Suggestion: Make an episode (or series) of commanders you have changed your opinion about, and adjust them on the list. I'm guessing some commanders gets better or worse with the introduction of new cars and rulings. Or if you just where wrong about them in the first place. Would be very interesting to hear your reasoning!

The deal with the "Tadpole Ship" (it's called the Nautiloid) is that it's the main plotline for Baldur's Gate 3. BG1 and 2 has you play as Abdel Adrian, and that has the whole Bhaalspawn plotline. BG3 is 120 years later, but in the same setting, and is a few months after the demon D&D campaign Descent into Avernus, which is also related to the city of Baldur's Gate. You and the others got kidnapped by the Mindflayers on the Nautiloid, and you need to work with the other survivors.

Okay so the baldurs gate thing is THREE seperate stories being concurrently told in this set and thats why you're getting confused. Abdel vs Sarevok is baldurs gate one. Jon Irenicus and bhaal resurrection is Baldurs gate 2, Mind flayer Tadpole planting is Baldur's gate 3 and is still in development, which is why several stories are unfinished for your lore section.

Boo is not just any Space Hamster. He is a Minitiature Giant Space Hamster. Also, the interactions between him and Jan Jansen are hilarious. Jan tries repeatedly to steal Boo from Minsc.

21:37 I love the visual of Plarrg and Juri showing off their new friend Oji 😄

43:30 So Wild Mages are basically super chaotic. They can't control their own magic, so sometimes they will try to cast a spell and it will do something completely different and random. I assume she wasn't trying to blow bubbles but it happened anyway.

My friend played Council of the Four and it had complete free reign of the table until a board wipe happened.. by then he was holding 40 cards in his hand with a Reliquary Tower - there were two completely fresh precons being played as well. He used Kami of the Crescent Moon to ensure the draw trigger, Smuggler's Share as well, and also a Welcoming Vampire.. he was drawing up to 13 cards per rotation (1 extra from Kami, 4 from Council, 4 from Smuggler's Share, 4 from Welcoming Vampire). We didn't have any spot removal available at the time, I burned my Deadly Rollick on a Grand Augustin IV that he had on turn 2

I gotta say, I feel like Elminster is very underrated here. They say he won't survive but if you make the deck properly, its easy to keep him alive. Its a blue white deck for crying out loud lol just saying because I won prerelease with it and friday night game too. Its just a build around.

A thing to note about Firkraag, it's when any creature is forced to attack. So use creatures like goblin rabblemaster who force your own creatures to attack and you draw.

I think the cat demon is a rakshasa. they ate pretty cool in magic lore. high level casters with backwards hands

I think The Council of Four is underrated by everyone, is wenever a player draws the second one you get the draw witch means every cantrip gives you an extra card. You can play a Ponder and draw 2 cards, then if you play any other thing you create a token too. Doesnt need to go group hug at all, maybe just Anvil of Bogardan and Geier Reach Sanitarium

For me personally, Dynaheir is going to be an Artifact/Graveyard deck with Emry, Osgir, and Tameshi as secret commanders in the deck. Most things creatures in artifact deck wanna do is tap to activate an ability with Artifacts and these all fit together PERFECTLY.

You guys are strongly underrating Mazzy. Auras can enchant many things besides creature's. Unbridled Growth draws you as many lands as you have untapped and there's many other types of Auras that are just incredible with her. I'd advise looking at her on EDHREC

The thing about Gluntch is that you have control over what you give. Here's the strategy I see: Ignore the player in the lead, give counters to a deck that probably won't do much with it, give treasure to who ever is behind on mana or missing land drops, or a card if they're flooded, and then you get whatever that previous player didn't get. I love Gluntch because it's a commander that helps everyone participate, if your group is very high power, I can understand not really caring about that.

Love that you guys researched the Baldur’s Gate lore. It’s such an amazing game. Feel like Beezy in particular would love it. Deep lore and rewards you for experimenting, exploring, and learning the nuances of gameplay. It’s like Elden Ring from circa 1996.

FYI: Elminster was Ed Greenwood's in world character. Ed Greenwood was the Forgotten Realms creator.

i really do appreciate you shared the lore. ty! i learned a lot about these characters.

