Good news, my deck doesn't even work with my commander, so I'm all good there.

Voltron players in shambles

This sort of feels like a litmus test for me. Even if your commander is out and its a key piece, there will just be some games where you'll have to deal with them not doing the thing, being removed and made expensive, etc. At some point it may become no longer worth it to even put it out again. Some of my best games have been with my commander on the bench because it felt so good to have the deck work in spite of that.

I think if your commander is really important and "monolithic" and you don't have the cards to reliably protect them in your deck or simply didn't draw any... and your meta has a good amount of interaction and/or boardwipes, then it might be wise to simply keep your commander in the command zone for longer than you're normally comfortable with. Even if you commander costs only 3 mana, maybe don't run him out until turn 6, even if you ramped. Have enough "generically good" cards in your deck to cast stuff, maybe have a couple of rattlesnake cards. E.g. ramp, draw, disruption and wait for a time, where maybe there is another big bad at the table. If you deploy your commander immediately after a board wipe, you're just going to be the next arch enemy.

I like to think of my commander as an enabler of the problem that is my deck

It's a case where you need to either "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," or "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket." You either have to fully commit to commander protection, or you need to diversify.

"Have a backup plan in case of___"

Jimmy Neutron has some pretty good points tho...

I feel like this applies only if your main goal of the deck is to "win". Now i don't mean that you should never try to win a game of commander, all decks should be capable of at least that, but i mean that not every commander deck is made to look for a win, sometimes it's to do something janky and fun. but if you decide to go down that route you can't be too surprised if the win ratio of the deck is low. for me my philosophy is make a deck work without your commander, but work better with it.

I have never heard of "dies to removal" being used in a context outside of a kind of joking response to 'man this card is so good/busted/etc.,' so it's interesting to hear it being used in the context you bring up at the start of the video

Whenever I build a deck, I always consider "What's my back up plan?" A good example is my Olivia Crimson Bride deck. When I first built her, it was PAINFUL to have a 6 mana commander countered or removed. I thought about what I can do that can act as a back up plan, but also fit within the deck. Drana, the last bloodchief, Feldon, and especially Chainer NIghtmare Adept all act as possible backups while fitting within what the deck is trying to do in case Olivia just can't stick around. Personally for my decks, I don't want to build a deck where there's only one path to win, where all the decisions I make in playing end up in the same place every single time. A super good example of building this kind of flexibility is the new Omo. I absolutely love this commander. You can go landfall, lands matter, anthems/lords... I went with the more financially responsible anthem/lords version, but I've won with either my creatures powering through and being unblockable, but I've also won by turning my lands into creatures and gaining the anthems/lord effects from the everything counters and swinging through to win. (EDIT: reading the card explains… she distinctly says nonland creatures so this doesn’t work) I know I've done a good job when my friends are excited for me to win because I did something they didn't expect with a deck. Also, why the hell is Trade Routes not on Omo's edhrec AT ALL. That card is a beast when you've got land recursion or want to tap your Urza's tower for 5 mana (tap, pay one, bounce it back, play it again, tap), even in my more creature focussed version it does so much work. The worst kinds of commander games are the ones where you feel like you've had no impact at all on the game, where you've felt like you did nothing after the game is over.

It's funny, Galea, Kindler of Hope is my favorite/strongest deck that I use right now. I love the way the deck uses her, but she also relies on the deck too. The main point is that I generally want to have effects that reduce the casting cost of artifacts, a lot of top deck manipulation so that right before I play her, I can shuffle a bunch of equipment to the top of my library and then drop them onto her for free all at once. The deck is a Voltron deck, but it usually wins with a combo.

Enjoyed this video so much that I had to watch it again! It is also very timely as I am having issues with my Ulalek deck.

Tried this philosophy, my decks were stronger but so much less fun. Building around your commander is what makes the format unique. I went back to building around commanders and never looked back.

Trinket Mage made an excellent video talking about the best way to build a commander deck is building them "bottom-up" as in starting with a coherent deck that works well within itself and then fitting the commander to it. I now build my decks in the same way only treating the commander as an extra card to the 99 I will simply always have access to. I think this will help with people building more unique decks (it's helped me make mine unique) and avoid the pitfalls of using EDHrec as a resource.

