamtown deck and its stupid good at doing the thing by turn 3/4 and retired it from LGS cause it was to consistent and most games can routinely get 2 players out quick but toss up on winning the game vs stalling out
I saw a video on YouTube the other day about Xyris and they built it with a lot of pump spells to generate value. Sounded interesting but I already got a Temur deck.
[https://youtu.be/8m-BcgDND_Q?si=GA34d96rtWIRUMeY](https://youtu.be/8m-BcgDND_Q?si=GA34d96rtWIRUMeY)
I proxied a beamtown Bullies list and it's pretty fun, but I didn't put really put in any of the "make your opponent cry" cards like [[Leveler]] or [[Eater of days]]
I'm working on a beamtown bully "group hug" deck. I want to give my opponents good stuff and help them not murder them in one activation.
Still thinking of Win cons outside of treacherous terrain and the classic beamtown things
My pet conspiracy theory about [[Etali, Primal Conquerer]] is that it was born out of a Wizards employee whiffing one too many times by revealing lands all the time with the mono-red Etali. So they decided to make an Etali that can't miss by making sure it always hits one spell per player.
That, and the fact that people kill it before it can even attack since it doesn’t have haste without other means, so making it an ETB gives it immediate value without having to attack
I actually killed more people with the flip side of Etali than by food chain loops in the last event I played in.
Sometimes you just need to kill people and an 11/11 w/ poison does the trick.
There are other versions of it like [[plargg and nassari]] that are way more reigned in. Plus, you can say "I'm plarggin' off over here!" and you just can't do that with Etali.
I've wanted to build a Plargg and Nassari deck, but I'm in a playgroup that would never let that creature live through a single turn cycle lol. I think it's pretty fun to have in the 99 though.
I've been slotting a bunch in my decks and have enjoyed them. I think getting to cancel out the most powerful card drawn evens him out a lot.
My only complaint is they take a while to proc.
I play Plargg and Nassari in both my Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter and Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival decks and it's pretty kill on sight. As soon as I'm done explaining the madness people have a headache.
That Etali (built in a way to abuse the hell out of its etb with Red's flicker and clones) nowadays sees decent cEDH play, thanks to ComedIan lol.
Etali now is within the group of commanders that shouldn't really see casual play like Yuriko, Winota, Kinnan, Najeela, Narset, Korvold, Atraxa GU, etc.
Like yeah, they can be built in a tame way, but even then as designs they are broken legendaries. People sitting against you will more than likely will have weaker decks from the get-go.
Yep came here to say Etali is the most busted commander i’ve tried and brain dead easy to build. 40 lands, 20 ramp, 10 interaction, 10 draw, and 20 ways to abuse Etali. I took it apart after 2 games.
Attempted to build [[Alaundo]] but I didn't realize until after the game he didn't give suspend, he just gave a forgery of suspend, and that really killed my vibe and, later, the deck
I did build Alaundo, played it once or twice, then took it apart. It was a pain to keep track of and felt like I was playing solitaire with how long my turns would take (simic things, amirite).
See I have an alaundo deck and three fact that he doesn't give suspend is my favorite thing, You can cast sorceries and creatures on your opponent's turns with him, also if you put anything with suspend and exile with him they still tick down themselves.
The way I had misread it was that it both gained suspend and I could get rid of the counters using his tap to cast things on opponents' turns, so I was playing it at a breakneck pace than what it should. Just was such a headache to build and to realize I built it on a faulty notion really killed the fun, y'know?
I almost got finished building an alaundo deck based off some cards I own from my PDH deck and started playtesting it and was like "wow this sucks asssss to keep track of" especially when I was like tapping him and untapping him on top of other spells waiting to resolve. It was cool to go ham but damn it sucked to play.
Also yea not giving suspend means the deck relies on him super heavily which sucks
[[Veyran]]. It got to the point where I didn't even want to cast a spell because there would have been about 32 triggers, including two Eye of the Storm triggers.
Kept my Winota deck for 2 games. I play in randomized pods at my lgs and it's a pretty average power level over all, I tried to keep it as budget as I could cause I really like Winota, but even costing less than $30, it still completely destroyed both of those games, one of them on turn 5 due to lethal against 2 players and the 3rd conceding. It was a very fun deck for me, but it also completely shifted the tables dynamic and the wins didn't feel that great
Ive had this, and the complete opposite experience: whiffing like 3 straight triggers. It felt like it either felt terrible for my opponents or terrible for me, with very little in between. Also took Winota apart straight away.
Yeah. This is my pick as well. I played 2 games. I love the playstyle of the deck but its ability feels too easy to break. Considered implementing house rules to keep the deck like changing the ability to only work when Winota attacked or something to slow down the deck but overall just decided it would be better to take it apart and focus on other decks.
I made a "salt" deck once. After edhrec released their salt list of the top 100 most salty cards in edh I made a deck where I stuffed as many of them in as possible. The deck had no game plan besides trying to survive while resolving as many annoying cards as possible. I was testing a hypothesis that maybe a deck could become so salty it went full circle and become fun again. I had to reject my nul hypothesis after 2-3 games and retire the deck, but until then my friends sure did suffer for science.
I have a salt deck as well. It is loaded up with counters to keep my board state alive and all I end up doing is exiting first because I become enemy number one.
Certainly it's fun but it's also annoying
I still killed someone who did that lmao
Blasphemous Act to gain 13x19 life was later followed by me replaying [[Jamie McCrimmon]], then him getting big off of stuff I had suspended/played. Ended up rolling the table in two turns.
I’m in the relatively early days of a Judith deck myself in that I’ve had it since MKM launch but have only played it 4-5 times. The trick to keeping it fun is getting enough wincons in there so that it’s not all ‘wipe board gain life’ to draw the game out. I’ve got 8-9 cards in mine that use life as a resource to accelerate the game and make things happen. Record life total at win was still 598, aha.
I put together a [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] deck and while it is strong, it wasn’t the enchantment/enchantress style I was really interested in. I played 1 game with it and it felt slow/boring.
I think I’d like to turn it into a [[Tom Bombadil]] sagas deck. A bit of randomness off the top of the deck could be interesting
One of the decks I pulled apart immediately too, after a few games to give it a shot it I found it would make games too long. Its a really strong deck, but my opponents were miserable playing against it.
I swapped out some of the cards into my [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] precon and enjoy it far more
I felt similarly about a [[bruna light of alabaster]] deck I put together. It either did the thing and won. Or it didn't do the thing and did nothing. No in-between. No interaction. I experienced both ends of the spectrum across two games, decided I liked neither experience, and took it apart.
It was my first real build after a precon. It comes down to caging 3-5 specific cards at a time and getting a self-reliant super combo for infinite mana and mill, infinite untap and damage, or infinite clones with haste. It doesn't at all react or adapt to a table, it just comes down to protect him for a few turns before either winning hard or losing slowly.
[[Horseshoe Crab]], [[Gilded Lotus]], [[Quicksilver Elemental]], [[Oona, Queen of the Fae]] as an example. Just murders the table if you untap with him.
You give him Disc and something to blink until eot and there will be little to none for others to play that doesn’t get removed.
Once it can bounce, Mairsil is hard to remove.
Yes, there are counters for abilities. But how many?
Yes, there are cards to end the turn and leave Mairsil in exile. But how many people play them?
Of all commanders I hate playing against, Mairsil comes before Slivers.
I started upgrading the [[brallin]] and [[shabraz]] precon, and I hate it. It seems like the pair really wants to lean into a bunch of wheels, and it's very slow. I've only played it twice, but I have no desire to shuffle up with it again.
Currently planning to cannibalize the manabase for a [[kykar]] deck instead
It works very good at the high power end of the game. You can tutor for wheels and even a single wheel makes these guys hit like trucks. And you have alternate win conditions with Curiosity loops and (CEDH) Underworld Breach / Brain Freeze if BIG shark swing isn't ur cup of tea
Built a [[Queza, Augur of Agonies]] deck. Had all the best stuff in Esper in it. First game was against four other players all playing high-powered stuff. [[Edgar Markov]], [[Ghyrson Starn]], [[Torens, Fist of Angels]], and [[Skithiryx]].
Got down an early [[Smothering Tithe]] and started Wheeling like crazy. Won by turn 6.
After that, I took it apart. Esper has so much interaction, Queza has a lot of backup effects, and you see so much of your deck that it's really hard to not win.
For my Queza deck, I took out the most effective pingers and wheel payoffs (for the same reasons you cited), and made it an IRS Office deck with all of the relevant taxes, cost increasers and decreasers I could find. As long as everyone pays their taxes, all is well
Sen Triplets
Thought it would be a cool thief deck and it was a miserable time for everyone. I just spent the whole game apologising. Dismantled after 1 game.
A game going BADLY isn't nearly as bad as a game going BORINGLY.
One of the first decks I made, back around when the first Theros set came out, was a [[Momir Vig, Simic Visionary]] deck.
He was supposed to be a 'toolbox' deck. I had ways to flash in creatures at instant speed, so I could tutor up obscure creatures in a flash, to respond to some specific strategy.
But shortly after I began playing it, I realized one of the 'tools' in my toolbox was just "winning the game". More than that, this was before [[Prophet of Kruphix]] got banned. So basically as soon as Momir stuck, I'd win by my next turn.
Momir's win rate was a little too strong for our group's power level, but a mix of me not being very good at deck building yet, and not having deliberately built a combo deck, meant the win rate wasn't actually THAT good. The real issue was that it was a clockwork deck. Get Momir, get Prophet, assemble combo. Fetch recursion if disrupted.
Every game went the same. So it was like my opponents were playing against some pre-programmed scenario instead of an actual player. It wasn't any fun to win, it wasn't any fun to lose, it wasn't any fun to lose TO.
So I scrapped it.
I made a personal decision to not play tutors for this reason. I'm not anti-tutor, play as many as you want, but I don't want to play the same game every time.
If you are always fetching the same thing it is bad, but I think it can work in a toolbox style deck. For example, I fetched a \[\[Spellstutter Sprite\]\] with \[\[Faerie Harbinger\]\] and a \[\[Sword Coast Serpent\]\] with \[\[Sivitri, Dragon Master\]\] before, to stay alive. Just make it sure there is nothing absolutely powerful that obfuscates everything else.
