Identifying Problematic Monolith Commanders

[Music] and welcome back to EDH deck building I am your host demo and this is another video that will be leading up to my personal decks video that I'm doing in a couple of months talking about specific subjects in each video but it all sort of encompasses as will eventually see into the same sort of topic and this video in particular I will be talking about monolith commanders which is a term that I essentially made up which of course I will explain and I was going to do this video next week but I bumped it ahead of the other one because I got a question from one of my patrons on the Discord that was very relevant to the subject so I thought I would go ahead and do it here so what they said is I got my roommate to build his first deck Rocco Street Chef because his last name is Rocco the other night he mentioned that he was frustrated because of our play group removes Rocco after one or two turn Cycles to keep the advantage in check we typically don't want to give him extra counters or food tokens so we remove the commander or anything else that makes Foods cheaper do you think we are being too harsh with it the deck is loaded with play from Exile spells and cards that alter the foods to make them cheaper to make extra stuff as you would expect someone to build that deck and my response to them was this is what happens when you play a monolith Commander now I don't necessarily think Roco Street Chef is necessarily a monolith Commander you can run into that problem if your playgroup realizes that your deck is entirely built around what your commander is doing they will recognize that and they will very easily be able to shut your deck down by just removing your commander cuz if your commander is not in play your deck doesn't do anything and that's what I mean mean by monolith Commander a monolith Commander is a commander that if it's not in play your deck doesn't do anything now there is specifically commanders that are designed that way that that's just the way you got to play that deck but there also is building your deck that way right there's a couple different scenarios that play into it now what I said to them is first of all rule number one for me don't make yourself a Target and that includes if your commander is removal magnet right if your commander is just going to get removed every time it hits the table I don't know what to tell you don't play that deck don't play that Commander that's the easy solution the other solution if you're very very determined is just hold off wait for a few turns to cast your commander until maybe you have some protection in your hand maybe you can get go off and get some stuff done before your commander actually gets removed that's probably my best advice there or having backups for your commander so that your deck can actually do stuff if your commander is not in play now if you truly have a monol Commander that might not be possible right and the first time I brought up this whole term of monolith commanders is very early on in my channel one of my very first videos in fact talking about Commander Legends and Commander Legends had a few commanders that I consider to be monolith commanders obca brw chronologist was a great example of this right tap the player whose turn it is may end the turn so you have a commander that is time stopping or ending the turn which of course I mean I I just mentioned a card that actually does that so this is not an entirely unique effect but it is a very unique effect you do have options Sund dial the infinite there are a couple backups for your commander but this I consider to be a monolith Commander where I mean first of all you're almost assuredly going to be entirely building around this ability the things that are going to be happening in your deck are going to be things that you want to be ending the turn in order to keep it around or whatever and if your commander isn't able to do that it's going to be not very effective your deck is really going to be spinning its Wheels you're not going to be accomplishing a whole lot you really want to take advantage of your Commander's ability and if your commander is not in play it's going to make your deck very very uneffective the best example probably ever of this is your loock of scorch thrash which again if you go way way back and watch my review of the set I talked about this this is the most monolith Commander I think in existence likely because there is no backup for your Commander's ability a player losing unspent Mana causes that player to lose that much life also known as Mana bur which for all newer players is how you actually used to play the game up until I don't know whenever it was they changed it I've been playing the game long enough now that I can't exactly remember when they did a lot of people were very nostalgic when this Commander came out obviously it makes them for a very unique build around ability your commander also adds Mana to everyone's Mana pool which makes it so that you can actually use that ability stapled on your commander the problem here is that the rule was changed there is literally not a card in the entire game of magic that will do this other than your commander which means if your commander is not on the battlefield again you're very much going to build your deck around this card how do you build a year loock of scorch thrash deck without building it so that I really want my commander to be in play it's very difficult too right so you already are in that scenario you're building around your commander very much so the deck is dedic ated to what your commander is doing and if your commander is not in play your deck probably doesn't do a whole lot I would imagine you have a lot of Huggy effects in there where you're giving your opponents Mana like Mana Flare and stuff like that it's a very Huggy feel your your opponents are going to benefit from it where that's supposed to be the advantage for you but if your Commander's not in play well all of a sudden it doesn't get very good right and so for that reason not only is your commander going to be a removal magnet and man this guy still has 5,000 decks on ADH Rec which is kind of surprising I mean it is an interesting fun Commander but not only is your commander a removal magnet I mean this is what I'm