Commander and You: A Beginners Guide to EDH

[CounterAttack]

I have one minor rules clarification: When a creature with undying dies and has no +1/+1 counters on it, does it count as having gone to the graveyard and then returned to the battlefield? If that is the case, then any "enters the battlefield" abilities would trigger, such as Geralf's Messenger entering the battlefield tapped. Am I right?

[hr]

I recently built an EDH deck, though it has yet to be tested. My problem with them is that I don't have very much to choose from for a Commander:

Spoiler: My List of Available Commanders

Note: I'm just listing off all the Legendary creatures in my collection.

Kemba, Kha Regent (W)
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur (U)
Geth, Lord of the Vault (B)
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief (B)
Patron of the Nezumi (B)
Urabrask the Hidden (R)
Patron of the Akki (R)
Melira, Sylvok Outcast (G)
Geist of Saint Traft (WU)
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch (BR)
Dralnu, Lich Lord (UB)
Szadek, Lord of Secrets (UB)

The one I chose for my EDH was Geist of Saint Traft. I was entirely unsure about building a deck around any legendary creature, but the Geist seemed good enough.

My EDH deck is as follows, for those interested.

Spoiler: Deck Listing - Caution: Long Read

Commander: Geist of Saint Traft
Lands:
- 16x Island
- 16x Plains

Spoiler: Creatures

Creatures:
Selfless Cathar
Sage of Epityr
Accorder Paladin
Avacynian Priest
Elite Inquisitor
Inquisitor Exarch
Leonin Relic-Warder
Suture Priest
Unruly Mob
Dreamscape Artist
Invisible Stalker
Ludevic's Test Subject
Oculus
Stormscape Familiar
Hovermyr
Elder Cathar
Fiend Hunter
Kemba's Skyguard
Village Bell-Ringer
Neurok Invisimancer
Spiketail Drakeling
Mausoleum Guard
Darkslick Drake
Phyrexian Metamorph
Undead Alchemist
Voidmage Husher
Angelic Overseer
Archon of Redemption
Serra Angel
Belltower Sphinx
Creepy Doll
Manor Gargoyle
Victory's Herald
Frost Titan
Geistcatcher's Rig

Spoiler: Artifacts

Artifacts:
Accorder's Shield
Blazing Torch
Bladed Pinions
Mycosynth Wellspring
Titan Forge
Trepanation Blade
Grappling Hook
Grimoire of the Dead
Witchbane Orb

Spoiler: Instants, Sorceries & Enchantments

Instants, Sorceries & Enchantments:
Curiosity
Silent Departure
Bonds of Faith
Feeling of Dread
Moment of Heroism
Soul Parry
Spare from Evil
Urgent Exorcism
Spectral Flight
Arrest
Ghostly Possession
Master's Call
Cancel
Claustrophobia
Convolute
Dissipate
Hysterical Blindness
Smite the Monstrous
Lay Bare
Followed Footsteps
Lost in the Mist
Xenograft

Spoiler: Other Spells

Other Spells:
Jace Beleren

If anyone has any criticisms or comments, let me know. I will say, though, that I don't have much to work with: building an EDH deck is a bit of a stretch for me.

 

[Alex Hardin]

i hate to reveal my noobness but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained. how do you add the links to the cards in the posts?

 

[Encaen]

Normally I'm a Standard player, though I mess around with varying decks with my friends. They got a couple of the Commander decks and I tried it out. It didn't seem all that fun, but we only had two decks so that might have been a limiting factor.

Anyway, I'm curious how the Exalted mechanic will help in an EDH multiplayer where your benefit is one creature attacking alone, instead of attacking with many. I wasn't around for Alara block, so I missed a lot of the gameplay that goes with that mechanic.

I mean, I can understand something like Phyrexian Obliterator with that, but he's black and Rafiq is UWG.

My Rafiq of the Many deck actually tends to do pretty well in my playgroup, the downside being that it's often too fast to make for particularly fun games in small groups. I use a lot of tappers like Jhessian Balmgiver [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247190] to get Rafiq through for a quick 21 commander damage. Given his Doublestrike, even with only his own Exalted ability, he's a 3 turn clock, but you can get that down to 2 turns with some other Exalted triggers or some buffs!

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Hmmmm... Now I have to ask myself if I want to inform my friends about the recast penalty. Seeing as my friend with the best commander deck hardly uses his commander, I may not tell them. I really like my commander. Riku is fucking badass.

I'm intrigued as to what kind of deck your friend is playing where he rarely uses his Commander, who does he use(or not use, as the case may be?) Also, Riku is amazing. I've put together several of my own EDH decks, but I still find myself drawn to playing Riku with surprising regularity.