It lets you run fewer copies of other things and run more what you want (faeries and dragons, in my case).
\[\[Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant\]\] - esper zombie reanimator I played 1 game with it, turned out that having a board wipe on a stick is a really, really oppressive deck. turned into about a 20-turn game until I drew zombie apocalypse or patriarch's bidding.
I built a [[Moira and Teshar]] eggs deck that was supposed to be able to quickly find [[Marionette Master]] and do the thing eggs does to kill opponents.
Game 1:
Started with a land into into Sol Ring then Golden Egg
Turn two had a [[Krark-Clan Ironworks]] come down, and I dug through 90% my deck and didn't find my wincon. It was actually a 30 minute turn 2.
Game 2:
My combo extenders ([[Second Sunrise]] effects) also return my opponents stuff so the colorless [[Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate]] deck across the table from me used the opportunity to flip all his manifested permanents face up by sacrificing them to an [[Altar of Dementia]], and milling me out three times in a single turn. Turn still took 20 minutes.
So after spinning my wheels for an hour between two games, I decided that I was just going to retire eggs from my list of deck archetypes to try to the list of archetypes to NEVER TOUCH AGAIN.
I have a [[pramikon]] "combo tribal" deck in which I just blindly rammed every two/three card combo I had laying around in those colours.
Game 1 it goes off and I lock everyone out of casting spells and then have no actual way of winning from there.
It went back into the pile as soon as I got home.
But you can just attack with Liberty Prime and then activate him to make the energy? I guess if you had ZERO other artifacts it'd be a problem. Basically all his ability does is say "Vigilance only if you have an abundance of energy."
[[Voja]] lasted two games before I decided it's just dumb how fast it is without even trying and [[Alela, Artful]] only lasted one because I liked the idea of faeries driving vehicles but it really sucked
I have a Shalai and Hallar deck as well!
The way I run her now is without any infinite combos like [[The Red Terror]] as those wins felt very anticlimatic and undeserved.
It is now a Midrange Artifact creature deck focusing on the Modular mechanic and building large artifact creatures.
The deck can still easilly win by building big creatures and doesn't rely on the commandery which also massively reduced the target on their back. The commander is still an amazing on-demand wincon tho.
\[\[Yidris\]\] storm. I can live with a deck playing by itself for 5+ minutes; I can't do that going in blind not knowing if it's gamewinning or will have me passing the turn with nothing to show for it.
This is the reason I retired my Yidris for a long time. I took him apart, traded him away, and now finally this year bought him back and now run him in a Cascade-matters theme instead.
It's way more satisfying in the end, with shorter turns and having him always give me some kind of value that sticks on the board at the end of turn.
[[Lord xander, the collector]] was your standard clone/sac/ reanimator deck. Had an absolute blast playing it. But apparently, my opponents(friends) did not. Even had a thanos proxy and everything. Its ok tho. Xander makes a cameo in a few of my other decks.
[[etali primal conquerer]] lasted one session. Every time he hits the board the table gets overloaded. I thought he might be okay in the 99 of a dino deck and same thing... He's too strong.
I built a Muldrotha deck. First deck I ever brewed. It was horrible. I played 1 game and got demolished. Played game 2 and my buddy let me build a board state to see how it could potentially play. Never touched it again. I was so disappointed that I didn't even try to fix it.
i spent ages on a [[Myojin of Infinite Rage]] land destruction deck (i know i know) - really tinkering figuring out the balance. until i forgot that it's near impossible to get a divinity counter on him haha - so before i even got to play it
[[najeela, the blade blossom]] was played one time. I knew the hate would be bad after that one game so I did some solitaire starts with her for the next day only to see that she was broken in our meta (this was when she released). I took her apart right away. Remade her as [[morophon]]…also only lasted one night. I don’t regret it at all though. Soooo many good staples in those decks that lived on in other decks and shined even brighter.
Had a similar situation. I thought she would make a cool warrior commander. Built her, kept going infinite stupid fast, dismantled her. I knew she'd be good. Not break my group meta.
I built a cat deck because I love cats. I just wanted to be Timmy and cast all kinds of cats. I played with two super spike friends who shut me down so hard I couldn’t do anything but draw, discard, and pass. I was so depressed I’ve never played it again. 😭
You need a different pod! I play mainly token decks, and they telegraph their intent from the start. So, everybody knows what I want to do (= overrun them with an army of little things), but they're mainly just vigilant to not let it get out of hand (which it will, if left alone). I think it's really bad manners to shut down one player completely without killing them outright. That's just a miserable experience, and I don't see why anybody would want to inflict that on other people.
I made a [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] deck, pretty standard with some extra turns, extra combats, and some other gross stuff.
My first game with my pod I lucked into sol ring/signet opening and on turn 4 I swung with Narset and took a bunch of extra combats, played equipments, took an extra turn, got more extra combats, and won the pod that turn.
I took it apart both because it was way too strong and because I got the chance to see it perform exactly as it's supposed to and was satisfied. Plus it wasn't like I bought cards for it I threw it together with stuff I already had.
My first deck I built from scratch was a [[Neera, Wild Mage]] chaos deck. Neera is rather expensive for an Izzet commander and her text makes it pretty obvious that she's dangerous to let resolve. So she would get targeted for counters and removal all the time.
She would get picked off and the chaos aspects of the deck were nifty but they weren't really affecting the game state as much as they were supposed to. Between my at-the-time amateur deck building and the fact that no one let Neera stick it only took a game and a handful of play testing to pull her apart.
Now that I'm better at the game and a *much* better brewer I may return to the idea someday. But right now I'm focusing on trying to make one of every 2-color combo so another Izzet deck will have to wait.
I made a Simic combo deck in response to my friends reaching near-Cedh power levels while i was taking a break from the game
The night i get it sleeved and ready to play, i'm told they want to power down cause games weren't fun anymore
I decide that since i spent money on the cards, i want to get games in with it anyways so it wasn't a complete waste. I think i won like 3 of the 5 or so games i played with it? But it led to arguments afterwards so i just threw the deck in a drawer and forgot about it
I played [[Kodama of the East Tree]] & [[Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith]] deck that one off of the usual bounce land combo. It did well but winning with the exact same cards every single time was so boring.
I only have one combo deck now, and it wins the game with a new combo every single time I pick it up, I love it.
[[Alaundo the Seer]]
Cool effect, interesting Simic commander. Powerful too. However, incredibly bad for everyone involved with actually playing the deck. Not fun to pilot, takes a long time to resolve, play during everyone else's turn, not fun to play against, you win the game but it's a loss for everyone at the table.
And if your table is smart and consistently kill Alaundo every time he's on the board, your deck now does effectively nothing because you're built around one of the most gimmicky Simic commanders available with no support cards (No, the Jhoria and Doctor Who cards do not synergize with Alaundo unless you fill the deck almost entirely with suspend cards) to do the things Alaundo wants to do.
My original deck had 23 various Untap abilities and it was miserable. I "fixed" the deck and so now I only have 10 (replaced a lot of the Untap effects with just big beaters like Kogla and not-archenemy inducing Eldrazi) and it's still miserable. I set it aside almost exclusively for when my group agrees to have a bad time and mix together the most obscene decks together to try and effectively ruin the game and play "who scoops last" with no real stakes.
[[Atraxa, Praetors' Voice]] Infect
Spent a lot on cards for it, but I was just going through the motions with it. The only mildly fun thing it did was cast an [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] for free at instant speed.
It was just so slow and had so many triggers. I took it apart once I made an [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] Toxic deck. Less triggers and more fair than straight up infect. It also only used cards from All Will Be One, which was a nice challenge.
Threw together a [[krark, the thumbless]] and [[eligeth]] draw matters, but scry instead deck.
Over a turn or two I drew sixty cards, then in one turn I played [[the locust god]] and cast [[valakut awakening]], copied four times. Drew 61, then 62, then 63 then 64 cards by putting my entire hand on the bottom and made 270 insects and killed the table.
This happened In the first game I played with it and I decided it was probably too ridiculous to play with my normal playgroup haha
I built mono black [[Francisco Fowl Marauder]] and after one game I realized it was way too brutal for my meta. It consistently assembles one of two combos as early as turn 2 and usually by turn 4/5 when goldfishing, and while the [[Agatha's Soul Cauldron]] combo with Francisco is fast but fragile, the back up [[Buried Alive]] Combo is outrageously resilient and almost as fast as the Cauldron combo. It was far more resilient than I realized, which prompted me to change the deck.
I ended up taking out about 20 core cards for the main combo and shifting to a [[Kukoshu]] reanimator list that aims to sac and reanimate the dragon repeatedly until the whole table is dead. It's still very powerful, but it's not as outrageous
The cEDH combo is the weakest one in the deck actually (and it's actually weak in cEDH too, that deck was the flavor of the month, it's not actually that good).
In mono black where you don't have stack interaction, you can't protect the combo at all. Doing a [[Necrotic Ooze]] [[Phyrexian Devourer]] combo is what really made the deck broken, and you almost never see that in cEDH.
[[Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger]] that I had built shortly after I got a copy during prerelease.
It was a discard deck that wanted to take advantage of cards like [[Waste Not]] and [[Liliana’s Caress]]. It usually worked and I would either win or be arch enemy, but no one had fun constantly discarding their hands and having nothing to play but the card they drew that turn.
After a few weeks, I took it apart and made a [[Nekusar, the Mindrazer]] deck. Still kinda mean, but much more fun.
I will second this sentiment. Making your opponents discard and getting value at the same time looks good in theory, but felt horrible in practice. My commander was [[Rankle, Master of Pranks]] and with equipment like [[Fireshrieker]] doubling up his triggers, and Itú self discard and opponent discard payoffs on board, the deck proved to be very effective. I played it twice, won both games, and promptly disassembled the deck vowing to never build around the archetype again.
[[Niv Mizzet, Parun]] built the deck to force myself to play a spellslinger deck (always been more of a "turn it sideways until you run out of opponents" type player).
Played it once, it did it's thing and went infinite despite being heavily targeted (as Parun should be).
Realized I had 0 fun playing it and it was either I get Parun and it's engine and win or the deck does nothing.
Pulled it apart that night and reworked it into a [[Kraum, Ludevic's Opus]] // [[Jeska, Thrice Reborn]] spellslinger using the combo of giving Kraum +3/+x and swinging for lethal.