Nice! This video will come in handy when I'm working later tonight. Also the hair looks sick joe.

Omg the hair is so good I didn't even realize you changed it for a bit

I can't wait for another gameplay video - your playgroup seems real healthy

The description you guys sum some of these cards up in for their lore/coolness is great lol

Council of the four is sooo good with cards like howling mine or kami of the crescent moon. It draws you 4 extra cards and 1 for each opponent

I feel like Miirym should be higher than a 5 for power, it can do some insane shit, and copying legendaries is crazy. Best plan is to Spark Double it so you're getting THREE copies of everything (Panharmonicon works great with it too), and Ghostly Flicker of course. 6 mana is a lot, BUT it has green so you can ramp like crazy into it, and you'll probably want to wait until you have 10-12 mana so you can play it then immediately play and copy something else.

Thrakkus - it's not the most powerful, but bear in mind that most dragons have evasion in the form of flying already, so doubling their power is pretty effective. It's fair that it doesn't have haste, but being in red there are plenty of ways to get it, which you'd want to be playing anyway for all your other dragons :) I may be biased from smashing with this in draft recently, but feel it deserves a little more love on your power scale ❤️

The Commander Ranking Spreadsheet is a gift to mankind. You guys are making the world a better place.

I made a council of four deck and I can say that you definitely draw a ton of cards. I won my very first CLB draft with it and since I like giving myself restrictions in commander, I took it from that draft and built a deck with it around my favorite bad enchantment, High Alert, and included a lot of creatures with higher toughness as well as blink and initiative synergies. So far, I'm having a great time with it!

Are you gonna rank all the backgrounds? I'd love to see that.

honestly I kinda want to build Thrakkus because of 'Dragon Peasant' lol oh also just to let you know, I believe the tadpole people are all from the new Baldurs Gate video game, it's how all the party characters meet I think (I've played the older games but not that one yet)

Looking good Joe! The beard looks nice and i like the hair!

There's a classic playset/campaign setting called Spelljammer. In there, the various other campaign settings (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance...) where planets from different solar systems and you could travel in magic-powered spaceships ("ships" here usually being large flying wooden boats. Think the Weatherlight). The mind flayers' pirate ship from Baldur's Gate 3 is one of these. Gnome tinkerers had ships powered by bear-sized giant space hamsters running on wheels. The gnomes bred these hamsters into many varieties and subspecies, including miniature giant space hamsters... which looked like regular-sized hamsters, but intelligent enough to talk in whispers sometimes. Or maybe not. If that's not clear yet, spelljammer gnomes fit the "mad scientist" comedic trope. So, it's possible Boo is an intelligent space hamster that can really talk to Minsc. Or he's just a well-trained regular pet.

first thought to come to mind when I seen Oji was, "I can't wait to combo off using Peregrine Drake with it's flicker effect". I really dig it's an Azorius commander too. tbh I don't see alot of people play WB. I mostly see the same 3 commanders when they do. this definitely looks like a fun time commander

Btw, Elminster has his own 11 book series, written by Ed Greenwood (who designed Forgotten Realms) 😂

What I love the most of you guys is that you always take a second to pet Amber when she's around... 😊

Baldurs Gate lets play series with Nitpicking nerds lets goo

Im looking forward to the 2 weeks sweet spot period of good videos when Baldur's gate content ends and the new preview season starts

I'm building Mazzy to pull out at the LGS this week. There are a few enchantments to cast on your opponents' things that have some fun synergy here. The obvious choices are things like reprobation or Kenrith's transformation which you get to recast again on new creatures once the old one dies, say in a board wipe or the player chump blocks with it. It becomes more difficult to get out from under these auras since you can keep recasting them. Curse of Silence is one I'm hoping to get to try out. Basically, tax a commander, sac it to draw, get it back and tax again. Otherwise, it does feel odd to go wide, but realistically even having 2 or 3 dudes with cheap auras swinging with trample is fun. You really need to pack the deck with every enchantress card since you don't have that ability in the command zone to rely on. But in red and green you get a lot of ways to tutor for them. I think it is going to be a lot of fun, and maybe a wee bit better than expected at 2 power. But we'll see how it goes.