Enjoyed the video, excellent point

I’ve been thinking about this maxim a lot as I’ve looked at brewing The Necrobloom. On the one hand, building around the landfall trigger feels like a more commander-independent path, but it makes the deck feel like a generic-landfall option. On the other hand, building towards the dredge mechanic would require Necrobloom on the field, create something more unusual but might push towards a combo-centric deck and power-level that I’m less engaged by. Thanks for distilling your thoughts on the topic.

I agree that advocating for novelty over optimization is import. Playing powerful decks and commanders is fun but the MOST FUN I’ve had with Magic is playing suboptimal, unique cards that lead to the WOW moments we can only have in this format. Great discussion and loved the video!

great video ! i like how you think about others play experience especially as there are lots of new players or deck builders

My Archimandrite Artifacts deck is probably my most proud deck, because it mainly just ENABLES all the artificers and whatnot that happen to go into my artifact deck type play style or whatever, and seeing it in action without ever needing to cast my commander is such a good feeling

One interpretation I've seen for how to use a commander comes from the channel Salubrious Snail who points out the commander as a spell you have access to all game, and to take advantage of that to fill holes in your gameplan like a commander who can remove threats or protect your combo deck or something like that.

Laughs in Sidar knights. He literally is the decks engine. And I just crammed a bunch of knights in it and card draw and said yeah.

My current favorite deck right now is Maelstrom Wanderer, it’s focused on getting the commander out asap and then bouncing him back and forth from my hand so I get a ton of cascades. Most of the creatures in the deck are cmc 6-7 and they have a lot of creature synergies. It obviously relies on the commander but even if it gets countered I still get the cascades and I usually have enough mana or I can bounce him back in response.

Not every deck needs to work without it's commander. Build what you want. Have fun.

I have a good way of litmus testing a commander deck, shuffling in the commander and playing a game with it. I personally have a multiplayer fornat where you use a commander deck as a shared deck(kinda like forgetful fish or patry box) and thats opened my eyes to how my decks actually play, since i see 4 different draws of the deck.

You cant tell me what to do!!! Im subbing

I love this video!!! Honestly a lot of these channels are starting to annoy me about how they talk about don’t build around your commander with a whole “video essay” like… obviously if you want to win you just put a pile of good cards in your deck that don’t have to do with your commander. Look at the cedh decks built around partners that barely use their abilities or build around them. But some people want a more unique and flavorful and thematic deck built around the commander, even if we know it isn’t the easiest way to win.

The most fun is when your deck does the commander thing but your commander is making it just better. my Bear deck as soon as my commander comes out she is dead and makes the whole deck better when out, but it can still fight until next time. my The beast deck falls flat without the commander out. and my living isle does work without the commander as the commander is just there to swing commander damage but I have other Equally as big creatures in the deck.

I like it when it works with or without.

My Shigeki deck is interesting to consider in this context. It really needs my commander to function, I just dont need him on the battlefield. He recycles things from my graveyard when channeled from my hand and I have 8 copies of 'put him back in my hand' in my deck. So yeah I need him but its also almost impossible to keep from being able to use him.

great vid! I saw that you mentioned your Marvo deck, I finally finished building it last week, it's such a fun commander, although I feel like it's missing extra turns and interaction. Had a game where Marvo just popped off with Spark Double and Anton Soldier + myriad tokens, so I ended up getting around 30 triggers of draw and freecast, pretty much had every big creature on board, but I still didn't have a win, if I passed I would get a boardwipe, so I had to win there and now. They ended up conceding, but I wasn't satisfied with the win lol, so I ended up adding 2 extra turns cards, a few more counterspells, also added Weed Strangle, it's a clash card + destroy any creature, and you gain life of its toughness, which is what you said at the end, to tailor your deck to your preferences and needs

Wow i didn't know Sid from Toy Story played magic And is insightful on deck building

I had to learn this with my Howling Abomination deck. Every time i played home without being able to have a blowout turn, im usually targeted down because of how ridiculous he can get. Now, i put redundancy in the main deck, and it's a lot smoother. Ive been applying this to all my other decks and its helped a lot

i’ve only recently come to the realizing that i don’t like commander centered decks from playing hylda since like you said all your doing is slowing the game down yes there are a few cards in the deck that benefit from tapping by not nearly as much as hylda so it was very pop off like crazy or nothing a lot of the time i decided to take it apart due to looking back and realizing all the times i really didn’t have fun with it

Some of my decks can opperate without the commander on the field or the commander just adds an extra little zing to spice things up, but they really don't need to be there. Other decks I have are focused on the commander's ability and I have to deal with keeping them safe.