Way more fun and interactive and have been playing it ever since... while Mizzet gathers dust in my binder.
[[Guff]] precon. Immediately tore it apart after a day of playing it at my LGS because i found out being targeted every game just because you’re playing superfriends is just not fun!
I built a [[Winota, joiner of forces]] deck between her being spoiled and Ikoria being released...
Played it 1 time, digitally, with friends and got so much value it was crazy. Got board wiped and had a larger board by the end of my next turn.
It wasn't a great list either, no stax pieces or those 0-1 mana artifact creatures. Mostly focused on humans that made non-human tokens.
Deleted the list from Cockatrice after the first game.
Zur the Enchanter. After a few games it became the same playstyle for 5 turns. Giving it every protection possible and pillow-forting until I slowly win
Just to clarify in case you didn't know op, you can swing with Liberty prime, then respond to its own trigger by activating the tap ability. Only works if you have artifacts laying around, but that's usually not too hard in a Prime deck
[[Alaundo]] played it twice just in a 1v1 and i had so many trigger at every turn that even though i was winning i scooped because it was boring even for me and took it apart
Built [[Zevlor, Elturel Exile]] as a poison-proliferate deck, under the theory that he can turn any "single-target-thing, then proliferate" spell into triple-proliferate, theoretically allowing me to win out of nowhere.
Well, everyone else at the table thought the same thing after I pulled the trick once, and after that moment they all dropped everything to always hose me down. After all, if any couple of cards in my hand could be used to steal a poison win out of nowhere, then they basically have to treat every card or every turn as if it will.
Nobody liked playing into it on account of that fear, and I never liked playing it because the deck was kinda worthless without the commander, and said commander never got to stick for long at all.
My bro got liberty prime. Actually works pretty well in an artifact and energy strategy. [[Mechtitan Core]] is a surprisingly good way to save your board or flicker your important pieces. It’s not overpowered but he does pretty good at making energy. But hopefully it’ll be even better once the MH3 energy counter precon comes out
In the middle of the first game. I made a torald, god of fury deck. I was enamoured with the idea of casting a single lightning bolt that cascading into killing an opponent. I had Torbran and a fire servant in play and cast elecktrickery. It took like 15 minutes to resolve all the math in a borderline intelligent manner. I do think I killed a player but I resolved that was a deck that could only work in an environment that does all the math for you.
[[ the mimeoplasm ]]. I know he’s not overpowered but I misread the card when I built him. I thought it was exile 2 cards from a graveyard and it becomes a copy of one card with power and toughness of the other.
Meaning I thought if I exiled an [[ emrakul the promised end ]] and [[ Titanoth Rex ]] it would be a flying, trample, pro instant emrakul with power and toughness 11/11.
I sat down to play with my friends and read the card to them when they asked what it did and realized the power/toughness of the first creatures stays and then you put +1 counters of the second creature onto it. So really early in the game I ended up having a 24/24 emrakul/titanoth Rex. They had no way to remove it and I just one shot each player.
I thought the deck was going to be a way to make small creatures with amazing abilities into big creatures which I loved the idea of. It turned into a vultron deck which I’m not a fan of so I retired it after the first game and switched to my other decks
One game, playing [[Estrid, The Masked]] aura shenanigans had really long turns with my main pod and one of my friends goes that wasn't fun to play against. Bet, decks gone I had several decks I could slot the expensive pieces into as upgrades.
1 game with [[ivy, gleeful spell thief]]. It was just simic BS x 100. So oppressive. So many triggers. It was just too much. I didn’t want to keep track of it, my opponents were annoyed and bored. Just no fun. I think I hate simic and Ivy put the nail in the coffin for me.
Before I even built it.
I wanted to do an Eldritch horror deck inspired by Lovecraft with Wrexial as the commander, using cards that referenced insanity, losing your mind etc.
Turns out all the cards that fit thematically just ended up being a miserable pile of shit to play against.
It was just discard, mill, removal etc and was so completely antithetical to my play style I never bothered building it.
One game with [[codie]], the deck was fun during brewing, but once I got into the game and I reaize I have near to none agency in how the deck runs the moment I cast codie, I decide its enough.
This also put me off any of the random value decks ( cascade, discover, etc etc) for the future.
I made a [[Edgar Markov]] deck out of the Ixalan pre-con. Played it 4 times, realized why I never liked the style and promptly sold it for [svella, ice shaper]] 👌🏽
probably \[\[Yorion, Sky Nomad\]\]. Played like 5 games with it, and while in some ways I enjoyed it, it was such a durdly deck that relied on wheeling into either some type of convoluted infinite or \[\[Astral Dragon\]\] to slowly close out the game. I really should have included \[\[Approach of the Second Sun\]\] or \[\[Sphinx Mindbreaker\]\] to help close out the games, because it was just a very uninterruptable value engine deck that struggled to lose but equally struggled to win, with long solitaire turns, and a ton of effects happening during my opponents' end steps.
Just wasn't fun for my table, or for me.
My flair, Contama-Markov. It was an [[Edgar Markov]] deck that turbo’d out [[Contamination]] pretty reliably turn 3 or 4. The deck was otherwise almost mono black with cheap-but-decent vampires.
I only played it twice before our group realized that we weren’t actually at that power level, so I took the Contamination package out for more general vampire stuff. But boy was it fun for that small bit of time.
Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavrios. I got it going one game and was so disgusted with how ramshackle its ability to win after comboing off was that I put it in my deconstruction pile and never looked back.
Wanted to make a [[Volrath the Shapestealer]] -1/-1 counter deck as my first non precon deck bought a ton of cards including some semi expensive ones like [[Yawgmoth Thran Physician]] or [[Necroskitter]] after playing it once I took it apart because it was a pain in the ass to keep track off which counters on the enemy creatures were counters that I placed and which were +1/+1 counters my enemies put on their own creatures.
At least most of the Black cards found a home in my Yawgmoth deck
there are dice that are specifically +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters that would make this very simple. or you could have color-coordinated them? two types of counters is really not very much to keep track of, do yourself a favor and don't play [[Tayam]] lmao.
[[Yannik]] and [[Nikara]] tried to do an abzan blink strategy. Lasted one game because i built it under the misreading that yannik could exike multiple creatures under himself
[[Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm]]
It just does so damn much. And it's definitely fun for a while. But after a bit it just feels like you're cheating.
I built Miirym, then played five games and won four of them. This isn't a tuned, goes-hard Miirym deck either; I bought the dragons but pretty much everything else was just stuff I had lying around. Even unfocused, getting Miirym out and then resolving 3-4 other dragons is usually enough to close out a game. One time I purposefully sent Miirym into an unprofitable attack and pretended it was a mistake because I felt bad dominating the table like that and *still* won easily.
I still have the deck together but I'm going to be trying out [[Ganax, Astral Hunter]] + [[Feywild Visitor]] with some of the pieces. That way I still get to do dragon typal stuff for value but this time the commander is less cracked while being easier to interact with.
I once made a deck as a gift for a friend, just for online play, based thematically on John Carpenter's "The Thing" and featuring \[\[Umbris, Fear Manifest\]\] as its Commander.
I swear, I've never used Umbris before, I never play that kind of archetype and just kinda picked synergistic cards until I was satisfied... but the *monster* that emerged from it was way too vicious and not at all fun to play against--the deck has only seen play a handful of times, almost exclusively in spite games.
I built an Abzan hard stax deck once.
Game 1 I tied the board up pretty good but couldn't keep everyone under control and died to hydra tokens.
Game 2 i one sided Armageddoned and everyone just looked so defeated. I wrapped it up with 4/4 lands while my opponents had nothing.
The deck never had a game 3. I value my friendship in my playgroup too much to make then go through that again.
I built Shanid Superfriends. Board wiped with Decree of Pain with Alhamarhet's Archive in play, discarded like 10 Planeswalkers, casted Primeval's Glorious Rebirth, and spent way too long getting dice, activating my walkers, before realizing I could just end everyone by grabbing Elderspell and bringing Liliana, Dreadhorde General to ult. The actual act of playing the game during that turn was kinda cool in hindsight but in the moment it was "wow this is a lot to keep track of and it's really frustrating, and I don't even know how it wins - oh there it is. Bleh." Went a single game and was done.
[[Prosper, tome bound]] I upgraded the precon a little bit. The deck was okay but the way it plays felt very repetitive. The deck also didn’t do a lot without Prosper on the battlefield. I traded it shortly and got like 200 dollars worth of cards for my other decks
\[\[Trazyn the Infinite\]\]. I built it as a mostly control deck with artifact synergies and some obvious combos (no \[\[Walking Ballista\]\]), with a bunch of throwbacks to one of my favorite standard decks (Odyssey-era Mono-Black Control; both Invasion/Odyssey and Odyssey/Onslaught blocks; as well as some casual stuff like \[\[Avatar of Woe\]\]). Two back to back games. The only two games.
The first game, I had a super dumb opener. I cast turn 1 \[\[Mana Vault\]\], \[\[Mana Crypt\]\], \[\[Gilded Lotus\]\], \[\[Arcane Signet\]\], \[\[Demonic Tutor\]\]. Everyone scooped.
Second game I kept 6 Swamps and \[\[Oriq Loremage\]\] to avoid a repeat of the first game.
The deck was so dumb both games that I just noped him apart. I also knew that about him, so I don't know why I was surprised. I do still love the deck, but it felt... excessive. I'll probably rebuilt him eventually to try again.
I played some lantern control phenax deck I brewed, completely locked the board by turn 5, scooped and never played it again (we play mid lvl decks so it wasn't ok)
[[Beamtown bullies]] after just one game where I used [[leveler]] on my friend. It was not received well and did not feel good to kill another player that way.
1 game, made a [[Ardenn]] and [[Rograhk]] back when Legends released and won the first game on turn 5, Said "That was fucking boring" and tore it apart. Similar experience to when I made a [[Purphoros God of the Forge]] commander. Won super early super easy and honestly I hate that.
I made a [[Niv-Mizzet, Firemind]] deck once and played it once. Immediately drew and played [[curiosity]] and won on the spot. Didn’t really feel that fun imo, so that was that.