thinking if I'm playing against this guy I can just kill your commander and now the Mana Flare is just double Mana for me right or whatever effect you have I just get extra Mana yay and I don't have to worry about any downside here so not only that but I also know that if I remove your commander I know your deck's going to do literal nothing so you're making it very easy for me to shut you down that is the issue with monolith commanders again obca and urock because they're very unique that makes them popular commanders people want to build those decks but it also makes it so that you very much have that Commander that needs to be on the battlefield in order for your deck to do anything let's take a look at some newer commanders and apply this logic so Bernard Ginger sculptor I just grabbed a few commanders from some of the most recent sets we've gotten to sort of analyze whether or not they are monolith commanders and of course I'm grabbing the real popular ones here so each creature you control that's a food or GM gets plus two plus two and head trample now I would imagine there are some people building around that ability but that's not the main ability here to build around I think that's just an added bonus the ability that probably most people will be building around here whenever another non-token creature you control dies you may Exile it if you do create a token that's copy of that creature except it's a one one food Golem artifact creature token in addition to its other types and has to tap sacrific this creature gain three life so turns it into a food food creature right really need ability very buildable without question on top of that added Anthem bonus you get and as I talked about with this Commander when the set came out I said my favorite strategy here is one of my favorite strategies already which is the valuee ETB creature and you could do this in a couple of different ways where you have a secur tri Elder which sacrifices itself so now I can sacrifice my Secura dry belder go get a land and of course that is a a non-token creature I control dying I mean that I would imagine would be an auto include in this deck regardless of the direction you're going it comes back into Play Already is a 33 with trample which is great but of course the best part about it is you can now sacrifice it to go get another land so you're getting double value out of your creatures here right the same can go for ETB creatures like an eternal witness now we're sort of on the flip side of the coin here so sacrificing creatures work great but also the ETB creatures work great as well because it comes into play I get some card out of my graveyard and then I can have it die I can chump with it I can have sack Outlets whatever you want to do in the deck of course it all works then when it dies it comes back into play again it's a 3 three trampling creature not bad but I get the ETB trigger again right I mean you could just go down this road all day it's just fantastic value so the question is what happens if our commander not in play well if our commander is not in play I mean certainly we're not getting as much out of it but we're still I mean s a turtle witness right these are some of the best creatures in the format already I mean if you built the Bernard deck the way I would build it if your Bernard just keeps getting killed over and over and over again which is entirely a possibility at the end of the day you just have a good stuff creatures deck right A B good stuff creatures deck which to me is that's not bad you're you're still going to be doing stuff it's not going to be super fun it's not going to be super interesting because you essentially have a b good stuff deck but it is still pretty good right you could throw a birthing pot in there right and do a little bit of a toolbox creature deck it's still a pretty good deck and all of that stuff still works with your commander so monolith Commander not really I mean if you do it the way I would do it your deck is still going to be pretty good even without your commander on the battlefield let's talk about Rowan Scion of War also from Wilds ofel drain one black and a red human wizard 4 two with Menace tap spells you cast this turn that are black Andor red cost X less two casts where X is the amount of life you lost his turn activate only as a sorcery so for me I'm I'm evaluating these commanders are they monolith commanders are you going to run into trouble right you build this deck are you going to run into trouble and and this is the warning that I'm giving to people with this video more than anything and this is obviously going to be a Target I mean how could it not be I'm definitely going to be targeting this if I'm playing against this individual because they're probably going to be casting a whole lot of stuff for free so I'm going to be holding up my swords or my path or whatever for when your commander comes down and has a tap ability so you know maybe you can use it right away maybe you can't this already has 5200 X on EDH Rex so people clearly are going after it the question I'm just asking here cuz I would say this is definitely a monolith Commander how hard hit are you by your commander not being on the battlefield you're getting ready for this big play this is how I'm imagining it how I imagining this deck is working and how it's being played I have this big expensive spell I want to cast in my hand that of course I want reduced by X you've already paid a ton of life now if you're paying the life for some nonsense thing that isn't very good now you just paid a ton of life for nonsense that isn't very good so I guess if you're finding stuff like a necro potence where the pay life is actually giving you some massive Advantage now it's not so much right so that's the scenario you want to go with I would say this Commander definitely is a is a situation where if you can't get it down you're going to be in big trouble if you can't get your commander to stick your deck's probably not going to do a whole lot you're probably going to end up with those big splashy spells in your hand that you were hoping to cast for way cheaper and you're not going to be able to do so you're going to sit there I imagine again with a bunch of 7 eight Mana spells in your hand that you can't cast because your commander keeps