[Article] Thetrufflehunter's List of Underutilized Commanders (Part 1)

[Thetrufflehunter]

So one day I was bored (and also on a plane), so I went into the handy-dandy preloaded gatherer on my ipad and set the filters to legendary creatures. After scrolling through and reading the text on every single one, I came up with a list of exciting commanders that almost no one has heard of! Let's get started.

{Celestial Kirin} is a card I originally heard of on TapTapConcede, and it sort of stuck in the back of my mind. I feel like it would be a good mono-white control general. No need to play Iona, because your deck has access to some sweet ratchet bomb tech. The deck would possibly play as a voltron deck, wrathing whatever stood in its way. I found white spirit and arcane spells going from 1 CMC (things like {Eidolon of Hope}) all the way to 8 CMC ({Myojin of Cleansing Fire}), which should take care of most permanents. Unfortunately, there is no zero CMC arcane or spirit, which would let us armageddon at any time. Just make sure that one of the voltron pieces gives our hero indestructible, because you might wipe it on four!

The next commander is something that has actually been played before, and that is {Chainer, Dementia Master}. Unfortunately, there are only 11 nightmares in magic (http://bit.ly/1SnAZuw), so the bigger section of the deck is reanimation! More importantly, reanimation into nightmares. The goal is to make a tribal nightmare deck. There is also a variety (as in just 7) black or artifact cards referencing dreams, so those go in here too. The deck is rounded out with {Conspiracy}, {Coat of Arms}, {Door of Destinies}, graveyard based strategy that involves protecting Chainer. It's probably terrible, but you can make use of so many movie quotes (this will get you started: http://bit.ly/1mqUy8v).

Third on our list is {Empress Galina}.

Just read it. Take your opponent's commanders. DO WHATEVER WITH THEM. Make an army out of your fellow players win-cons. The deck is a hard blue control shell, but making use of sweet EDH cards like {Clone Legion} and clone effects in general. It would also be pretty fun with {Dismiss into Dream} so you can continually just blow up people's generals. Or an amalgamation of the two. Anyways, the surprise of going "and I'll take your Geth" is pretty sweet.

A super cool general {Greel, Mind Raker}. Basically, you're trying to play 8-rack in commander. You get to run some mono black card draw like {phyrexian arena}, which fuels some epic mind twists when combined with cards like {Crypt Ghast} and {Nirkana Revenant}. Make sure your opponents never have a big hand. Use {Waste Not} and {The Rack} to grind out some advantage, and then either attrition them to death or beat face with {phyrexian obliterator}. Your choice.

{Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer} is a fantastic name for a card, and a sweet general to build pillow fort. It actually becomes a very political control deck, where you can make deals with players for neutering threats. Online you can find tons of guides to build pillowfort decks, which is a pet archetype of mine. The deck gets to use sweet political cards like {Psychic Possession}, with wincons like {Opalescence} and {Sigil of the Empty Throne}. If you want a deck full of a million billion decisions where you can really get good mileage out of your political mind, this is for you. Also use this: http://bit.ly/1R1Ty8k. The Command Zone's episode on politic'ing.

A cool commander that I haven't put enough thought into is {Kaho, Minamo Historian}. She has a very unique ability which is essentially a tutorable, more diverse, triple {Isochron Scepter}. There are bound to be some combos that are much better than the ones I've found, but there it seems incredibly sweet. The one I thought of is {Triton Tactics} + Kaho + {Arbiter of the Ideal} + {Hair Strung Koto}. Essentially, when all of those cards are out at the same time with Triton Tactics under Kaho, it becomes "{1}: mill someone for one, trigger arbiter to put the top card of your library into play. Since you get to untap both Kaho and Arbiter for one mana and then tap arbiter with the Koto, you can repeat this over and over. It's a four card combo, but man does it seem sweet. There are thousands of cards that work with Kaho, so it's up to you to go through and find the ones that work.

{Kangee, Aerie Keeper} is my personal favorite commander on this list. The main reason for this is because of the card {Dovescape}. Cast a big Kangee and then dovescape, and proceed to beat down with giant birds. You'll need {Enlightened Tutor}, {Idyllic Tutor}, {Long Term Plans}, and similar cards to go and find Dovescape, and some mana rocks so you can cast Kangee and Dovescape in the same turn. Prior to that, feel free to durdle around with things like {Mystic Remora} and {Sphere of Safety}. ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S THE EDH DECK.

[rarehuntertay]

Problem with kangee is that opponent will also have big birds with dovescape...

[Kaylesh]

Problem with kangee is that opponent will also have big birds with dovescape...

I too missed that part when I stole Kangee once while it was cast. Every bird on the field gets the bonus.
On the 8-rack deck, I personally prefer Bolas, for the access to red & blue.
Pretty effective, with added ways to disrupt the board beyond mere discard & black sweepers.

[blackychan1]

Problem with kangee is that opponent will also have big birds with dovescape...

I too missed that part when I stole Kangee once while it was cast. Every bird on the field gets the bonus.
On the 8-rack deck, I personally prefer Bolas, for the access to red & blue.
Pretty effective, with added ways to disrupt the board beyond mere discard & black sweepers.

But this is a list of seldom used commanders.

[Kaylesh]

Problem with kangee is that opponent will also have big birds with dovescape...

I too missed that part when I stole Kangee once while it was cast. Every bird on the field gets the bonus.
On the 8-rack deck, I personally prefer Bolas, for the access to red & blue.
Pretty effective, with added ways to disrupt the board beyond mere discard & black sweepers.

But this is a list of seldom used commanders.

True. With that part I agree.

[Thetrufflehunter]

Should I write part two? Any writing errors you guys noticed?

When I went through the database, I came across 14 commanders, so part two will be similar in length,

[LinkCelestrial]

I really, really hate to point this out because I wish it wasn't true.  {Kaho, Minamo Historian} casts the card from exile. It'll hit your graveyard upon resolution. I have a Kaho deck somewhere that I can bump. Basically I use her as an intimidator with cards like {Gather Specimens} then finish with {Unsummon} effects to bounce her to your hand for the reset. Shuffle cards back into your library so you can retutor them. There's also a win combo somewhere. It's a cool deck but I've never put it together. xD