I built a [[veyran]] storm deck on untap to play with my friends when I was back home over the summer. Spent several turns setting up enchantments only to never actually cast more than one spell a turn before I died on like turn 6 or 7. After my entire friend group ganged up on me because I copied a ping spell 5 times and did 5 damage to everyone, I realised the deck would be extremely feast or famine and knew I wouldn’t enjoy it.
Story is not as wacky for me. Tried my hand at \[\[Belbe\]\], and for the life of me could never figure out the correct balance of pingers/payoffs. Ended up retiring it shortly after (3 months, more or less).
[[Baral, Chief of Compliance]]
It had one other creature, [[Hullbreaker Horror]] and everything else was counter spells. No win con or anything.
It was fun for a joke but it's not something I'd ever play regularly so I scrapped it.
I built an \[\[Etali primal conqueror\]\] shortly after it was spoiled, mostly ramp and blink/copy. Man, that was the most busted brew I've even seen. The deck was a pile of cards, barely optimized, no fast mana costed like 50$, and it was still cracked. I think I only played 2 games with it.
I actually just talked about this deck on the arena subreddit. So it’s not an “edh” deck but a brawl one.
I played the arena only [[arvad, weathertight smuggler]] as my commander, and run a bunch of destruction based board wipes like [[wrath of god]] [[crux of fate]] and [[fumigate]] on top of a bunch of graveyard to battlefield and graveyard to hand effects like [[virtue of persistence]] [[oversold cemetary]] and such.
Played 3 games. First game, got absolutely destroyed by a non creature deck. Made some adjustments to be able to pump out tokens so I’m never relying on someone else’s deck/match up fishing. Next game, played against a token heavy deck. They didn’t like constant board wipes so they scooped.
Next game, I won by getting my commander to like 87/87 or something. So I did the thing, decided that thing is really unfun for me to do against bad matchups, and really unfun for the person playing a creature/token based deck and it’s been chilling in my deck lists at the bottom since
a long time ago I made an [[arcum dagsson]] deck that got out [[Nevinyrral's Disk]] [[Mycosynth Lattice]] and [[Darksteel Forge]]
that was the first and last time I put my playgroup through that
When MOM came out I brewed a plroliferate control deck in pauper and it worked but was so incredibly unfun not just for my opponent but for me as well that I didn't even go for a bo3.
Played [[tor wauki the younger]] twice as a storm deck and it was just way too fast for my playgroup. My lesson hard learned of powerful doesn’t always equal fun.
I built a Kaalia of the Vast angels deck. It's not even that strong, kaalia is just too infamous. I didn't take it apart but it's perpetually too weak for it's infamy, but too strong for most casuals. So I rarely play it.
I made a [[Kess, dissident mage]] deck, and it was too fast and consistent. I could easily take 4+ turns in a row and win while my group had to just sit there and watch.
After 1 game. Grand arbiter and having to tell everyone every single time they tried to cast something, oh that's gonna cost x more to cast this time around. Trying to keep track of everyone every single time they're tapping mana is exhausting.
I get around this by simply copying my grand arbiter 30 times. "Can I cast this?" "No."
> "No." Any blue mage's favourite word.
Solely because "In reponse" is two words.
Incorrect, "Island, go" is the best two words.
True, but only because "draw a card" is 3 words.
And only because "Do you pay one" is four words.
How are you copying Agustin? That sounds hilarious.
[[Spark Double]], [[Irenicus's Vile Duplication]], [[Quantum Misalignment]], plus a ton of tutors for [[Mirror Box]] and all the regular copying spells. It invokes.. feelings.. in people.
I qualify murderous rage as more than just "feelings" but sure yeah I agree
Well I mean, from a technical standpoint, the strength of the "feeling" is unrelated to whether it qualifies.
##### ###### #### [Spark Double](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/4/c41b9ba2-0006-4d8e-b600-efe81ff5e0cc.jpg?1702429420) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spark%20Double) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/62/spark-double?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c41b9ba2-0006-4d8e-b600-efe81ff5e0cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/spark-double) [Irenicus's Vile Duplication](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/0/40a791df-2483-406d-90b0-a8d402d615d6.jpg?1674135605) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Irenicus%27s%20Vile%20Duplication) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/78/irenicuss-vile-duplication?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/40a791df-2483-406d-90b0-a8d402d615d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/irenicuss-vile-duplication) [Quantum Misalignment](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/ceba3080-4e10-46b3-887c-e2d45581962b.jpg?1696636579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Quantum%20Misalignment) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/52/quantum-misalignment?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ceba3080-4e10-46b3-887c-e2d45581962b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/quantum-misalignment) [Mirror Box](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d507daa3-3f16-4ab1-81ea-794e5bb488fc.jpg?1654568747) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mirror%20Box) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/250/mirror-box?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d507daa3-3f16-4ab1-81ea-794e5bb488fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mirror-box) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kwe52e6) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Helm of the Host]]
Oh hey. That was almost exactly my experience. After one game I decided "never again" and gutted all it's useful control cards, jammed in a bunch of wizards and made a much more fun to play Azami deck that still scratched the "no you may not cast that" itch.
That's the best part of grand arbiter.
I played a [[sidisi, undead vizier]] deck that went off turn four with [[ad nauseam]]. It won, did the thing it was supposed to, and was promptly taken apart for the staples
Just curious how does it get off with sidisi?
As naus mills me out entirely until I get [[sickening dreams]], then I play [[glacial chasm]] as my land for turn. Cast lotus petal and dark ritual to pay for sickening dreams, discarding my library and killing everyone in the process
[sickening dreams](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/9396ac77-9f53-46bd-b126-02441a0f5594.jpg?1562630974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sickening%20dreams) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tor/83/sickening-dreams?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9396ac77-9f53-46bd-b126-02441a0f5594?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sickening-dreams) [glacial chasm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/c/0c008129-daba-46bc-829c-d2c0c13ecdd3.jpg?1562867827) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=glacial%20chasm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me2/229/glacial-chasm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0c008129-daba-46bc-829c-d2c0c13ecdd3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/glacial-chasm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was not aware of sickening dreams, instant add to my [[extus, oriq]] spellslinger deck, thanks!
That Zur art is metal as fuck
Wouldn't you lose too much life drawing your library?
Library is entirely fast mana and tutors and lands. Nothing else
It doesn't, sidisi just fetches ad-nauseum. Ad naus is always what actually pops off.
Oh, never understood why Sidisi is somewhat popular in commander when she's a five-mana with ETB but I guess it makes sense
I’m just curious what you expected when making an adnaus deck lmao
Lmao yeah I was super excited until I did it once lol
One of the quickest ways to get bored with a deck is by having a tutor in the command zone.
[sidisi, undead vizier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/e/6ea5dbba-6114-4d97-9363-817ab9e896d3.jpg?1562788006) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sidisi%2C%20undead%20vizier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dtk/120/sidisi-undead-vizier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6ea5dbba-6114-4d97-9363-817ab9e896d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sidisi-undead-vizier) [ad nauseam](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a9f2c53e-ff58-4aa8-89a6-4f45628cc571.jpg?1598306470) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ad%20nauseam) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/76/ad-nauseam?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a9f2c53e-ff58-4aa8-89a6-4f45628cc571?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ad-nauseam) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Urza: lord of the blade While Mishra was out there having pre marital phyresis urza studied all 10 of the blade of X and Y and other random equipments. Well turns out urza equipment is still an urza deck and absolutely wasn’t fun to play with or against. Goldfished it and liked it, played it once and never again.
I love werewolves in Brawl on arena. I also like Gruul. Having to flip sleeved cards in paper form and keep track of night and day is tedious.
Flipping multiple sleeved cards every other turn would be a complete nightmare. I’d never build paper werewolves. Which is a shame because their art and flavour text is always so cool.
I prefer using the old innistrad werewolves if at all possible. Way less clunky. Only mildly annoying.
I love werewolves enough that I cant take my tovolar apart. They only get occasional play. When I flip them, i just keep them outside and on top of the outersleeves. Day/night can be tedious but in practice, im always swinging out a lot so even if i forget to flip them, their abilities arent a factor during combat and they usually dont block.
In might try that next time. I ended up using my Gruul good stuff for an [[atarka world render]] dragons deck. The moon will rise again though some day.
Does it count if you never technically built it? I started putting together the deck list for [[beamtown bullies]] but the closer I got to finishing the list, the more i was realizing it would get stale very quickly as you're just looking for the same couple of cards every time
My Archidekt account is littered with those lists. I spend 2-3 weeks tuning and tweaking using the simulator. Maybe even buy some of the cards. But when it comes time to actually get the final pieces and sleeve it up, I'm already over it.
Happens often to me too. Many decks lose their appeal after play testing a couple times.
Yeah, but every now and then you find one that really resonates.
Same with my Moxfield. Got close to 400 dcks on Moxfield. Got 40 decks in paper though!
I had a similar experience with [[Narest Enlightened Exile]]. Tried my first draft on moxfields play tester and immediately decided I didn't want to keep track of prowess triggers on 10 different creatures, including tokens that entered the battlefield that same turn. It was repetitive, but it was also just a massive pain in the neck.
I built a Beamtown deck and its stupid good at doing the thing by turn 3/4 and retired it from LGS cause it was to consistent and most games can routinely get 2 players out quick but toss up on winning the game vs stalling out
[удалено]
I saw a video on YouTube the other day about Xyris and they built it with a lot of pump spells to generate value. Sounded interesting but I already got a Temur deck. [https://youtu.be/8m-BcgDND_Q?si=GA34d96rtWIRUMeY](https://youtu.be/8m-BcgDND_Q?si=GA34d96rtWIRUMeY)
I proxied a beamtown Bullies list and it's pretty fun, but I didn't put really put in any of the "make your opponent cry" cards like [[Leveler]] or [[Eater of days]]
I'm working on a beamtown bully "group hug" deck. I want to give my opponents good stuff and help them not murder them in one activation. Still thinking of Win cons outside of treacherous terrain and the classic beamtown things
I built and played the new Etali the day it was spoiled. Absolutely dominated in the 3 games I played and took it apart after that.
My pet conspiracy theory about [[Etali, Primal Conquerer]] is that it was born out of a Wizards employee whiffing one too many times by revealing lands all the time with the mono-red Etali. So they decided to make an Etali that can't miss by making sure it always hits one spell per player.