Duke Ulder has a cool interaction with act of treason effects. You steal their commander and given them haste and myriad. Attack with them, trigger myriad and then kill the original with the legend rule. Tasha is actually kind of gross if you can get her going. Especially with Displacer Kitten, though that should be obvious. Elminster actually does survive a rotation often, and the scrys stack so you can get deep discounts on big sorceries.

Yo fellas, looking forward to seeing you two at Command Fest Philly, Drive safe Brothas

Elminster with a power of 2?o: that seems a little low, but I concede to the fact that Planeswalkers are harder to protect in Commander. I've played quite a few games with him and he seems strong. Chaining together Forsees, Tamiyo Epiphany's, into extra turns, or something like a Soul Herd. He also makes a very, very good Approach commander. Awesome video though, always love your commentary:3

Arvinox is another recent mono-black "play opponents' stuff" commander (which I'm actually building right now). Also, Tolarian Kraken is awesome for the UG pseudo-suspend commander.

Gavin Verhey talked about the design for Dynaheir. In limited at least it is the invoker commander, you have those 8 mana activated abilities and with her you can double their effect. IDK how good she is in constructed but that is the design space.

I've tested Nine-Fingers Keene and yes 3 color does limit the amount of gates you can play, but being in green means you have access to multiple ways to tutor for the gates, and you still have access to the best gates. Getting most of the gates out is easy for the deck.

Dynaheir & Timestream Navigator seem like best friends 😳

The amount of force that joe cherries said “my MANA DORK will be a TEN TEN” while staring at the camera was powerful

Hey nerds, I feel like for the Council card you’d want to build semi group hug maybe, but just with howling mine effects. It makes you draw a lot more cards since its draw portion includes your turn as well

Thrakkus the butcher seems like a staple for dragon decks as an advantage pusher. Such as when you use a spell to summon 5 5/5 dragon tokens with a haste enabler and then you swin for 50 damage!!!

You're really underselling Dynaheir, and I plan to make the deck that proves otherwise.

The Nautiloid Ship, Raphael and the "tadpole people" are all from the Larian Studios game Baldur's Gate 3 which is in early access

I don't think Alaundo traps your stuff in exile. The way it's worded, if it does and comes back, the time counters still remain on your cards in exile and you can still get them back. So you can get like 20 cards in exile, they spot remove it and you put it back and combo off

This is from Baldurs Gate 3. If you want, Pleasant Kenobi had a breakdown video on a lot of the lore for each card and where it came from in universe.

I'm building Jon Irenicus and kept waiting for him to be brought up. Lots of unique cards/creatures are recommended for him on things like EDHrec which makes him pretty fun, but maybe not depending on if you see them and you end up getting them in game 😈

Thing to note about the Council of the Four, it counts you too. Draw an extra card off your own draw spells. Run Anvil of Bogardan, suddenly you draw on everyone else's turn at the cost of giving a single loot. It's genuinely a cool card, but only as a build around because it's a grind commander. Like Tymna, like Kraum, this is just a two color variation of "the value grind." ... Which obviously isn't the best, but it's still cool. Value grind decks work best with more colors. Hence TnK Blue Farm being a good CEDH deck.

One of the things that I noticed is that the tier list is based off of their abilities as a commander. While Dynaheir is interesting alone, in a Sisay deck Dinaheir goes crazy with double tutors that puts them on the battlefield, plus that is 3 extra power for it

"it's just 4 of them hangin' in a room saying hey we're here" hahaha

Mahadi Is a Rakshasa, which are a special type of Fiend that look like Tigers. They’re really cool

Also I can explain why she’s blowing bubbles: in D&D there is a subclass of sorcerer called Wild Mage. If they roll a 1, they have to roll on something called the wild magic table which has a lot of random effects, and one I believe is when you speak you blow pink bubbles instead for a minute

For the "were something" question: in DND lycanthropy is a curse, it affects different people depending on their inner personality traits and can be spread. So yeah to become a werebear you get bitten or slashed by another werebear. All lycanthropes (were creatures) transform on a full moon however if they submit to the curse (it acts like a disease) they are permanently transformed. If you have a strong will and body you can control the curse and use its most powerful form, a hybrid between your human form and were form, however you'll still transform on a full moon.