Snail shout out 💪

This is a great vid. I’m still a fairly newer MTG player and this is something that I will keep in mind going forward. What I’ve figured out in my time is that, while a commander should be a staple of your deck, it shouldn’t be a make or break.

I'd like to see your take on Henzie as a commander. Probably one of my favorite commanders if not my favorite. I love it because you don't need or care about protection, you don't care if your stuff dies and in fact you want it to since it fuels your gameplan. Typical Jund but I like henzies flavor of it.

The last thing I want in my casual multiplayer format is people telling me what I need to put in my deck instead of cards I actually want to play with.

I like to think of my commander as one of the 99 that i can tutor for at any time. You wouldnt build your entire deck around one card in your 99, but you might make one card the big bang card. I have multiple decks where i explicitly made the deck to play godsire, but the deck can and does win without ever seeing godsire in hand. Treat your commander like godsire.

I made a Gonti adventures deck that I intended to revolve all around him, but it evolved to not needing him most of the time. He's just there to multiply the adventures, but I have other sources of that. On the flipside I have an Imskir deck that just doesn't care what happens to the commander. It's an ETB draw that I can cast for 2 mana. Dealing with him results to negative card advantage on the opponent's side because he's so cheap to just... cast again. And if he ETBs he already did his job anyway.

I think green also has some decent protective combat tricks. It’s not super efficient, going down a card for one turn of hexproof and/or indestructible, but it’s definitely better than anything red has.

To be fair, winning 50% of all games with a commander deck is extraordinarily good.

I actually had a friend who build a couple decks that weren't in any way reliant on the commander. He just picked it for the colors and had a 99 card deck that just did its thing. So they do exist, and it is a valid strategy to use ehat amounts to a fake commander that never gets used just to throw your opponent off, like sliver overlord without any actual sliver cards. That was one of his.

I Roil Omnath deck is in a strange spot, where having him out becomes a piece of the value engine that ovewhelms my hand with cards, and the +1/+1 counters he throws around either win harder or do nothing. So to say, eventually my commander is hurting my game plan.

I fully believe this is one of those rules that is important to acknowledge whether you are going to follow or not as you begin your deckbuilding process. I have plenty of decks that really do just care about what the commander is and does, mostly mono red decks that aim to get the commander out by turn 2 or 3 and never actually plan to win like chiss-goria and slicer, but I also have decks like my shorikai deck that is almost entirely value pieces and interaction in the 99 and just uses the commander as a card draw engine to allow the 99 to win me the game. I do mostly believe that the playstyle of the deck should be primarily influenced by the commander and its capabilities but whether or not the commander itself is actually needed to make plays should be almost entirely decided by how you are feeling while making the deck.

I build a "Hidetsugu and Kairi" to play all those bigs spells too. I stopped playing it after a few games because it was too long to play and opponents were not conceding 😂

Nice video! A question, what would you do to avoid the problems of overdependence of the commander un Hylda decks? I a currently trying to solve that issue. Thanks!

Some of my decks are commander dependent, others I don’t even need to play the commander. Just build decks you want to build. It’s not bad to be dependent on the commander. Just be prepared to protect or recast it

I feel like a good perspective on the dichotomy/gray-area is this: "Whatever you do, do it because you *want* to do it; don't do it by accident." If you're making a janky deck that focuses fully on the commander and some crazy interactions, and that is what you want to do, own it. You know what you're getting into, and you know that it might end up being inconsistent, or that your dangerous commander might get targeted out; that's the game, and you know what you're in for. You're ultimately trying to get that magic moment when it all works, and it feels *great*. The point is, don't just 'end up with' a weird pile, or a janky mess, or a same-y consistency pile, or whatever. Be aware of what you're choosing, why you're choosing it, and what experience that is likely to get you at the table. On the practical side of 'be able to run without your commander', I wholly agree that it is often more fun if you're still able to meaningfully play the game without the benefit of your commander on board, while you're hopefully setting up to get it out again and try to push your main plan. From a 'I am having fun playing this game' standpoint, I am having more fun if I am able to play meaningfully and interact with the board state even while I'm in a 'holding pattern' waiting for the opportunity to bring up my commander again.

... i am always the person having the removal spell in my playgroup. I run between 15 and 20 interaction pieces in most of my decks.. which is quite a lot. My friends always answered: I play so much removal but I just don't draw it. When I asked one of them, if I could peak through their decklist I found out that they run: 4 spells in their Bant color deck. Arcane Denial, Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Path to Exile.