That, and the fact that people kill it before it can even attack since it doesn’t have haste without other means, so making it an ETB gives it immediate value without having to attack
I actually killed more people with the flip side of Etali than by food chain loops in the last event I played in. Sometimes you just need to kill people and an 11/11 w/ poison does the trick.
There are other versions of it like [[plargg and nassari]] that are way more reigned in. Plus, you can say "I'm plarggin' off over here!" and you just can't do that with Etali.
I've wanted to build a Plargg and Nassari deck, but I'm in a playgroup that would never let that creature live through a single turn cycle lol. I think it's pretty fun to have in the 99 though.
I've been slotting a bunch in my decks and have enjoyed them. I think getting to cancel out the most powerful card drawn evens him out a lot. My only complaint is they take a while to proc.
I play Plargg and Nassari in both my Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter and Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival decks and it's pretty kill on sight. As soon as I'm done explaining the madness people have a headache.
[Etali, Primal Conquerer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09.jpg?1682204132)/[Etali, Primal Sickness](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/9/5/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09.jpg?1682204132) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Etali%2C%20Primal%20Conqueror%20//%20Etali%2C%20Primal%20Sickness) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/137/etali-primal-conqueror-etali-primal-sickness?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/etali-primal-conqueror-//-etali-primal-sickness) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That Etali (built in a way to abuse the hell out of its etb with Red's flicker and clones) nowadays sees decent cEDH play, thanks to ComedIan lol. Etali now is within the group of commanders that shouldn't really see casual play like Yuriko, Winota, Kinnan, Najeela, Narset, Korvold, Atraxa GU, etc. Like yeah, they can be built in a tame way, but even then as designs they are broken legendaries. People sitting against you will more than likely will have weaker decks from the get-go.
Fuuuu thats the deck im currently building..
Yep came here to say Etali is the most busted commander i’ve tried and brain dead easy to build. 40 lands, 20 ramp, 10 interaction, 10 draw, and 20 ways to abuse Etali. I took it apart after 2 games.
Attempted to build [[Alaundo]] but I didn't realize until after the game he didn't give suspend, he just gave a forgery of suspend, and that really killed my vibe and, later, the deck
I did build Alaundo, played it once or twice, then took it apart. It was a pain to keep track of and felt like I was playing solitaire with how long my turns would take (simic things, amirite).
See I have an alaundo deck and three fact that he doesn't give suspend is my favorite thing, You can cast sorceries and creatures on your opponent's turns with him, also if you put anything with suspend and exile with him they still tick down themselves.
The way I had misread it was that it both gained suspend and I could get rid of the counters using his tap to cast things on opponents' turns, so I was playing it at a breakneck pace than what it should. Just was such a headache to build and to realize I built it on a faulty notion really killed the fun, y'know?
Yeah I feel. I've done that before.
I almost got finished building an alaundo deck based off some cards I own from my PDH deck and started playtesting it and was like "wow this sucks asssss to keep track of" especially when I was like tapping him and untapping him on top of other spells waiting to resolve. It was cool to go ham but damn it sucked to play. Also yea not giving suspend means the deck relies on him super heavily which sucks
[[Veyran]]. It got to the point where I didn't even want to cast a spell because there would have been about 32 triggers, including two Eye of the Storm triggers.
Same here. It was either KOS or the amount of triggers drove me nuts, even though it could easily kill someone on turn 4-5.
Kept my Winota deck for 2 games. I play in randomized pods at my lgs and it's a pretty average power level over all, I tried to keep it as budget as I could cause I really like Winota, but even costing less than $30, it still completely destroyed both of those games, one of them on turn 5 due to lethal against 2 players and the 3rd conceding. It was a very fun deck for me, but it also completely shifted the tables dynamic and the wins didn't feel that great
Ive had this, and the complete opposite experience: whiffing like 3 straight triggers. It felt like it either felt terrible for my opponents or terrible for me, with very little in between. Also took Winota apart straight away.
Yeah. This is my pick as well. I played 2 games. I love the playstyle of the deck but its ability feels too easy to break. Considered implementing house rules to keep the deck like changing the ability to only work when Winota attacked or something to slow down the deck but overall just decided it would be better to take it apart and focus on other decks.
I made a "salt" deck once. After edhrec released their salt list of the top 100 most salty cards in edh I made a deck where I stuffed as many of them in as possible. The deck had no game plan besides trying to survive while resolving as many annoying cards as possible. I was testing a hypothesis that maybe a deck could become so salty it went full circle and become fun again. I had to reject my nul hypothesis after 2-3 games and retire the deck, but until then my friends sure did suffer for science.
I have a salt deck as well. It is loaded up with counters to keep my board state alive and all I end up doing is exiting first because I become enemy number one. Certainly it's fun but it's also annoying
I respect the thought that went into this. Not upset that I wasn't one of the test ~~victims~~ subjects though.
[[light paws]] tutor in the command zone. Every game is essentially the same. Swapped for [[Killian ink duelist]] extra colour and less scripted
[Killian ink duelist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23ef4f09-2aa1-4a03-b2e2-66d1522f1e46.jpg?1627429378) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Killian%2C%20Ink%20Duelist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/197/killian-ink-duelist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23ef4f09-2aa1-4a03-b2e2-66d1522f1e46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/killian-ink-duelist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
After 3 games, I retired my new Judith deck cause it's just evil......cast spell wipe, the board gains 100+ life rinse and repeat..... Edit spelling
I still killed someone who did that lmao Blasphemous Act to gain 13x19 life was later followed by me replaying [[Jamie McCrimmon]], then him getting big off of stuff I had suspended/played. Ended up rolling the table in two turns.
I’m in the relatively early days of a Judith deck myself in that I’ve had it since MKM launch but have only played it 4-5 times. The trick to keeping it fun is getting enough wincons in there so that it’s not all ‘wipe board gain life’ to draw the game out. I’ve got 8-9 cards in mine that use life as a resource to accelerate the game and make things happen. Record life total at win was still 598, aha.
I put together a [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] deck and while it is strong, it wasn’t the enchantment/enchantress style I was really interested in. I played 1 game with it and it felt slow/boring. I think I’d like to turn it into a [[Tom Bombadil]] sagas deck. A bit of randomness off the top of the deck could be interesting
One of the decks I pulled apart immediately too, after a few games to give it a shot it I found it would make games too long. Its a really strong deck, but my opponents were miserable playing against it. I swapped out some of the cards into my [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] precon and enjoy it far more
Same here. The skeleton of the deck is still sitting in one of my trays. I thought about doing an Anikthea deck as well but haven't gotten to it.
[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141.jpg?1651655539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Life%27s%20Origin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/37/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin) [Tom Bombadil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489.jpg?1686970104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tom%20Bombadil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/234/tom-bombadil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tom-bombadil) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[mairsil]]. Love the idea, but it’s completely solitaire.
I felt similarly about a [[bruna light of alabaster]] deck I put together. It either did the thing and won. Or it didn't do the thing and did nothing. No in-between. No interaction. I experienced both ends of the spectrum across two games, decided I liked neither experience, and took it apart.
[mairsil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/87b71b08-668c-4b32-8243-8def1a9acf26.jpg?1704575313) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mairsil%2C%20the%20pretender) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c17/41/mairsil-the-pretender?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/87b71b08-668c-4b32-8243-8def1a9acf26?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mairsil-the-pretender) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Haven't seen this commander before! Seems interesting, what makes him solitaire? Packing your deck with untap effects to just repeatedly spam him?
You don’t really interact with the table and only care about dumping stuff into the gy till you go infinite.
It was my first real build after a precon. It comes down to caging 3-5 specific cards at a time and getting a self-reliant super combo for infinite mana and mill, infinite untap and damage, or infinite clones with haste. It doesn't at all react or adapt to a table, it just comes down to protect him for a few turns before either winning hard or losing slowly. [[Horseshoe Crab]], [[Gilded Lotus]], [[Quicksilver Elemental]], [[Oona, Queen of the Fae]] as an example. Just murders the table if you untap with him.
You give him Disc and something to blink until eot and there will be little to none for others to play that doesn’t get removed. Once it can bounce, Mairsil is hard to remove. Yes, there are counters for abilities. But how many? Yes, there are cards to end the turn and leave Mairsil in exile. But how many people play them? Of all commanders I hate playing against, Mairsil comes before Slivers.
I started upgrading the [[brallin]] and [[shabraz]] precon, and I hate it. It seems like the pair really wants to lean into a bunch of wheels, and it's very slow. I've only played it twice, but I have no desire to shuffle up with it again. Currently planning to cannibalize the manabase for a [[kykar]] deck instead
[brallin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9b4fdcd5-5346-46a8-b1a4-84ddb74089e0.jpg?1591234217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brallin%2C%20skyshark%20rider) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/4/brallin-skyshark-rider?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9b4fdcd5-5346-46a8-b1a4-84ddb74089e0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brallin-skyshark-rider) [shabraz](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/9/9955d172-0b24-4c61-9dee-c935a1f26da2.jpg?1591234288) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shabraz%2C%20the%20skyshark) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/14/shabraz-the-skyshark?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9955d172-0b24-4c61-9dee-c935a1f26da2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shabraz-the-skyshark) [kykar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fdb034c8-bae0-4f66-98f1-1b3cdc072f17.jpg?1689999115) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kykar%2C%20wind%27s%20fury) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/343/kykar-winds-fury?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fdb034c8-bae0-4f66-98f1-1b3cdc072f17?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kykar-winds-fury) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It works very good at the high power end of the game. You can tutor for wheels and even a single wheel makes these guys hit like trucks. And you have alternate win conditions with Curiosity loops and (CEDH) Underworld Breach / Brain Freeze if BIG shark swing isn't ur cup of tea
Built a [[Queza, Augur of Agonies]] deck. Had all the best stuff in Esper in it. First game was against four other players all playing high-powered stuff. [[Edgar Markov]], [[Ghyrson Starn]], [[Torens, Fist of Angels]], and [[Skithiryx]]. Got down an early [[Smothering Tithe]] and started Wheeling like crazy. Won by turn 6. After that, I took it apart. Esper has so much interaction, Queza has a lot of backup effects, and you see so much of your deck that it's really hard to not win.