Dynaheir seems really good with timestream navigator. Even if that’s the only “win” condition of your deck (and then you use your extra turns in dumb ways) you have at least 2 good tutors I can think of at the top of my head being both imperial recruiter and recruiter of the guard. It also is just having thousand year elixir in the command zone. Which while boring to some level is unique, at least in these colors

Also for Dynaheir, she was protected by Minsc and Boo so she has that for lore. She was killed by Jon Irenicus I believe in his dungeon.

First? Thanks for the great work! Keep it up 😉

Ayeeeee!!!!! They wished me a Happy birthdaaaaayyyyy

Will you do the regular precon upgrade vids?! Please! I feel like many of the main EDH shows stopped doing those...

Izzet dragon tribal burn with lozhan. I built her in EDH and she’s honestly way more fun than I was expecting her to be

"Council of Four" works with any player, so you can accrue value just by playing your second spell or drawing your second card on your own turn, even if your opponents aren't doing that.

Awesome hair!. Happy Pride!!!

Mazzy - "go wide auras" is actually pretty effective. Reduces the weakness of a Voltron aura style getting its one thing removed, whilst also appearing less threatening to opponents - a few 6/4 trample creatures with maybe some other abilities is less scary than an individual 21/21 unblockable commander that can one-shot you. I've been playing Kestia for years as a go-wide aura deck and it's both resilient and somewhat innocuous.

Mahadi isn't Leonin for sure, the interesting thing to note about Rakshasas (the Tiger cat devils) is that they have backwards hands! :D

It would be awesome to get a category on your ranking list for how fun they are to play AGAINST. That would give a better idea of if you are just going to get hated off the table or out of your play group for building that deck.

Dynaheir seems good even just for her first line of text. Having a thousand-year elixir in the command zone is super unique- the tapping and untapping archetype is a real thing

Wild Mage's are erratic and unpredictable, in D&D when I Wild Mage casts certain spells you have to roll a d100 on a chart to get some wild random effect, they vary from, permanently changing your skin color, height, age, you can turn into a potted plant for a certain amount of time, but one of them is that you constantly spew bubbles for a certain amount of time.

I actually tried building an Alaundo the seer deck, just to see how it would play out. And oh boy.... it's insane! As soon as your have one or two cards in hand that can untap this, it just goes on an unstoppable loop, where you tap it to draw a card, and then the card you exile is a card that can untap him, and then it just keeps going. Some of the best cards in the deck are actually just one mana spells that can untap him, because they're just gonna help you dig through your deck at an insanely fast rate. Once I stole someone else's seedborn muse with inevitable betrayal, while I had my own seedborn muse out, I drew my whole deck without combos and just won with lab maniac. Also, even though it looks really weak to boardwipes cause everything's on board, it's actually really easy to recover, cause I can just use Alaundo to dig through my deck to get more untap effects!

42:31 I heard that Mr. Cherries. ;P

All the lore of the set is based on the new Larian Studios game Baldurs Gate 3! Quite a bit of lore spoilers for the game is released through this set which I’m excited about, but you can also learn quite a bit about D&D and some of these characters from the game

Hey I was just wondering if you watch any of “Command Quarters” Mitch the host does AMAZING break downs of a lot of these cards.. And recommends great combos and strategies for even these lower tier commands.

- Thrakkus the Butcher flavor text should have actually read ''Ahh FRESH MEAT!'' - Astarion aka David Bowie - I love that I can finally use my old copy of Fan the Flames and go infinite with Raggadragga :P

The campaign with the mind flayer tadpole in the party's heads is Baldurs Gtae 3

Mahadi is a Rakshasa; you can tell by his backwards hands. Its a decadent shapeshifter that casts spells like a sorcerer and is vulnerable to silver piercing weapons. DnD does have cat people called catfolk, which are different.

Fun combo: Jon irenicus + ebeonblade reaper!