He has a whole lot of token cards of varying absurdity. I'm just glad he never got a copy of Rhys the redeemed really. He bought the green-black-white commander deck when it came out, but he didn't end up really liking any of the commanders that came with it, so he often forgets that he has them. Its pretty hilarious really.

I however am running a deck full of high cost cards to double and massive mana ramp. I'm trying to find more and more cards to break, but I just don't have the time or money. I love Riku. My favorite combo I've pulled off so far is doubling magmatic force to control my opponent's number of creatures, had it die, brought it back a few times, and eventually had around four or five of it, and I was actually using the deck to play arch-enemy at the time. I haven't had the deck too long to be honest, and I think I've used it more for arch-enemy than commander as most of my friends have terrible commander decks.

See my above post for three cards that Riku loves breaking in half while also breaking your opponents at the same time. Thievery is also only $4 M/NM.

Yeah, I think those could really work. I may try looking for some turn adding cards as well. I really am liking how the deck is turning out.

 

[Shynobee]

Other ones to look out for in pretty much any Blue commander deck are these

Spoiler

The three of them are especially hilarious with a Riku on the field but blatant thievery being copied once or twice with reverberate, M12 Chandra, Riku, Increasing Vengeance and being flashed back with snapcaster mage to do it again the next turn gets me quite a few dirty looks at our local commander games haha.

I do run Blatant Thievery and Reverberate (and twincast) in my Niv-Mizzet deck. Blatant Thievery is one of my catch all answers to problematic enchantments that red and blue can't normally deal with. Oblivion Stone is the other answer. To everything.

 

[TheGuy(wantstobe)]

I have one minor rules clarification: When a creature with undying dies and has no +1/+1 counters on it, does it count as having gone to the graveyard and then returned to the battlefield? If that is the case, then any "enters the battlefield" abilities would trigger, such as Geralf's Messenger entering the battlefield tapped. Am I right?

Yep. The sequence of events goes like this

Creature with undying gets beaten up until it takes lethal
Creature get's shipped to graveyard by state based effects
Undying triggers and goes on the stack. Players are allowed to respond to this in AP>NAP as usual.
Stack resolves and when undying attempts to resolve it checks for two things. Firstly that the creature is in the graveyard at the time and secondly that when it died it had no +1/+1 counters. If both of those things are true it resolves and drags it out of the yard activating any comes into play abilities or the ability of cards such as Flayer of the hatebound.

 

[fanklok]

I have one minor rules clarification: When a creature with undying dies and has no +1/+1 counters on it, does it count as having gone to the graveyard and then returned to the battlefield? If that is the case, then any "enters the battlefield" abilities would trigger, such as Geralf's Messenger entering the battlefield tapped. Am I right?

Undying triggers when the creature goes to the graveyard then it gets pulled out of the graveyard and put on the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it so any abilities that trigger when a creature enter the battlefield will trigger.

 

[crotalidian]

this was about the only form of the game which Really got me interested, although I seem to remember the commader go back to his little corner by default

Dont remember much about the decks nowe but remember quite a few Wednesday evening sitting around until 1-2am playing just 1 or 2 really involved 5 way EDH games

 

[Slycne]

i hate to reveal my noobness but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained. how do you add the links to the cards in the posts?

The forum code for links is {url=www.puttheurltothecardhere.com}Card Name{/url}. Just replace the { } with [ ].

 

[Juan Regular]

I´ve only played a couple rounds of commander with two of the official decks and didn´t like it all that much. I could see the potential of a four player match though and I´ll definitely give it a shot of I ever I get the chance.

On another note: I finally gave in and signed up for the pre-release this weekend. I figured a sealed tournament is probably the best way to get into competitive play. I can´t wait, but I´m still a little nervous as well.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Wow, Commander seems really fun, too bad I don't have any friends...

 

[Frylock72]

My Rafiq of the Many deck actually tends to do pretty well in my playgroup, the downside being that it's often too fast to make for particularly fun games in small groups. I use a lot of tappers like Jhessian Balmgiver [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247190] to get Rafiq through for a quick 21 commander damage. Given his Doublestrike, even with only his own Exalted ability, he's a 3 turn clock, but you can get that down to 2 turns with some other Exalted triggers or some buffs!

Hm, that actually sounds like fun, though I'm not really one for enjoying a game of 'politics'. I think most games are fun when you just get right to the beatdown and focus less on talking others into attacking. Maybe I'll put one together to play my friends' decks. Thanks for the info.