getting removed and remember gets removed once it's now five Mana gets removed again it's now seven Mana after only being killed twice right it's going to slow you down quite a bit and this is not like the situation like my Patron had where play group was just targeting their Commander cuz they knew what was going to happen everyone knows what's going to happen with this guy in the command Zone everyone knows you're just going to be casting big giant scary things with your commander so they're going to be ready for it right how screwed are you that's the question you need to be asking yourself when you're building commanders like this how screwed am I if my commander does not stick on the battlefield if I am not able to use my Commander's ability once in the entire game is my deck just screwed am I doing nothing just ask yourself that if you have this deck if you're one of the 5200 people who at least put their deck on ed8 Tre look through your deck and just ask yourself how screwed am I do I have backups for my commander there are a couple there's that Marsh blood cter guy the guy from c21 I mean that's probably an auto include in this deck anyway that's kind of a backup for your commander so there are a couple options there but just be careful when you're building this deck is all I'm pointing out Don Andreas the Renegade and this one I particularly picked out because it appears to very much be a monolith Commander but is it each creature you control but don't own get gets plus two plus two has Menace and death touch and is a pirate in addition to its other types and of course as I talked about in another video this easily could be just that on this Commander and you could very much build around it of course you want to be stealing your opponent's stuff there you can do it in a couple different ways where I just you know do the active treason typical stuff but also playing my opponent's cards from their light prater's grasp right that kind of stuff as well will'll get you a creature that you will control but not own but on top of that whenever you cast a a non-creature spell you don't own create twap treasure tokens so again the prater's grasp scenario will work there anything where you're playing cards from your opponent's libraries which you can do in black and also you do in red I think those colors are probably the best for that the praters grasp scenario is probably the best one because of course that's a commander staple again there's a card that gets played in The Format all the time anyway I can prayer's grasp go get my opponent's best creature let's say I get their elnor and then I can play it right now if my commander on the battlefield I have a Elish noorn that I control but don't own so it's going to get plus two plus two Menace and death touch well that's pretty good that's a very big scary looking ellish noorn with Menace and death touch that's all right but if my Commander's not on the battlefield right let's say I've got the elnor and someone kills my commander okay my elnor is not so big and scary but it's still an elnor right still a really fantastic Creature if I act of treason I'm going to steal my opponent's blight steel Colossus or something I mean let's take something that isn't quite so ridiculous I'm just stealing my opponent's big scary creature right it's a big 99 flying creature like that demon of death's gate that I just talked about my five cards video right if I steal that if my Commander's in play now it is going to be bigger and it's going to have medicine death touch but if my commander is not in play it's still a big scary creature and that is still a pretty decent play just to steal my opponent's creature and smack them with it so you're going to be all right even though this is absolutely a commander that you want want to be building around what it's doing all the stuff that you're going to be doing in the deck is already still going to be pretty good you're still going to be able to take all your opponent's best stuff and use it against them not a strategy people love playing against but it is a strategy that works really well in the format so even though this Commander on its face might seem like a monolith Commander well no not really at all because all the stuff you're doing is still going to work just fine you're just going to get a little bit less of Advantage out of it right if I steal my opponent's croen grip so I can get that very powerful enchantment off the battlefield with my Prader grasp okay well if my Commander's on the battlefield I'll get two tap treasure tokens but if he's not on the battlefield that's a pretty good play still so no problems right again this is very similar to the Bernard situation where I'm already doing a lot of really good stuff in my deck so even with my commander not in play I'm still going to be all right how about area of the Charmed Apple this is the most popular Commander from Wilds of ald drain I'm a little surprised by that not entirely there was a couple that I thought were better than this but I I'm not super surprised that this is number one so one black and a white human warlock 2 for each creature that's Enchanted by an aura you control can't attack you or a plaines Walker you control at the beginning of your endep each opponent loses X life and you gain X life or X the number of oras you control this already has 7400 decks on ed8 Treck wow so I'll throw it out to you guys is this a monolith Commander yes or no right so by my definition in other words if my commander on the table my deck's clicking along doing fine but if my commander gets removed right away is my deck going to be spinning its Wheels is it going to be doing a whole lot what's your answer is this a monolith Commander I would say that it is a monolith Commander now the endstep trigger is okay here I like endstep triggers because I can cast my commander of course on my main phase and then immediately on my very next end step I will get the trigger that I'm looking for so you're at least going to get something it's not quite as good as an ETB or a cast trigger which I'm pretty much guaranteed to get but an endep trigger is also pretty good so if I have a bunch of oras in play I can immediately get that trigger on my endep likely before my commander is removed so at least I'm getting something