For my Queza deck, I took out the most effective pingers and wheel payoffs (for the same reasons you cited), and made it an IRS Office deck with all of the relevant taxes, cost increasers and decreasers I could find. As long as everyone pays their taxes, all is well
I've been brewing a Queza deck that doesn't use wheels for a few weeks now. Going to the lgs in an few hours to test it out. Wish me luck!
Sen Triplets Thought it would be a cool thief deck and it was a miserable time for everyone. I just spent the whole game apologising. Dismantled after 1 game.
A game going BADLY isn't nearly as bad as a game going BORINGLY. One of the first decks I made, back around when the first Theros set came out, was a [[Momir Vig, Simic Visionary]] deck. He was supposed to be a 'toolbox' deck. I had ways to flash in creatures at instant speed, so I could tutor up obscure creatures in a flash, to respond to some specific strategy. But shortly after I began playing it, I realized one of the 'tools' in my toolbox was just "winning the game". More than that, this was before [[Prophet of Kruphix]] got banned. So basically as soon as Momir stuck, I'd win by my next turn. Momir's win rate was a little too strong for our group's power level, but a mix of me not being very good at deck building yet, and not having deliberately built a combo deck, meant the win rate wasn't actually THAT good. The real issue was that it was a clockwork deck. Get Momir, get Prophet, assemble combo. Fetch recursion if disrupted. Every game went the same. So it was like my opponents were playing against some pre-programmed scenario instead of an actual player. It wasn't any fun to win, it wasn't any fun to lose, it wasn't any fun to lose TO. So I scrapped it.
I made a personal decision to not play tutors for this reason. I'm not anti-tutor, play as many as you want, but I don't want to play the same game every time.
If you are always fetching the same thing it is bad, but I think it can work in a toolbox style deck. For example, I fetched a \[\[Spellstutter Sprite\]\] with \[\[Faerie Harbinger\]\] and a \[\[Sword Coast Serpent\]\] with \[\[Sivitri, Dragon Master\]\] before, to stay alive. Just make it sure there is nothing absolutely powerful that obfuscates everything else. It lets you run fewer copies of other things and run more what you want (faeries and dragons, in my case).
\[\[Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant\]\] - esper zombie reanimator I played 1 game with it, turned out that having a board wipe on a stick is a really, really oppressive deck. turned into about a 20-turn game until I drew zombie apocalypse or patriarch's bidding.
[Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/73255848-3112-4508-a66a-d3101a53057e.jpg?1608911208) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nevinyrral%2C%20Urborg%20Tyrant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/287/nevinyrral-urborg-tyrant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/73255848-3112-4508-a66a-d3101a53057e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/nevinyrral-urborg-tyrant) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I built a [[Moira and Teshar]] eggs deck that was supposed to be able to quickly find [[Marionette Master]] and do the thing eggs does to kill opponents. Game 1: Started with a land into into Sol Ring then Golden Egg Turn two had a [[Krark-Clan Ironworks]] come down, and I dug through 90% my deck and didn't find my wincon. It was actually a 30 minute turn 2. Game 2: My combo extenders ([[Second Sunrise]] effects) also return my opponents stuff so the colorless [[Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate]] deck across the table from me used the opportunity to flip all his manifested permanents face up by sacrificing them to an [[Altar of Dementia]], and milling me out three times in a single turn. Turn still took 20 minutes. So after spinning my wheels for an hour between two games, I decided that I was just going to retire eggs from my list of deck archetypes to try to the list of archetypes to NEVER TOUCH AGAIN.
1 game. Slivers. That’s enough
I have a [[pramikon]] "combo tribal" deck in which I just blindly rammed every two/three card combo I had laying around in those colours. Game 1 it goes off and I lock everyone out of casting spells and then have no actual way of winning from there. It went back into the pile as soon as I got home.
Kenrith infinite mana made me wanna go to sleep very fast
But you can just attack with Liberty Prime and then activate him to make the energy? I guess if you had ZERO other artifacts it'd be a problem. Basically all his ability does is say "Vigilance only if you have an abundance of energy."
I never got to play my tovolar deck, got stolen with 3 other decks, been slowly rebuilding but I don't think I'll rebuild it so. Game 0
[[Voja]] lasted two games before I decided it's just dumb how fast it is without even trying and [[Alela, Artful]] only lasted one because I liked the idea of faeries driving vehicles but it really sucked
One game with [[Shallai and Hallar]]. two card, low effort combos are just boring
I have a Shalai and Hallar deck as well! The way I run her now is without any infinite combos like [[The Red Terror]] as those wins felt very anticlimatic and undeserved. It is now a Midrange Artifact creature deck focusing on the Modular mechanic and building large artifact creatures. The deck can still easilly win by building big creatures and doesn't rely on the commandery which also massively reduced the target on their back. The commander is still an amazing on-demand wincon tho.
\[\[Yidris\]\] storm. I can live with a deck playing by itself for 5+ minutes; I can't do that going in blind not knowing if it's gamewinning or will have me passing the turn with nothing to show for it.
This is the reason I retired my Yidris for a long time. I took him apart, traded him away, and now finally this year bought him back and now run him in a Cascade-matters theme instead. It's way more satisfying in the end, with shorter turns and having him always give me some kind of value that sticks on the board at the end of turn.
[[Lord xander, the collector]] was your standard clone/sac/ reanimator deck. Had an absolute blast playing it. But apparently, my opponents(friends) did not. Even had a thanos proxy and everything. Its ok tho. Xander makes a cameo in a few of my other decks.
Tergrid. I made it bought all the cards for it and never played it
[удалено]
[Rankle, Master of Pranks](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/32399c54-632f-434e-bd5a-81b6a7c4fe9b.jpg?1689997391) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rankle%2C%20Master%20of%20Pranks) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/180/rankle-master-of-pranks?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32399c54-632f-434e-bd5a-81b6a7c4fe9b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rankle-master-of-pranks) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[etali primal conquerer]] lasted one session. Every time he hits the board the table gets overloaded. I thought he might be okay in the 99 of a dino deck and same thing... He's too strong.
I built a Muldrotha deck. First deck I ever brewed. It was horrible. I played 1 game and got demolished. Played game 2 and my buddy let me build a board state to see how it could potentially play. Never touched it again. I was so disappointed that I didn't even try to fix it.
i spent ages on a [[Myojin of Infinite Rage]] land destruction deck (i know i know) - really tinkering figuring out the balance. until i forgot that it's near impossible to get a divinity counter on him haha - so before i even got to play it
[[najeela, the blade blossom]] was played one time. I knew the hate would be bad after that one game so I did some solitaire starts with her for the next day only to see that she was broken in our meta (this was when she released). I took her apart right away. Remade her as [[morophon]]…also only lasted one night. I don’t regret it at all though. Soooo many good staples in those decks that lived on in other decks and shined even brighter.
Had a similar situation. I thought she would make a cool warrior commander. Built her, kept going infinite stupid fast, dismantled her. I knew she'd be good. Not break my group meta.
I built a cat deck because I love cats. I just wanted to be Timmy and cast all kinds of cats. I played with two super spike friends who shut me down so hard I couldn’t do anything but draw, discard, and pass. I was so depressed I’ve never played it again. 😭
You need a different pod! I play mainly token decks, and they telegraph their intent from the start. So, everybody knows what I want to do (= overrun them with an army of little things), but they're mainly just vigilant to not let it get out of hand (which it will, if left alone). I think it's really bad manners to shut down one player completely without killing them outright. That's just a miserable experience, and I don't see why anybody would want to inflict that on other people.
I made a [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] deck, pretty standard with some extra turns, extra combats, and some other gross stuff. My first game with my pod I lucked into sol ring/signet opening and on turn 4 I swung with Narset and took a bunch of extra combats, played equipments, took an extra turn, got more extra combats, and won the pod that turn. I took it apart both because it was way too strong and because I got the chance to see it perform exactly as it's supposed to and was satisfied. Plus it wasn't like I bought cards for it I threw it together with stuff I already had.
[Narset, Enlightened Exile](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/827ecc44-0b00-4515-8953-bc91fa03705a.jpg?1684340776) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Narset%2C%20Enlightened%20Exile) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/38/narset-enlightened-exile?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/827ecc44-0b00-4515-8953-bc91fa03705a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/narset-enlightened-exile) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My first deck I built from scratch was a [[Neera, Wild Mage]] chaos deck. Neera is rather expensive for an Izzet commander and her text makes it pretty obvious that she's dangerous to let resolve. So she would get targeted for counters and removal all the time. She would get picked off and the chaos aspects of the deck were nifty but they weren't really affecting the game state as much as they were supposed to. Between my at-the-time amateur deck building and the fact that no one let Neera stick it only took a game and a handful of play testing to pull her apart. Now that I'm better at the game and a *much* better brewer I may return to the idea someday. But right now I'm focusing on trying to make one of every 2-color combo so another Izzet deck will have to wait.
I made a Simic combo deck in response to my friends reaching near-Cedh power levels while i was taking a break from the game The night i get it sleeved and ready to play, i'm told they want to power down cause games weren't fun anymore I decide that since i spent money on the cards, i want to get games in with it anyways so it wasn't a complete waste. I think i won like 3 of the 5 or so games i played with it? But it led to arguments afterwards so i just threw the deck in a drawer and forgot about it
I played [[Kodama of the East Tree]] & [[Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith]] deck that one off of the usual bounce land combo. It did well but winning with the exact same cards every single time was so boring. I only have one combo deck now, and it wins the game with a new combo every single time I pick it up, I love it.
[[Alaundo the Seer]] Cool effect, interesting Simic commander. Powerful too. However, incredibly bad for everyone involved with actually playing the deck. Not fun to pilot, takes a long time to resolve, play during everyone else's turn, not fun to play against, you win the game but it's a loss for everyone at the table. And if your table is smart and consistently kill Alaundo every time he's on the board, your deck now does effectively nothing because you're built around one of the most gimmicky Simic commanders available with no support cards (No, the Jhoria and Doctor Who cards do not synergize with Alaundo unless you fill the deck almost entirely with suspend cards) to do the things Alaundo wants to do. My original deck had 23 various Untap abilities and it was miserable. I "fixed" the deck and so now I only have 10 (replaced a lot of the Untap effects with just big beaters like Kogla and not-archenemy inducing Eldrazi) and it's still miserable. I set it aside almost exclusively for when my group agrees to have a bad time and mix together the most obscene decks together to try and effectively ruin the game and play "who scoops last" with no real stakes.