My favorite deck I ever made could win without its commander, because it wasn’t even built around the commander in the first place. I just got mad at the Ivy player in my pod and made a list around forcing them to fight my Phyrexian Obliterator and sac their entire board. Kresh was the only thing that fit my colors and even vaguely fit with the deck theme (playing big power creatures and killing my opponent’s boards).

My osgir deck often fails to counter spells so now I’m putting in pyroblast and red elemental blast

I do have cards to protect my cards

Laughs in Eriette while enchanting everyone elses creatures with buffs.

When the commander storm cards were released, I built a deck with them in mind. It's Thrasios and Vial Smasher and the general idea is that I expect my commanders to be removed and I benefit from it. If they won't get removed, I still benefit from it. It's not a great deck, but it's fun to play and that's what matters to me, I enjoy playing underused stuff over optimization of my deck and usually my commander supports what I'm trying to do. I also have a Xiahou Dun deck where the point of the commander is to die, so it's sort of build around, but there's plenty of commanders that have their effect of sacrifice or overall not sticking on the field.

I've always had in the back of my head what if commander dies can I still do x or win and yeah it doesn't need to be optimized my first deck was a token deck with og sigarda an un sackable army exception of board wipe now its a voltron deck with auras / equipment I gave her cool shiny equips because she was my first deck and needed some updated love. But I was worried to its weakness to her dying so I made sure the support be able to juggle if she went or could no come out

I don't run a lot of removal beyond mass target like the obvious cyclonic rift, or curse of the swine. Instead of removing a lot of removal, I double down on protecting my stuff and commander. Blinking/phasing/ and so on.

To me, the biggest thing is that you should avoid building around a toolbox commander unless you’re prepared to have one of the following happen (and it applies to deck building in general but is primarily showed by do-all toolbox commanders): -You have an uneven play experience -You will run enough redundancy to not need the commander -You are ready to protect the egg in your basket like it needs to hatch so you can continue breeding chickens I think that the do all commanders are bad for the format because they reinforce the mindset of building around your commander without a real backup plan, so it can be too easy to bring that mindset to deckbuilding in general.

Any ideas for protecting mothman? I cant run lightning greaves because of the fact that it targets itself to get bigger. Considering champions helm

I'm a complete and total newbie at magic, but I can proudly say that my deck passes this scrutiny. I use Grimlock as my commander for a Dinosaur/Artifact deck. And before anyone asks, yes it is a proxy, I cant afford a $300 card that I cant even use outside my friend group because its a silver border.

I always bring my OG Atraxa +1/+1 counters deck, it was my first building a deck on my own (yeah, I was dumb and choose a 4C commander). I did the moronic mistake of even putting mostly of my ramp rellying on counters and proliferation combined with cheap lands and cards that only work well with her, it lost to 2 precons because it didn't ramp or did anything. So started again, using generic good ramp cards and artifacts, using more tango, fast, slow and check lands, and actually creating a synergy that didn't really on Atraxa. It became a pretty high powered deck that can play well without Atraxa, she now is a an amplifier if my strategy, not my main strategy.

Ypu brought up a very valuable point that not a lot of content creators address: not every commander deck needs everything all the time. SOMETIMES its actually beneficial to the health of the deck to NOT put certain things in. Now, that point is only under certain circumstances and MOST decks should have a healthy mix of interaction, but not ALL. Thats where the art of deck building comes in. To your point of the deck running without the commander, like you said, not always true. If your commander is 2-3 cmc, it might be extremely beneficial to hyper focus around bringing that commander out as fast and as often as possible to reap the benefits.

I love finding janky cards that only work in the scenario the commander makes... I just had to come to terms about not winning all the time.

As a cEDH player your commander is extremely important. People who say “your deck needs to work without your commander” don’t have a good understanding of the format.

I recently made a bant stompy, which is a new play style for me. I entirely designed it without a commander in mind. It's a totally different vibe than my previous decks. Very fun to make and very fun to play. It now uses Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists just as a backup way to rebuild after board wipes. Definitely recommend taking that approach in a deck, it's a fun way to make a deck.