and your commander is not that expensive but I'm going to have to do all that preparation beforehand right and the fact that your commander costs three means you can get it out right away but you probably don't want to right and a lot of monolith commanders one big mistake that people make is they just rush them out don't rush this Commander out again I don't have this deck but how I would both build and play this deck is I'd probably want to throw a few auras on my opponent's creatures or mine before my commander even comes down because I want to at the very least get that endep trigger before my commander dies to a board wipe or targeted removal now this other part makes it even more a monolith commander in my opinion each creature that's Enchanted by an aura you control can't attack you or a planes Walker you control so of course that ability does literal nothing if your commander isn't on the battlefield and again I would say likely the way that people are building this deck is they're putting enchantments on their opponent's creatures for exactly that reason right so for example All That Glitters Is in a whole bunch of these aret decks now are you putting this on your opponent's creature or are you putting it on yours I think likely people are putting it on their opponent's creatures right because each creature that's Enchanted by an aura can't attack you so you got nothing to worry about right you can just have them send that creature at your other opponents sort of works like a goting deck but of course the problem being as soon as your commander leaves the battlefield they can now attack you that's problematic problematic for sure and they are certainly going to want to be attacking you I I don't know if people are making this deck so they're just putting all these really great enchantments on their own creatures then you're not using that first ability at all and you just sit there and drain your opponents you're certainly going to be getting attacked if you're sitting there draining your opponents for a bunch of life every turn they're certainly going to be coming after you so that first ability seems like it needs to be used but then again if your commander gets removed it's not being used at all this is a difficult one it is a fantastic pillow for Commander but at the same time it's very much going to make you a Target and again this is a commander that I'm likely not going to want to let stick on the table for very long because it is not only draining my life but it is giving my opponent a massive Advantage I know people will say well every Commander does that sure but every Commander isn't going to completely shut your deck off if you remove their Commander I mean I have a zero Decks that do that so this is definitely a commander that you very very very much want to stick on the battlefield without a doubt couple of commanders from the brand new set murders a car law of Manor Massacre girl known killer two black black human assassin 44 with Menace creatures you control have wither whenever a creature and opponent controls dies if its toughness was less than one draw a card so this is one of my favorites from the set it's a fantastic Commander without a doubt I've already played against it it is in my opinion going to be one of the most popular from the set it might even be one of the most popular monoblack commanders in the format eventually one of the reasons is because you just have a very easy way to draw cards on your commander which always makes for a great build around now is this a monolith Commander is the question and what are you going to be doing in this deck right what you're going to be doing in this deck is you're going to be of course killing your opponent's creatures a lot and doing it by reducing their toughness to less than one of course the Wither can do that toxic Deluge and effects like that are probably the easiest way to do that although you do have to be careful not to constantly be killing your own creatures there is a little bit of Hoops to jump through here if your Commander's not on the battlefield obviously your creatures aren't going to have wither and I don't think there's any other way to give your creatures wither so there's not a backup there and there certainly is not a backup for that last ability there is a lot of great ways to draw cards in black but you're not going to be putting a ton of those in the deck because of course your commander is drawing you cards a lot and of course there's no way to draw cards in the game of magic that is doing exactly that however you are still having your opponent's creatures die so just having something that says whenever a creature dies like a harvester of souls is kind of a backup for your commander because it works with what you're already doing in the deck and it can be a backup as a draw option although of course not nearly as good as your commander now how good is your deck going to be working if your Massacre girl is not in play let's look at some of the cards that are people are putting in here no surprise at all necr skater is going in pretty much all of these decks when a creature and opponent controls with a minus oneus one counter on it dies you may return that card to the battlefield under your control phenomenal fit with both the Wither and then also with I imagine a lot of the minus one minus one counter theme that you will be doing in this deck like black Sun Zenith and stuff like that of course slam dunk in the deck how good is this card if your commander is not in play not bad because of course I can still cast a black Sun Zenith I can still play a midnight Banshee right there are lots of cards that are doing that in the deck so that works in fact just necr skitter and midnight Banshee that in itself is a really really good combo that doesn't require your commander to be in play you'll be drawing a bunch of cards as well nice added bonus but it is not required right same goes for Nesta scarabs whenever you put one or more minus one minus one counters on a creature create that many one1 black insect creature tokens again just a great combo with the midnight Banshee where yes would be nice to be drawing a bunch of cards but it's still pretty good so so far we're doing all right here right and then as far as the typical removal like defile again toxic