Summary
- cEDH (Competitive Commander) is a popular format in Magic: The Gathering that focuses on fast mana, tutors, and game-winning combos.
- Red decks in cEDH are tricky to build around due to their straightforward tactics, but commanders like Jaxis, the Troublemaker embody the "play card, hit face" philosophy well.
- While Purphoros, God of the Forge has waned in popularity as a cEDH commander, he is still favored as a fringe option with his indestructibility and enchantment keyword.
Competitive Commander, otherwise known as cEDH, is a very popular format in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering. It is often characterized by 𒆙fast mana, tutors, and game-winning combos that aim to cut down on the variability inherent in Commander. In this regard, red decks can be tricky to build around to their straightforward tactics.
Many red decks follow the classic red philosophy of "play card, hit face," which lends well to the fast-paced n🐠ature of cEDH. These commanders embody this philosophy to make quick work of their opponents.
Updated September 27, 2023, by Ryan Hay: It's pretty rare to see major upheavals in cEDH commander rankings, but that doesn't mean there aren't other cards to explore when it comes to picking your commander. The fast-paced Rionya, Fire Dancer swings on often and hard with tons of tokens, foregoing many of the common cEDH win conditions in exchange for pure combat. Meanwhile, Jaxis, the Troublemaker pulls a similar game plan but has some key differences that make her a strong contender on her own.
12 ♉ Jaxis, The Troublemaker
Like many cEDH commander, Jaxis, the Troublemaker is a 💙bit of a combo machine. Ja🍃xis can pull this off with her special ability to tap and discard a card to make a token of another creature you control. The new token gains haste and lets you draw a card when it dies.
You have to sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step, so whatever you want to do with that token has to be done thi🔯s turn. With another card that lets you untap Jaxis repeatedly, like Thornbite Staff and a sacrifice outlet like Phyrexian Altar, you can create scenarios where you draw pretty much every ca𓂃rd in your deck.
You probably don't want to draw your entire deck, but having a good chunk of it available to you plus all the mana you could need to likely cast anything you need gives you the time to find the cards you need.
Toss in an Eldrazi titan like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to make sure you can reshuffle your graveyard back into your library, and you'll be able to cast as many cards as you want.
11 🦋 Pu💜rphoros, God Of The Forge
Purphoros is a ping commander looking to quickly generate as many creatures as possible. Purphoros is great for token decks and is a natural commander for decks that generate many 1/1 tokens, such as goblins or elementals. As a red commander, he seeks to end the game fast. The fast mana of cEDH plays well into his strategy, where you only need to summon 20 creatures to outright😼 win the game (barring any life g🥀ain or protection).
However, Purphoros has since waned in popularity as a cEDH commander. Instead, he is favored as one of the 99 in other decks, often placed in white-containing decks that are much more capable token generators. However, he is still favored as a fringe cEDH commander (and a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fun red Commander), where his indestructibility and enchantment keyw🙈ord make ꧋him useful against some opponents, especially control players.
10 Daretti, Scrap Saಞvant
Daretti was one of the original Planeswalker commanders and, unlike many other red cards, does not seek to damage each opponent into submission. His plus ability loots up to two cards, potentially putting useful artifacts into the graveyard where they can be easily reanimated using Daretti's minus ability. Artifacts like Wurmcoil Engine or Spine of Ish Sah are easy to cheat out despite their high cost and can create huge value.
Daretti's ult, while nothing game-winning, synergizes well with his minus ability and can create a lot of value. Additionally, it's an emblem that can't be interacted with, making for a crude indestructibility for all of your artifacts. Overall, with the number of powerful artifacts in the game, Daretti can be built very widely to encompass many different archetypes and is a solid cEDH commander for his versatility.
9 Breeches, ♏Brazen Plunderer
Breeches is a scary card, capable of stealing any card with a single hit. In cEDH, many cards in the opponent's deck are fast mana cards, allowing you to quickly ramp up into game-winning spells and combos, perhaps even turning your opponent's splashy spells against them. His only downside is a lack of haste, but since his ability triggers off any pirate dealing damage, this is largely manageable.
His Partner mechanic means you can customize his deck a little and play into a strategy you are more comfortable with. However, Breeches is mostly built alongside Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator for their pir♊ate synergy, which can help him ramp with access to treasures𝓰 and protect him with access to blue counterspells.