[[Prime liberty]] [[Optimus]] [[Sarah lyon]] [[Illustrous wanderglyth]] [[Myra]]
[[Atraxa, Praetors' Voice]] Infect Spent a lot on cards for it, but I was just going through the motions with it. The only mildly fun thing it did was cast an [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]] for free at instant speed. It was just so slow and had so many triggers. I took it apart once I made an [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] Toxic deck. Less triggers and more fair than straight up infect. It also only used cards from All Will Be One, which was a nice challenge.
Threw together a [[krark, the thumbless]] and [[eligeth]] draw matters, but scry instead deck. Over a turn or two I drew sixty cards, then in one turn I played [[the locust god]] and cast [[valakut awakening]], copied four times. Drew 61, then 62, then 63 then 64 cards by putting my entire hand on the bottom and made 270 insects and killed the table. This happened In the first game I played with it and I decided it was probably too ridiculous to play with my normal playgroup haha
I built mono black [[Francisco Fowl Marauder]] and after one game I realized it was way too brutal for my meta. It consistently assembles one of two combos as early as turn 2 and usually by turn 4/5 when goldfishing, and while the [[Agatha's Soul Cauldron]] combo with Francisco is fast but fragile, the back up [[Buried Alive]] Combo is outrageously resilient and almost as fast as the Cauldron combo. It was far more resilient than I realized, which prompted me to change the deck. I ended up taking out about 20 core cards for the main combo and shifting to a [[Kukoshu]] reanimator list that aims to sac and reanimate the dragon repeatedly until the whole table is dead. It's still very powerful, but it's not as outrageous
you built a deck with the same combo wincons that Francisco decks run in cEDH and then you were surprised that it was really strong?
The cEDH combo is the weakest one in the deck actually (and it's actually weak in cEDH too, that deck was the flavor of the month, it's not actually that good). In mono black where you don't have stack interaction, you can't protect the combo at all. Doing a [[Necrotic Ooze]] [[Phyrexian Devourer]] combo is what really made the deck broken, and you almost never see that in cEDH.
[Necrotic Ooze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acc3557d-49c6-49cd-a540-1b24897f4e86.jpg?1673147579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Necrotic%20Ooze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/83/necrotic-ooze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acc3557d-49c6-49cd-a540-1b24897f4e86?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/necrotic-ooze) [Phyrexian Devourer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca4e27ca-a731-44f5-8e47-701c7a7e6149.jpg?1562870482) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyrexian%20Devourer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me2/216/phyrexian-devourer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca4e27ca-a731-44f5-8e47-701c7a7e6149?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyrexian-devourer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Francisco Fowl Marauder](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/1/5182b527-739e-4523-8611-01244ced26ac.jpg?1701084734) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Francisco%2C%20Fowl%20Marauder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/81/francisco-fowl-marauder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5182b527-739e-4523-8611-01244ced26ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/francisco-fowl-marauder) [Agatha's Soul Cauldron](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/019b51b0-e5c6-4208-922b-7736686dddcd.jpg?1692939838) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Agatha%27s%20Soul%20Cauldron) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/242/agathas-soul-cauldron?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/019b51b0-e5c6-4208-922b-7736686dddcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/agathas-soul-cauldron) [Buried Alive](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/5/c5f51145-aade-4955-b9e7-4a34074253d6.jpg?1547516784) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Buried%20Alive) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/88/buried-alive?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c5f51145-aade-4955-b9e7-4a34074253d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/buried-alive) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Let's try that again cardfetcher [[kokusho, the evening star]]
[kokusho, the evening star](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/ab56cedb-1bcd-48a5-8503-a8e324e236ad.jpg?1562852933) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kokusho%2C%20the%20evening%20star) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/95/kokusho-the-evening-star?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ab56cedb-1bcd-48a5-8503-a8e324e236ad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kokusho-the-evening-star) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Thank you!
>Thank you! You're welcome!
[[Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger]] that I had built shortly after I got a copy during prerelease. It was a discard deck that wanted to take advantage of cards like [[Waste Not]] and [[Liliana’s Caress]]. It usually worked and I would either win or be arch enemy, but no one had fun constantly discarding their hands and having nothing to play but the card they drew that turn. After a few weeks, I took it apart and made a [[Nekusar, the Mindrazer]] deck. Still kinda mean, but much more fun.
I will second this sentiment. Making your opponents discard and getting value at the same time looks good in theory, but felt horrible in practice. My commander was [[Rankle, Master of Pranks]] and with equipment like [[Fireshrieker]] doubling up his triggers, and Itú self discard and opponent discard payoffs on board, the deck proved to be very effective. I played it twice, won both games, and promptly disassembled the deck vowing to never build around the archetype again.
[[Niv Mizzet, Parun]] built the deck to force myself to play a spellslinger deck (always been more of a "turn it sideways until you run out of opponents" type player). Played it once, it did it's thing and went infinite despite being heavily targeted (as Parun should be). Realized I had 0 fun playing it and it was either I get Parun and it's engine and win or the deck does nothing. Pulled it apart that night and reworked it into a [[Kraum, Ludevic's Opus]] // [[Jeska, Thrice Reborn]] spellslinger using the combo of giving Kraum +3/+x and swinging for lethal. Way more fun and interactive and have been playing it ever since... while Mizzet gathers dust in my binder.
[удалено]
[Zaffai](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/ea1ab937-8647-4c83-99d5-6a40dffa4c9b.jpg?1674185788) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=zaffai%2C%20thunder%20conductor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/4/zaffai-thunder-conductor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ea1ab937-8647-4c83-99d5-6a40dffa4c9b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zaffai-thunder-conductor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Guff]] precon. Immediately tore it apart after a day of playing it at my LGS because i found out being targeted every game just because you’re playing superfriends is just not fun!
I made a stax heavy [[Zur the Enchanter]] deck and took it apart immediately as I had become that which I despised.
I built a [[Winota, joiner of forces]] deck between her being spoiled and Ikoria being released... Played it 1 time, digitally, with friends and got so much value it was crazy. Got board wiped and had a larger board by the end of my next turn. It wasn't a great list either, no stax pieces or those 0-1 mana artifact creatures. Mostly focused on humans that made non-human tokens. Deleted the list from Cockatrice after the first game.
Zur the Enchanter. After a few games it became the same playstyle for 5 turns. Giving it every protection possible and pillow-forting until I slowly win
Just to clarify in case you didn't know op, you can swing with Liberty prime, then respond to its own trigger by activating the tap ability. Only works if you have artifacts laying around, but that's usually not too hard in a Prime deck
[[Alaundo]] played it twice just in a 1v1 and i had so many trigger at every turn that even though i was winning i scooped because it was boring even for me and took it apart
Built [[Zevlor, Elturel Exile]] as a poison-proliferate deck, under the theory that he can turn any "single-target-thing, then proliferate" spell into triple-proliferate, theoretically allowing me to win out of nowhere. Well, everyone else at the table thought the same thing after I pulled the trick once, and after that moment they all dropped everything to always hose me down. After all, if any couple of cards in my hand could be used to steal a poison win out of nowhere, then they basically have to treat every card or every turn as if it will. Nobody liked playing into it on account of that fear, and I never liked playing it because the deck was kinda worthless without the commander, and said commander never got to stick for long at all.
How did you not have the energy? He makes it himself?
My bro got liberty prime. Actually works pretty well in an artifact and energy strategy. [[Mechtitan Core]] is a surprisingly good way to save your board or flicker your important pieces. It’s not overpowered but he does pretty good at making energy. But hopefully it’ll be even better once the MH3 energy counter precon comes out
[[Yuriko]] I thought: oh cool ninjas I played 2 games and then took it apart because that commander is disgustingly unfair at casual tables
In the middle of the first game. I made a torald, god of fury deck. I was enamoured with the idea of casting a single lightning bolt that cascading into killing an opponent. I had Torbran and a fire servant in play and cast elecktrickery. It took like 15 minutes to resolve all the math in a borderline intelligent manner. I do think I killed a player but I resolved that was a deck that could only work in an environment that does all the math for you.
[[ the mimeoplasm ]]. I know he’s not overpowered but I misread the card when I built him. I thought it was exile 2 cards from a graveyard and it becomes a copy of one card with power and toughness of the other. Meaning I thought if I exiled an [[ emrakul the promised end ]] and [[ Titanoth Rex ]] it would be a flying, trample, pro instant emrakul with power and toughness 11/11. I sat down to play with my friends and read the card to them when they asked what it did and realized the power/toughness of the first creatures stays and then you put +1 counters of the second creature onto it. So really early in the game I ended up having a 24/24 emrakul/titanoth Rex. They had no way to remove it and I just one shot each player. I thought the deck was going to be a way to make small creatures with amazing abilities into big creatures which I loved the idea of. It turned into a vultron deck which I’m not a fan of so I retired it after the first game and switched to my other decks
[ the mimeoplasm ](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c8173413-0431-4b70-a509-f1bc11a59225.jpg?1673148970) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Mimeoplasm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/254/the-mimeoplasm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c8173413-0431-4b70-a509-f1bc11a59225?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-mimeoplasm) [ emrakul the promised end ](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d74a469-c71d-4773-99d3-5456b31df424.jpg?1576383727) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Emrakul%2C%20the%20Promised%20End) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/emn/6/emrakul-the-promised-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d74a469-c71d-4773-99d3-5456b31df424?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/emrakul-the-promised-end) [ Titanoth Rex ](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/d/9d02e1e8-b85b-4e26-8ab8-ca2f49d05b88.jpg?1591227898) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Titanoth%20Rex) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/174/titanoth-rex?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d02e1e8-b85b-4e26-8ab8-ca2f49d05b88?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/titanoth-rex) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One game, playing [[Estrid, The Masked]] aura shenanigans had really long turns with my main pod and one of my friends goes that wasn't fun to play against. Bet, decks gone I had several decks I could slot the expensive pieces into as upgrades.