 

[Rappletek]

EDH is fantastic been playing the format for about 6m months now, and my top two commanders are:

Doran The Siege Tower; cheap cost low power really high toughness with a good deal of treefolk tribal, completely turns the games carefully planned mana costs on its head, and as its often said the best defence is a good offence..

Dralnu Lich Lord; in a format based on having one spell once, being able to give any instant or sorcery in your graveyard flashback is incredibly powerful, combine this with self mill and spells like Rite of replication and field wipes, (and of course a crucible of worlds) your in for the long haul... So far his longest innings was a single 6 player 8 hour game, eventually came second after replicating (and kicking) a darksteel colossus twice (yes i had ten of them), i succumbed to flying infect...

 

[Godhead]

This article makes me want to keep my Doran EDH now. For the past couple of months I've been considering dismantling it since none of my friends would play it any more due to me hard on for Cataclysm and Ensnaring Bridge. Eladamri's Call on Isochron Scepter doesn't help out to much though :/.

 

[Berenzen]

My EDH commanders

Joira Chaos: It's all fun and games until Eye of the storm is played. Funniest story concerning it- Eye of the Storm, Hivemind and Rite of Replication came down in a single turn, then I Radiated Rite of Replication

It went-> Eots comes into play, Hivemind comes into play, Radiate exiled, replayed, targeting RoR, RoR exiled, played, kicked, copied by everybody, Radiate played, copied by everybody targeting RoR. All the RoRs resolve, everyone ends up with a buttload of tokens.

Spoiler

Fiddling around with the Planechase 2012 Legendary Maelstrom Wanderer right now.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

unless it had both +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters at the time it died.

But that isn't possible. A recent rules change has made +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out as a state-based action.

 

[s0osleepie]

Commander / EDH is currently my favorite format to play! My pet deck uses the Sliver Overlord as the commander and one of every Sliver, with the remaining card slots filled with Sliver support cards (Coat of Arms [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207927], Hivestone [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=116387], Sliversmith [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130329], and Aphetto Dredging [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207925]) with a splash of Myrs for multicolor creature mana.

I always had an unshakable fascination with Slivers back when I was first getting into Magic and Slivers were still Standard legal. Unfortunately, I could never seem to make them work in a standard 60 card deck 1v1. EDH allowed me to revisit and play with them again. While they still don't perform consistently in multiplayer EDH, they are given more time to shine and are TONS of fun to play

My second "go to" deck uses Kresh the Bloodbraided [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=244672] as a commander.

Spoiler

 

[ccggenius12]

unless it had both +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters at the time it died.

Which is impossible, If a permanent has both -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters on it N of both get removed where N is the smaller number of the two, this is a state based action.

Actually, if the creature had a +1/+1 counter (or several) on it, and received enough -1/-1 counters to kill it, effects that look back in time will see that it had both +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters on it before it was put into the graveyard (also as a state based action.) This is because all state based actions are checked at the same time. As an example as to why this is relevant, take Kinsbaile Borderguard. Lets say it has 5 +1/+1 counters on it. Someone casts Black Sun's Zenith with X equal to 10. Statebased actions check to see what should happen, and they see a Borderguard with 5 +1/+1 counters and 10 -1/-1 counters, as well as the fact that the creature has zero or less toughness. simultaneously, 5 counters cancel out and the borderguard is put into the graveyard. Then its ability triggers, and it looks back in time to see how many counters it had while it was on the battlefield last. Surprise surprise, it had 15 total counters at the last moment before it was placed in the graveyard. Lo and behold the controller of the borderguard is now the owner of 15 1/1 kithkin soldier tokens.
EDIT: oops, looks like someone already got to it.

I'm partial to Skullbriar myself. Mostly because I like black and green as a color combo, also because the few shenanigans you can do with him are just so fun

My favorite interaction with skullbriar as someones general is killing it with a -1/-1 counter.

 

[s0osleepie]

I recently built an EDH deck, though it has yet to be tested. My problem with them is that I don't have very much to choose from for a Commander...

If a decent Commander is your issue, I would recommend looking into getting your hands on a box of From the Vault: Legends. [http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/774] It is a little pricey, but if you can get together a friend or two to split it with, it will provide a GREAT pool of Commanders to use.

 

[Berenzen]

3 Tenets of EDH:
1) Avoid early land destruction- particularly if you can pump out a lot of creatures without it.
2) Avoid commanders that can win a game in 3 turns
3) Have fun

Seriously, if you build a deck that breaks one of those 3 tenets, you're playing MPEDH wrong. EDH is all about the politiking, and if a bunch of chaos gets thrown in there, all the better, it makes the game. Oh, and if you ever run into Pheldagriff, have fun, because the whole game changes with it on the field.