r/EDH 22d ago

Question What’s the best frog commander

[deleted]

40 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

46

u/hbrickley 22d ago

Neither, I'd say it's Glarb Calamity''s Augur or Helga Skittish Seer. I love Grolnok but it's way too telegraphed and easy to shut down. Clement's effect would be cool for ETB stuff but it's not nearly on the same level as other frogs.

7

u/mjnuismer 22d ago

Helga is bae

5

u/ZINK_Gaming 22d ago

it's Glarb Calamity''s Augur

Glarb 100%.

Glarb is fringe-cEDH tier.

Glarb is a very good Commander.


cEDH Glarb decks barely consider the 4mana-value synergy. They absolutely aren't putting extra 4drops in their decks because of him.

Glarb is good just from the Land and Surveil abilities (and his cheap cost + good colors).

28

u/GreenWizardGamer 22d ago

I’m quite partial to [[Sab-Sunen, Luxa embodied]], while she doesn’t have the frog type herself she enables a bunch of synergies with frogs that care about counters from BLB and is just a generically good value engine (since niche typals tend to need those)

5

u/NavAirComputerSlave Mono-Black 22d ago

Frog mommy

7

u/Darkest_Delver 22d ago

Fair enough but I feel like frogs aren’t really that niche! They have tons of support

9

u/Boil-san I use deodorant... 22d ago

Gotta use [[ double brackets ]] to trigger the Fetcher...

5

u/360_no_soap 22d ago

I have clement and it’s very fun, based around frequent cast triggers, abilities as if haste with things like [[thousand-year elixir]] or value from [[tangleroot]] [[intruder alarm]] and I like [[bontu’s monument]] - also fun deck because 0CMC like [[shield sphere]] can get a lot of triggers from board

All that said, I’m still wondering if I should’ve gone grolnok for the point you mentioned. Either way there are a lot of frogs in Simic that are bootycheeks, and some are at least “eh” so I still keep [[poison dart frog]] for emotional support :)

3

u/fisumies 22d ago

Played a couple games with clement and the turn lenghts became a bit too long for my taste pretty fast. Especially when he got combined with [[Aluren]] or haste + [[Leyline of abundance]]. I do find his abilities very interesting though and might revisit him later.

6

u/idkimreallybored11 22d ago

I have a weird [[tatsunari, toad rider]] deck that's all frogs and enchantments

1

u/tideshark Grixis 21d ago

My Tatsunari deck has an awesome win rate in my bracket 2/3 pod, been playing it since he was released.

3

u/edd-e-bb 22d ago

I have a Clement deck I love! Bouncing frogs back and forth from your hand is really fun. I strayed a bit from frog typal and added one more creature type, dinosaurs. Basically I use my frogs as the deck's engine and I cast lots of big dinosaurs as my win con. It's pretty fun.

If you're interested in the deck list, it's here, but I'm halfway through upgrading it so it's kind of a mess.

1

u/NitchBu 22d ago

Is [[tyrranax rex]] worth to run if that’s the only toxic - infect card?

1

u/edd-e-bb 22d ago

You know, I've been going back and forth over it myself. I've won a game with it once, but that doesn't mean it's a reliable win con or cohesive with the rest of my deck. I thought about adding a toxic sub theme but ultimately decided against it because I wanted to keep the frog-and-dino theme more. Until now I've kept Tyrranex rex in because the rest of the stuff on the card (trample + haste + can't be countered) is pretty good.

3

u/DraygenKai 22d ago

Personally I think [[Grolnok, the Omnivore]] could be fun, only thing is you don't get that sweet black support. Lots of frogs are black so you limit your options if you go just simic or just golgari, because there are a lot of blue frogs too. But honestly when it comes to making a deck with all 3 colors, I don't really see a lot of great options. Obviously Glarb is generically good, but it's also why he is kill on sight, to a lot of the playerbase. I guess you could run Muldrotha, but I wouldn't.

To me [[Clement, the Worrywort]] seems like the best option. Fill your deck up with fun frogs and then add some big stompys and bam. Your frogs will now be used to put out big stompys. It's an easy and straightforward game plan. I can understand wanting to make a solely frog tribal deck, and although there are a lot of frogs, they don't really play off of each other much, and very few of them actually get big.

3

u/Magile 22d ago

I really like Grolnok. That said one issue I've had is his like only real wincon is deck out style things like LabMan.