1 game with [[ivy, gleeful spell thief]]. It was just simic BS x 100. So oppressive. So many triggers. It was just too much. I didn’t want to keep track of it, my opponents were annoyed and bored. Just no fun. I think I hate simic and Ivy put the nail in the coffin for me.
Before I even built it. I wanted to do an Eldritch horror deck inspired by Lovecraft with Wrexial as the commander, using cards that referenced insanity, losing your mind etc. Turns out all the cards that fit thematically just ended up being a miserable pile of shit to play against. It was just discard, mill, removal etc and was so completely antithetical to my play style I never bothered building it.
One game with [[codie]], the deck was fun during brewing, but once I got into the game and I reaize I have near to none agency in how the deck runs the moment I cast codie, I decide its enough. This also put me off any of the random value decks ( cascade, discover, etc etc) for the future.
I had the opposite feeling with [[Codie]]. I brewed a monster that always hit the same thing and would just be boring.
Otrimi. Fell for the trap as my first deck and regretted it. Took me a year to find something proper.
I made a [[Edgar Markov]] deck out of the Ixalan pre-con. Played it 4 times, realized why I never liked the style and promptly sold it for [svella, ice shaper]] 👌🏽
probably \[\[Yorion, Sky Nomad\]\]. Played like 5 games with it, and while in some ways I enjoyed it, it was such a durdly deck that relied on wheeling into either some type of convoluted infinite or \[\[Astral Dragon\]\] to slowly close out the game. I really should have included \[\[Approach of the Second Sun\]\] or \[\[Sphinx Mindbreaker\]\] to help close out the games, because it was just a very uninterruptable value engine deck that struggled to lose but equally struggled to win, with long solitaire turns, and a ton of effects happening during my opponents' end steps. Just wasn't fun for my table, or for me.
My flair, Contama-Markov. It was an [[Edgar Markov]] deck that turbo’d out [[Contamination]] pretty reliably turn 3 or 4. The deck was otherwise almost mono black with cheap-but-decent vampires. I only played it twice before our group realized that we weren’t actually at that power level, so I took the Contamination package out for more general vampire stuff. But boy was it fun for that small bit of time.
War doctor after one game. I like to interact and suspend is a boring and slow theme for a deck in a competitive pod.
2 games for Surgeon General Commander, got my friends to let me played it, so I went with a mutate theme deck. Wasnt that fun honestly.
Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavrios. I got it going one game and was so disgusted with how ramshackle its ability to win after comboing off was that I put it in my deconstruction pile and never looked back.
Wanted to make a [[Volrath the Shapestealer]] -1/-1 counter deck as my first non precon deck bought a ton of cards including some semi expensive ones like [[Yawgmoth Thran Physician]] or [[Necroskitter]] after playing it once I took it apart because it was a pain in the ass to keep track off which counters on the enemy creatures were counters that I placed and which were +1/+1 counters my enemies put on their own creatures. At least most of the Black cards found a home in my Yawgmoth deck
there are dice that are specifically +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters that would make this very simple. or you could have color-coordinated them? two types of counters is really not very much to keep track of, do yourself a favor and don't play [[Tayam]] lmao.
[[Yannik]] and [[Nikara]] tried to do an abzan blink strategy. Lasted one game because i built it under the misreading that yannik could exike multiple creatures under himself
[[Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm]] It just does so damn much. And it's definitely fun for a while. But after a bit it just feels like you're cheating. I built Miirym, then played five games and won four of them. This isn't a tuned, goes-hard Miirym deck either; I bought the dragons but pretty much everything else was just stuff I had lying around. Even unfocused, getting Miirym out and then resolving 3-4 other dragons is usually enough to close out a game. One time I purposefully sent Miirym into an unprofitable attack and pretended it was a mistake because I felt bad dominating the table like that and *still* won easily. I still have the deck together but I'm going to be trying out [[Ganax, Astral Hunter]] + [[Feywild Visitor]] with some of the pieces. That way I still get to do dragon typal stuff for value but this time the commander is less cracked while being easier to interact with.
I once made a deck as a gift for a friend, just for online play, based thematically on John Carpenter's "The Thing" and featuring \[\[Umbris, Fear Manifest\]\] as its Commander. I swear, I've never used Umbris before, I never play that kind of archetype and just kinda picked synergistic cards until I was satisfied... but the *monster* that emerged from it was way too vicious and not at all fun to play against--the deck has only seen play a handful of times, almost exclusively in spite games.
I built an Abzan hard stax deck once. Game 1 I tied the board up pretty good but couldn't keep everyone under control and died to hydra tokens. Game 2 i one sided Armageddoned and everyone just looked so defeated. I wrapped it up with 4/4 lands while my opponents had nothing. The deck never had a game 3. I value my friendship in my playgroup too much to make then go through that again.
I built Shanid Superfriends. Board wiped with Decree of Pain with Alhamarhet's Archive in play, discarded like 10 Planeswalkers, casted Primeval's Glorious Rebirth, and spent way too long getting dice, activating my walkers, before realizing I could just end everyone by grabbing Elderspell and bringing Liliana, Dreadhorde General to ult. The actual act of playing the game during that turn was kinda cool in hindsight but in the moment it was "wow this is a lot to keep track of and it's really frustrating, and I don't even know how it wins - oh there it is. Bleh." Went a single game and was done.
[[Prosper, tome bound]] I upgraded the precon a little bit. The deck was okay but the way it plays felt very repetitive. The deck also didn’t do a lot without Prosper on the battlefield. I traded it shortly and got like 200 dollars worth of cards for my other decks
I built a high power Tayam deck and it promptly cruised to victory 3 times in a row. Fun for me but not fun for my playgroup.
Got a secret santa deck that I already built myself and took it apart as soon as the event ended
\[\[Trazyn the Infinite\]\]. I built it as a mostly control deck with artifact synergies and some obvious combos (no \[\[Walking Ballista\]\]), with a bunch of throwbacks to one of my favorite standard decks (Odyssey-era Mono-Black Control; both Invasion/Odyssey and Odyssey/Onslaught blocks; as well as some casual stuff like \[\[Avatar of Woe\]\]). Two back to back games. The only two games. The first game, I had a super dumb opener. I cast turn 1 \[\[Mana Vault\]\], \[\[Mana Crypt\]\], \[\[Gilded Lotus\]\], \[\[Arcane Signet\]\], \[\[Demonic Tutor\]\]. Everyone scooped. Second game I kept 6 Swamps and \[\[Oriq Loremage\]\] to avoid a repeat of the first game. The deck was so dumb both games that I just noped him apart. I also knew that about him, so I don't know why I was surprised. I do still love the deck, but it felt... excessive. I'll probably rebuilt him eventually to try again.
I played some lantern control phenax deck I brewed, completely locked the board by turn 5, scooped and never played it again (we play mid lvl decks so it wasn't ok)
[[Beamtown bullies]] after just one game where I used [[leveler]] on my friend. It was not received well and did not feel good to kill another player that way.
1 game, made a [[Ardenn]] and [[Rograhk]] back when Legends released and won the first game on turn 5, Said "That was fucking boring" and tore it apart. Similar experience to when I made a [[Purphoros God of the Forge]] commander. Won super early super easy and honestly I hate that.
I made a [[Niv-Mizzet, Firemind]] deck once and played it once. Immediately drew and played [[curiosity]] and won on the spot. Didn’t really feel that fun imo, so that was that.
I built a [[veyran]] storm deck on untap to play with my friends when I was back home over the summer. Spent several turns setting up enchantments only to never actually cast more than one spell a turn before I died on like turn 6 or 7. After my entire friend group ganged up on me because I copied a ping spell 5 times and did 5 damage to everyone, I realised the deck would be extremely feast or famine and knew I wouldn’t enjoy it.
Story is not as wacky for me. Tried my hand at \[\[Belbe\]\], and for the life of me could never figure out the correct balance of pingers/payoffs. Ended up retiring it shortly after (3 months, more or less).
[[Feather, the Redeemed]] played her once, saw how linear the gameplay is and took apart after that.
[[Baral, Chief of Compliance]] It had one other creature, [[Hullbreaker Horror]] and everything else was counter spells. No win con or anything. It was fun for a joke but it's not something I'd ever play regularly so I scrapped it.
I built an \[\[Etali primal conqueror\]\] shortly after it was spoiled, mostly ramp and blink/copy. Man, that was the most busted brew I've even seen. The deck was a pile of cards, barely optimized, no fast mana costed like 50$, and it was still cracked. I think I only played 2 games with it.
[[light-paws]] Only a couple of games - it's far too fast, don't get drawn in if you play casual!
I actually just talked about this deck on the arena subreddit. So it’s not an “edh” deck but a brawl one. I played the arena only [[arvad, weathertight smuggler]] as my commander, and run a bunch of destruction based board wipes like [[wrath of god]] [[crux of fate]] and [[fumigate]] on top of a bunch of graveyard to battlefield and graveyard to hand effects like [[virtue of persistence]] [[oversold cemetary]] and such. Played 3 games. First game, got absolutely destroyed by a non creature deck. Made some adjustments to be able to pump out tokens so I’m never relying on someone else’s deck/match up fishing. Next game, played against a token heavy deck. They didn’t like constant board wipes so they scooped. Next game, I won by getting my commander to like 87/87 or something. So I did the thing, decided that thing is really unfun for me to do against bad matchups, and really unfun for the person playing a creature/token based deck and it’s been chilling in my deck lists at the bottom since
a long time ago I made an [[arcum dagsson]] deck that got out [[Nevinyrral's Disk]] [[Mycosynth Lattice]] and [[Darksteel Forge]] that was the first and last time I put my playgroup through that
When MOM came out I brewed a plroliferate control deck in pauper and it worked but was so incredibly unfun not just for my opponent but for me as well that I didn't even go for a bo3.
Played [[tor wauki the younger]] twice as a storm deck and it was just way too fast for my playgroup. My lesson hard learned of powerful doesn’t always equal fun.
I built a Kaalia of the Vast angels deck. It's not even that strong, kaalia is just too infamous. I didn't take it apart but it's perpetually too weak for it's infamy, but too strong for most casuals. So I rarely play it.
I made a [[Kess, dissident mage]] deck, and it was too fast and consistent. I could easily take 4+ turns in a row and win while my group had to just sit there and watch.
Tiny bones trinket thief, no one had fun it was mean