There are now a lot of enchantments that remove all abilities from creatures, and many decks run very little enchantment interaction (good luck black and red). Cards like Amphibian Downpour, Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, etc. These cards break the format in the sense that they are removal where your opponent does not get to choose to put their commander in the command zone. The player must interact with the enchantment or find some way to destroy their own commander. If the deck relies mostly on the commander, and they have few answers to these types of enchantments, they are going to be in a very rough situation. This is one of the situations "your deck should work w/o your commander" is trying to avoid. Because let's be honest, if removal is not found, commander-centric decks 95% just lose to an Imprisoned in the Moon. I would argue that Imprisoned in the Moon is the best removal spell in the casual format. Because it turns the commander into a literal land, and most decks have few ways to interact with lands, it makes this extremely hard to deal with.

Most fun deck i made was Lady of Otaria where her alternate mana cost is tapping 4 dwarves and watching my opponents slowly realize that countering/removing her is pointless

Sometimes I just want to jank something that my playgroup let me have non legends as commander, usually I just get stomped but sometimes getting stomped will be hilarious

How about Horobi death's wail? Whats Ur take on horobi?

My first and favorite commander deck is Zurgo Helmsmasher, and where the deck is at now is far removed from it's first iteration. It started off as an Ally Deck that didn't really need Zurgo but he did the work but I can at least have a board state that didn't need him. Over the years it has become a pure voltron commander and the sole creature of the deck where ramp, draw and speed are key with an abundance of boardwipes and targeted removal and interaction with extra combat steps with double strike. I've taken out someone with commander damage by turn 3. It's really my favorite deck, and I have over 25 decks built from scratch.

If your commander keeps getting removed, you're also not running cards that are scarier than your commander. People hit Otharri often, then i reanimate him, or they left the smothering tithe alive for too long

Nadu/Magda/Jodah players scratching their heads on this one

My precon upgrade from merfolk literally doesn't work without its commander

Neverrrr

Ultimately its a game, if you and your playgroup are having fun don't change anything. However, I think a lot of these types of sentiments are directed at people who can't seem to have fun or keep having nothing to do during games because of problems that could have been solved before they sat down at the table. If you aren't having fun or you feel like you keep having nothing to do during a game, I think the sentiments of "Your deck should work without your commander" and similar consistency points can definitely help with that. It also can lead you to finding more interesting ways of playing because of finding lesser seen commanders that deserve a spotlight, which happens a lot when you do something like build the 99 before the commander, or at least having a deck idea and finding a commander that helps that deck idea instead of the other way around. The inverse is still fine either way, some commanders are so monolithic that the deck almost needs to be build around them instead of the other way. But different approaches can help people who aren't having fun the normal way, or are bored with the normal way and need something to get that brewing mindset turning.

I'm still fairly new to MTG and I run a Niv-Mizzet Parun deck with the infinite combo pieces. It was one of the first decks I've ever built from the top down and is one of my favorites. But I also have a small side deck to be able to swap out those combo cards because I also understand he's not fun at every table. My thought on it is, if during round 0, if people are ok with combo pieces/are planning on running their own it's fair game. But I don't always reach for him because I have other decks that are more fun to play with, without being target number one.

how can i play my prime speaker vannifar pod deck without her tho?

15:15 thats good and all, just play enough protection so the deck doesnt lose to a single kill spell, if you want the deck to work ofc, im not saying "no decks that dont work when your commander was removed 13 times are invalid" im saying if your commander is a removal magnet, have ways to counter the removal or protect the commander if its that important

Meme decks are fun. Toski is a fun one

I made a deck theme around knights and wizards cause King Arthur and Merlin and went heavy on creatures trying to keep out all Voltron style or other tribes , I don't win but usually get focused into oblivion and can't enjoy my deck cause people expect me to go destroy their faces even if i'm not swinging, if a play my creatures i'm a menace to the table, if I play my commander, if I play my planeswalkers, if anything... but if I dont they just go "oh no resistance I hit you in the face/combo for the game" ... I tried playing more agresively but when I notice that with one more hit of my commander I leave some one out the game I no longer enjoy

I really love the "all or nothing" playstyle. I just need to find a group who's okay with that being the game we play. That is, I don't want my commander to get countered or destroyed 8 times in a game. I like games where each player only casts 1-4 pieces of removal/countermagic over the course of the entire game. Maybe one board wipe.

