How would you build around custom Commanders?

StuffnSuch

I got tired of getting mostly critical feedback in these forums, and, though I like the advice, I wanted to create a place that's 100% about celebrating awesomeness, so, here's the challenge:

• Find a potential commander that you like that was designed by another cardsmith
• Post it here with a couple ideas of cool interactions, combos, or synergies you'd like, or an idea of how you'd build around the card
• Don't forget to give the selected commander a like and shout out the creator when you post here
• If someone shouts out your card, pay it forward by finding someone new to celebrate

StuffnSuch

I'll kick things off by sharing:



by SevThePuppy

At first, I thought the best strategy would be to get a bunch of discard payoffs, like reanimation spells and Madness Cards.  There are a couple Rogue tribal cards in black that could be worth throwing in, but, not enough to go Rogue tribal.  Then I realized that a commander with Shadow would be a really cool surprise Voltron deck.  A handful of cards like Howl from Beyond and Hatred could unexpectedly change this from a little 1/1 value engine to an insta-kill out of nowhere.

LvB

Ok, so its a monoblack commander, that means you have only black cards + artifacts.

Its tribes are bird and rogue, so tribal probably aint good.

But it has shadow, making it great for killing players with commander damage since it will be unblockable most of the time.

So i would play this together with equipment artifacts that make him stronger or give double strike and such. And of course spells that buff him. The discard disadvantage could be be compensated by madness cards or creatures that can reanimate themself or cards with graveyard synergy.

If you go for equipment make sure you have enough other creatures in your deck. And sinces discard will empty your hand over time, make also sure you have enough card draw.

Heres some card drawing stuff.

StuffnSuch

 

StuffnSuch

@LvB That's nice for the commander I found, however, I was hoping this discussion would be more about everyone sharing the custom commanders they like and how they would build around them.  You're, of course, welcome to share ideas about other cards you find, but, it would be great if every time someone commented here, they also shared a new card to the discussion.

In that light, here's another commander that I found that I'd like to talk about:



by Izzy

This card actually came across my feed just after I had a thought about how to make a creature that can get the triggered abilities of multiple other creatures at once.  I feel like there are at least a few combos that would be really fun to build around.  The first that came to mind would be to gain infinite mana by using a card that can tap for multiple mana and a card that can untap itself (like Bloom Tender and Horseshoe Crab).  I realized that with a Wake Thrasher or Fallowsage in the mix, you wouldn't even need the infinite mana, just the infinite taps and untaps. Then I started looking at other cool combos.  The first I found was something like Woodland Champion and Scurry Oak.  There are several cards that get +1/+1 counters when a creature or token enters the battlefield, and several that create tokens when they get counters.  This would not only make a huge board of near infinite creatures, but also make Karriz extremely big, so I figure the deck should have some simple ways to make it evasive.  Thalakos Sentry or Looter il-Kor grant shadow, which is almost always a win, but this also might be a decent place to finally use my Defiant Elf, a 1/1 for 1 with trample.  Another great source of trample would be Stonecoil Serpent, which also grants reach and some protection, for free.  Ornithopter is another free source of evasion.  Throw in all the Simic mutate payoffs, and you almost have a deck.  The biggest weakness to this deck is, of course, exile effects, so I'd round out my deck with some counters and other protective spells to make sure I can keep my commander alive, since most cards will just end up going on the mutate pile.