Commander Clash S3 Episode 2: Standard Commander
Hello and welcome to Commander Clash, a video series where several MTGGoldfish contributors battle in a four player Commander game for fun and bragging rights. This week we are playing Standard Commander, where every card must be Standard-legal at the time of this recording. Here's what we're bringing:
- Tom uses the opportunity of a limited card pool to play a "fair" version of The Gitrog Monster, ramping hard and drawing cards
- Jennifer goes Aggro, building a creature army and adding all sorts of keywords to them with Odric, Lunarch Marshal
- Seth builds a deck around Panharmonicon, aiming to do ridiculously durdly things that may unintentionally also win the game, with General Tazri
- Tomer marries his love of Clue tokens with a previously unexplored archetype in the series, Energy, with some backup card advantage help from Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
Without spoiling the game, I can tell you this: before we sat down to play, we gushed about how cool our decks were and how much fun it was to be forced to run cards we loved when they were first spoiled but then forgot to actually try out up until now. Let's see if the game is as fun as the deckbuilding was! But first, a quick reminder: if you like Commander Clash and other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up with the latest and greatest.
Tom's Deck (Gitrog Monster)
Jennifer's Deck (Odric)
Seth's Deck (Tazri)
Tomer's Deck (Rashmi)
Post-Game Thoughts
I loved this week's Standard Commander and recommend trying it out for yourself! Here's a couple reasons why:
- Restrictions breed creativity. By not having access to auto-include staples like Sol Ring, you need to start looking for alternatives. Standard still has a ton of everything you'd want in a deck, from ramp to removal, and it's a ton of fun finding alternatives that you forgot even existed. Plus you might (re)discover gems that are worthy of play even in regular Commander games, like Trophy Mage!
- Decks are cheap to build. Our decks are typically hundreds of dollar (USD). This week's decks are about $50. Standard Commander is simply way more affordable, and you can pick up a competitive Standard Commander deck for a fraction of the price of a competitive Commander deck.
- Easier to transition into regular Commander. Many people have expressed interest to me in playing Commander, but the enormous card pool -- thousands of cards -- is daunting to dive into. Standard Commander is a far smaller pool comparatively, and thus much easier to wade into for beginners. This is especially true for people who have drafted the Standard cards or play the Standard format; you'd know a good chunk of the cards already!
We will definitely revisit Standard Commander in the future. Personally, I hope we squeeze in one game of it every time a new set is released!
Next Week: Theros Gods!
Amonkhet has just been fully spoiled and we can't wait to build decks around the new legendary creatures! With a brand new mono color god cycle being released soon, we decided to check out the original mono color god cycle from Theros block. Which god do you think we will devote ourselves to? Which god do you root for? Let us know! As always, we love to hear from you guys! Tell us what you like to see, what you don't like, any ideas that we can put forward for future videos, or anything else you'd like to tell us! You can reach us in the comments section below or tweet me @BudgetCommander.