Deluge as I already talked about tragic slip these again are just really great removal spells in the commander format that get used in all sorts of decks even outside of this theme so those cards are all going to be good even if your Commander's not in play you're just not getting the card draw right meat Hook massacre pretty good card in the commander format even if your Commander's not on the battlefield it just gets better if your commander is on the battlefield I would say you you really do want your commander to stick in this situation but most of the stuff that you're doing in this deck is going to work out pretty well if your Commander's not in play I would just be careful with the card draw right if you are relying on your commander entirely for the C card draw it could get a little sticky there having a few backups which is not hard in black is probably a good idea all right I'm going to end off talking about ANS rag the Quake mole to Red Green more God 84 when end rag the quick mole becomes blocked untap each creature you control after this combat phase there's an additional combat phase you can pay three red red green green seven Mana that's a lot and Zagg must be blocked each combat this turn if able so this really depends on how you're building this deck and I think a lot of people might be building this deck in the I'm trying to get infinite combat scenario there might be people going with the more untapping my creatures theme ask yourself is my deck going to be doing anything at all if my commander is not in play cuz this absolutely okay for anyone if you're new to the format if you obviously if you've never played with this Commander before which probably nobody has this is going to be removal magnet I promise you this deck is going to make you a Target this Commander when people see it in the command Zone they're going to be saving that removal you any removal they have in their opening hand they're just going to save it for you I guarantee it so already this Commander in my opinion goes against rule number one for me now if you really want to play this Commander that's fine but what is your deck going to be doing if your commander gets removed because that is very much a likely scenario are you going to be able to do stuff are you very much relying on your commander untapping your creatures are you very much relying on all those extra combats of course there are lots of ways to get extra combats in GRL colors without a question but is that going to fit with what you're doing in your deck are you just doing a generic extra combats deck I don't think so probably not you do have Nath of the dire hunt with which is another grul blocking Commander that can be and as I said those two go in each other's decks obviously if you have a Nath deck and I would imagine there's some people that might even be swapping out commanders there it's definitely a backup for your commander it's it's not doing nearly the same thing but it does fit the blocking theme and all of that are you doing more of The Blocking theme are you doing the extra combats the untapping the blocking all of the above how much of it is going to work if your commander is not in play I would say for me you know right off the bat my initial read here is that this Commander definitely is going to make you a Target it is definitely going to be a removal magnet and it does feel very much like a monolith Commander I think likely the way that most people are going to build this deck it is going to be my deck's not going to do a whole lot if my commander is not on the battlefield that's my guess with this one what do you guys think monolith commanders yes no maybe so some of these definitely are some of them not so much it always does depend on how you build your deck if you build your deck entirely around your commander regardless of the commander you're playing right if you build a deck with a commander and you just absolutely need your commander to be in play in order for the deck to work okay well you're already shooting yourself in the foot it doesn't matter what Commander you have you're making it so that your deck requires your commander to be in play to do anything to me that's bad deck design you should not be doing that again I call it a monolith commander my commander needs to be in play or my deck does nothing and people will figure out especially if you have a play group people will figure out very quickly that hey all I have to do is remove this guy's commander and his deck doesn't do anything right there's lots of different ways around this right lots of ways where you can either have backups in your deck so that you don't necessarily need your commander in play you can have just like with the Bernard idea just a lot of great valy creatures so that your deck is indeed doing things even if your commander is not on the battlefield you can just have a general idea which is more the direction that I am moving in again this is leading into my own personal deck design strategy of I want it so my deck is doing more things even if I can't necessarily get my commander out right so if you think of a a very popular deck in the format and attracts a Super Friends deck there is a deck that do you need your attracts in play no of course it's a Super Friends deck and your Commander's not a planes Walker so of course your deck will do just fine without the attracta in place right that's a perfect example someone playing an attracts a Super Friends deck yeah sure they want their attracts in play it's going to make things better but you certainly don't need it your deck will do just fine without it right that's the kind of thing that you should probably be aiming for if you're building a deck in the commander format in my opinion you guys let me know in the comments below what you think do you have any monolith Commander decks yourself where you got to have your commander stick for a few turns or your deck is not really going to do anything and you can find yourself spinning your wheels and not having a lot of fun if that is the case and your commander keeps getting removed that is it for today though and thanks for tuning [Music] in

Channel: EDH Deckbuilding

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Id: pkAXXEFhz6w

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2024