For oji and diluvian primordial you don't need the baubles, diluvian casts the spells so it will blink off that

The cat dude is a cool demon called a Rakshasa known for being very opulent and also eating human flesh.

@Nitpicking nerds The Cat Devil that makes treasures for dying creatures should be something called a Rakshasa, its a Shapechanging Fiend that tends to take a humanoid form with Cat/ tiger Heads and fur, the only thing they can never change no matter the form is that the hands / paws are the wrong side ( you can see it in the picutre), meaning palms up on the right hand the thumb is left / inside not right/ outside. They are very powerfull Sorcerers, and a really cool DnD monster to encounter as they like to engage in political intrigue etc.

I'm gonna build a Cadira deck cause rabbits are my favourite animal and I like the idea of a ranger/archer with trample

The Council of Four: howling mine effects

Kagha does work with Entomb effects.

Great video as always. I feel like wotc has just started putting "activate only once per turn" on frickin everything. Like they're over correcting for past mistakes. Not every card needs it.

Nalia reminds me so much of the nun from Father Dowling Mysteries.

Love the vids! "Gorion" is pronounce "Go-Ryan" not "Gor-eon" for future reference.

I think many of the references in this set are to the up coming game Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s in beta currently but the first few chapters of the game are available so that’s why some of these characters have some lore that seems to not really go anywhere. It’s like lore of a character from a game that’s only 30% finished.

I like Commander Liara Portyr for my Winota deck put it in the 99 then swap when I need to play a lower power table

The cat devil would be a Rakshasa and they often run businesses to get to high places in society. Although it's usually hard to catch them in their true form

John Irenicus + Phyrexian Negator. Demons that hit hard and require sacrifices each turn. Other creatures with nasty drawbacks. Basically Evil Zedruu.

Mazzy banks not just on enchantments you control, it wouldn’t be a great commander but it could work with the 99

Can you guys share your full commander ranking list?

the set is about the dnd campaign baldurs gate: descent into avernus and the new game by larian: baldurs gate 3

Gluntch is a flumph. Kind of hard to explain but the mystic’s first rule of dungeon survival is “trust a flumph

Minthara With Myriad creatures made me win prerelease, just so dumb

Misc & Boo is one of the best draw commanders, he makes power buffs into draw spells

everybody crazy until you put mirror box in Minsc and Boo

What I know comes from Baldur's Gate 3 game: (spoilers below) Kagha's backtory is this in that context: She was the apprentice to the true archdruid, Halsin, who went on a exploration with some other adventurers and was captured. She wanted to drive everyone that wasn't part of the Grove, especially the tieflings, away by using an "illegal" rite, known as the Rite of Thorns. Other than that, I didn't experience. Mahadi, is known a a rakshasa, which is a cat demon whose hands are supposed to be reversed when compared to humanoids. Astarion is a companion in the game. He can change depending on your influence. He can in fact, walk in daylight, but running water does damage him. He is very secretive towards his backstory and he will only tell you a little bit. He was bitten by a vampire noble, but was forced to feed on rats and other lowly creatures, and be the slave-type, so when he had a chance to escape, he took it and now does as he desires. Minthara was one of the Chosen like the player character of the game. She was infected with a mind flayer tadpole, but this tadpole did not involve the complete ceromorphosis, to turn their victims into other mind flayers, so she along with others, (probably on this list), led a group of goblins in hope of Destroying the druids Grove. And that is all I know. 🙂

Mahadi is actually a Rakshasa which is specific type of shapechanging devil in DnD (based on Hindu mythology). He runs his wandering emporium in the first layer of hell, Avernus. Hell has its own levels of psychological torment, so most food will turn to ash in your mouth, and water tastes rancid. Mahadi wanders Avernus and collects magical artifacts and good in the wreckages of battles (his ability is a flavor win). Since good food and water are so hard to come by, he is able to barter hefty prices for his goods. His preferred method of commerce is using soul coins (coins with souls of the damned trapped in them), which is also the standard currency for the Nine Hells. There's also lots of other fun bits of lore about his emporium (he has a spa on its own demiplane) and his history with Lulu. Probably my favorite character in this set after Lulu, but its because I love the campaign they are in so much.