I think one of the valuable formats I've seen in deck discussions is when they build a casual powered and higher powered casual deck, when I first started playing it really helped me get out of "these x cards should go in every deck" or "No point in playing this commander without these x cards"

On the casual side, Feather the redeemed cant function without commander (but the deck plays enough protection from 0 mana up). Maybe my Kumena reck dont work without the commander (40 1 mana 1/1 tend not to have too much value). Most of my decks do have function as a weaker version of the main game plan

>Laughs in Zada

CEDH deck just wants the colors 😂

My mothman deck built around proliferate that only works when mothman is on the field: 😊

My Tura Kennerüd, Skyknight doesn’t work with out my commander I am running a lot of counter spells also 5 mana is a lot I proxy free counters for it too

My best decks rely entirely on my commander. The ones that work without the commander are battle cruisers at best

My deck doesnt even need my commander 9/10 times. There just isnt many WUBRG commanders that work with a gates landfall deck

I'm a cEDH player. Though Winota is strong and has gotten good new cards from MH3, it isn't actually viable at all right now. Rule of Law effects aren't in a great place, the value, though solid, is random, and the meta has a ton more removal now for Nadu and Orcish Bowmasters. Also, Orcish Bowmasters destroys this deck. What I'm saying is that, Winota is actually a dead deck. I think a better monolith cEDH deck to point to would be something like Stella or Nadu.

I have an obeka deck, without her my deck is useless, i practically have to play in a way that is super safe to play her so i must have hexproof equipment on the board an possibly some haste one and at least two counter in my hand and the mana to play them or she will not remain on the board for my next turn.

Bottom line is, the same people who tell you to build your deck without needing your commander also say win-more cards are bad. I agree win-more cards are bad. But when we build our deck to not need the commander, that just turns the commander into a win-more card thats just there for the colors. 🤷‍♂️

Winota pretty much does not see cEDH play anymore, unless someone is reminiscing.

There are some commanders that just provide innate value from the command zone and don't require much (or any) investment to enable them which allows you to build the deck in any direction you want. Some examples: Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar or a Breena, the Demagogue will draw you some extra cards from attacking MacCready, Lamplight Mayor will continuously drain your opponents Talion, the Kindly Lord draws you extra cards and drains your opponents Katilda, Dawnhart Prime or Radha, Heir to Keld are guaranteed ramp on 2 Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle is guaranteed ramp on 4 Yasharn, Implacable Earth is a decent stax piece that draws you 2 lands Ertai Resurrected is an on-demand interaction

In my simic token deck, my commander soley exists to turn all my tokens into mana rocks / mana dorks when Im ready to throw out multiple 5+ cost spells. i am actively aware that people will try to kill her asap and that is okay, in response ill tap all these tokens for floating mana lolol

There's something to be said about commander options like Thrasios, Tymna, Kraum, and perhaps also Malcolm. The commanders that "do amazing" seem to be those that enable card advantage without getting in the way of the rest of the library. There's a reason why Korvald is so powerful though to get that "advantage" you have to sacrifice things and he supports using Dockside Extortionist. But you don't need Korvald to hit field for the deck to win.

My deck is more, it works faster with My commander out because it draws a card on ETB and Atk and get 4/2’s when deserts hit the bin. It makes everything much faster to work without it if he gets removed later when I drew a ton of cards already. I like Yuma because your deck runs fine without him if u built the deck right and draw the right cards and is just an Add-on to draw and sac lands to your advantage. I built Yuma where it is built around him but can work without him too knowing 2 of my lands are the key piece to doing anything. Which is Glacial chasm and Field of the dead.

While I do agree with the statement, I think it applies to decks inequally. There are what I like to call "carry commanders" such as Aesi, Animar, Kaalia and others. These decks rely the most on having their commaner on the board, ideally for the whole game. Thus, their biggest heel is having their commander removed. If these decks are still able to operate, that's some really good resilience. But there are decks that do this somewhat automatically. I don't have a fance name for those yet, maybe "drop-in commanders" or something. Think of Shalai and Hallar or The Mimeoplasm. Decks that can choose to develop a game-/boardstate without ever having to cast their commander before it isn't ready. Those decks' heel lies elsewhere, for The Mimeoplasm it is quite obvious in the form of graveyard hate. Moral of the story is: Be aware of what kind of resources your deck depends on, and think of strategies to work around having to access to them.

Very interesting video, though i was hoping for a bit more guidance on how to build particularly vulnerable commanders other than just going all in. Was expecting Rakdos Lord of Riots to pop up also, seeing as you built him in the past. For me this commander defines casual 'dies to removal' much like Kaalia does in higher power pods. Going harder on looting and reanimation these days, but making Rakdos LOR resilient is tough.