8 Slicer, Hired Muscle//Slicer, Hig𒊎h-Spe🌱ed Antagonist
What makes Slicer a fantastic cEDH commander is his constant board presence. Bringing him out with his cheaper car half and using his haste to hit an initial opponent 𒆙transforms him into his robot half, which is then taken over by an opponent and goaded. As commander 💃damage is accumulated regardless of who controls them, this can quickly defeat opponents even when it is not your turn, especially with his built-in double strike.
When you are at the last opponent, you can simply convert Slicer back to his car half and steamroll past your remaining opponent's defenses. Slicer is a force to be reckoned with on all turns, not just your own, and is a fantastically fast-paced 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Transformer commander.
7 Jeska, Thrice Reborn ☂ 🅰
Jeska is another Planeswalker commander, and is a hugely splashy card for her zero-cost ability. Her zero ability triples the player damage of any one creature and can easily win the game outright in a similar vein to cards like Craterhoof Behemoth. Her minus ability is not useful enough to be considered for most contexts but can serve for some quick removal if you're in a pinch. However, that does not diminish her power as a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:red Planeswalker.
Another with a Partner mechanic, Jeska can be further customized with other colors and effects. She pairs best with Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker for his ability to grow with minimal effort, especially in cEDH, where opponents are likely to play many spells on one turn. From there, Jeska only needs tജo be summoned. She can make the large bird hit for triple damage, often enough to beat opponents outright with commander damage. However, other commanders that hit hard, such as Dargo and Rograkh, are also very viable.
6 Krark, The Thumbless ﷺ
Krark's effect is simple but very effective; he copies instant and sorceries if you win a flip. While losing the flip can be detrimental, the spell can be reused, effectively making a low-risk benefit. However, what makes Krark a fantastic cEDH commander is his Partner mechanic.
Sakashima of a Thousand Faces is the most popular partner for Krark. Sakashima gives access to blue and its many copy spells, which can combo extremely well with Krark. Sakashima can copy Krark, allowing his ability to occur twice. Copy spells can then copy Krark, combo-ing with his other copies of Krark, creating an easy way to make many K🗹rarks with little effort. Losing a flip means you can get✨ the spell back to be used again, creating a win-win situation that your opponents cannot easily counter.
5 Rograkh, Son Of Rohgahh ಌ
Rograkh is a very basic commander, but that belies his potential. At zero cost and a bunch of keywords, Rograkh can🌠 quickly snowball into a powerhouse very quickly. With him as the commander, the goal is to buff him to the point where he can take out players with commander damage as quickly as possible. Equipment, auras, and even combat tricks are all effective decks for him, and his zero cost means you can spend all avai💧lable mana to make him a player-killer by turn two.
Whi♚le Rograkh also has the Partner mechanic, Rograkh is effective enough to stand on his own while you use spells the additional colors afford to beef him up into a player-defeating powerhouse.
4 ⛎ Rionya, Fire Daဣncer
Do you like casting spells? Do you love keeping track of a storm counter? Do you have the very ♋specific desire to turn your spellslinging into creature tokens? Then step right up to Rionya, Fire Dancer, an incredibly strong commander who can have you swarm over the battlefieldꦡ from practically nothing.
Rionya has the unique ability that lets you create X token copies of a single creature you control, with X being equal to one more than the number of instant and sorcery spells you've cast this turn. Those tokens gain haste but only stick around to the beginning of the next end step.
A really quick two-card combo is with Combat Celebrant, whose exert ability gives you another combat step when it attacks. Even if you are just making one copy on each of your combat steps, you can continuously exert that token, take another combat step while attacking, and eventually punch through all your opponent's defenses one point of damage at a time. There are a few different ways to achieve similar combos with Rionya, oftentimes without even relying on you to cast multiple spells in a turn to really make use of Rionya's ability.
3 Magda, Brazen ꦦOut⛦law
Magda relies on her innate abilities to combo into unlimited mana. Pairing her treasure synergy with Clock of Omens, this commander can quickly reach an infinite amount of mana. Magda herself is very cheap at two mana and can easily be cast very quickly. Clock of Omens and at least one artifact dwarf must then be in play for the combo to work, which is remarkably easy with tutors and Magda's tutoring ability which can seek out an artifact changeling card to complete the combo.
Tapping both Clock of Omens and the artifact dwarf triggers Magda and makes a treasure token which can then be used for Clock of Omens effect to continuously untap the artifact dwarf. Thℱis makes an unlimited amount of triggers and, consequently, an unlimited amount of universal mana that can be used to cast anything, often winning the game outright.