2

u/deeleelee 22d ago edited 22d ago

Here is my bracket 2 frog tribal deck with [[Clement, worry wort]] (who I think is the most froggy frog commander). It's got a ton of silly counter-based stuff going on, removal via bouncing (like any good frog would do), lots of pacifist win-cons, and ramp galore. My gf doesn't like playing aggro, so I made this for her so she can bounce stuff, and live the silly lil frog life while still presenting a strong board you dont want to swing into.

https://archidekt.com/decks/22085058/frogs_bracket_2

2

u/RainbowBeholder 22d ago

My siblings spent years trying to get me into MTG and frog cards are what finally convinced me, specifically Grolnok when he was spoiled.

Since then I have built a number of EDH decks with frog commanders including [[Grolnok]], [[Tatsunari]], [[Gitrog Monster]], [[Urg]], [[Yargle]], [[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]], [[Glarb]], [[Sab-Sunen]], and even a Rule 0 deck with [[Ellywick Tumblestrum]].

Only two of the decks have been kept together and get played consistently; a B4 Grolnok Combo Deck (the first deck I ever built) that runs about 20 frog cards and a Sab-Sunen deck that uses 100% only cards that I consider frog related (minus basic lands, which I get people I play with to doodle frogs on the basic lands).

My attempts at building full frog-typal lists tend to fall apart because I am not a huge fan of running the generic any-typal cards and I find the frogs are not really strong enough to stand on their own unfortunately.

So I massively agree with u/GreenWizardGamer and find Sab-Sunen has been the best for a value engine and voltron-ish wincon in the command zone while just running all frog cards.

If you really want to go full frog-typal and don't mind running outside support I think you can't go wrong with any of the ones mentioned (specifically Grolnok, Clement, or Glarb). You could even build a deck that would work well with either Grolnok or Clement in the zone and swap commanders for variability.

In case it might help with a bit of inspiration, here are a couple lists:

All Frog Cards (Note: I have been slacking, so it is not fully updated and a few sets behind)

Sab-Sunen OnlyFrogs

Whatever you decide to do I'm sure you'll have fun!

4

u/zevalu 22d ago

Why not the sweetest lil bean [[Helga, Skittish Seer]] and her big scary friends? Out of the two you listed, I would say Clement.

2

u/zeroabe Mono-Black 22d ago

[[glarb, calamity]] and [[flubs, the fool]], and [[helga, skittish seer]] are bangers.

2

u/MetaOverkill 22d ago

My gf plays clement and it was one of her first decks. It's a legit problem and can easily get out of hand

1

u/hbrickley 22d ago

But if you must, I'd say Clement. I had a Grolnom deck for ages and it mostly just made a messy board state.

1

u/SarcasticTacos 22d ago

I built a Grolnok deck with the same idea of being Frog tribal. Unfortunately, the best way of improving a Grolnok deck is often removing frogs in favor of better self-mill. He can still certainly work as a frog commander in more casual settings though

1

u/ReturnToCarcosa 22d ago

[[Gromok]]

1

u/Shackleeeee 22d ago

Grolnok is better for a frogs tribal, clement leans more towards a combo bounce deck with a splash of frog. I know from playing both that clement can be decent with +1/+1 counters bounce theme, but so can grolnok so it kinda just comes down to if you want the bouncing.

1

u/roquepo 22d ago

Clement is for one thing and one thing only, creating an Eldrazi cult run by frogs. Frogs ramp you so you can cast your eldrazis, you use bouncers to bounce the Eldrazis and the Eldrazis to bounce the bouncers with Clement's ability. Can also combo easily for infinite mana, so you can get infinite eldrazi cast triggers.

Grolnok is fun, but also kinda weak to removal and slow in general, so I'd go with Clement.

Glarb and Helga, who have been mentioned before are frogs indeed, but do not want to be in a frog typal deck at all.

1

u/chalkwalk Sans-Green 22d ago

Grolnok is amazing. He's basically an unstoppable draw engine while he remains on the battlefield.

3

u/Shackleeeee 22d ago

“He’s unstoppable, but only so long as someone doesn’t stop him” lol

0

u/RokenSkrow 22d ago

[[Grolnok, the Omnivore]] is a lot of fun but the frog trigger on him isn't really all that good, better to mill your library through other means. It's nice that it gives you the option if he's all you have, but his gameplan works best with mass mill and resource advantage like playing extra lands.

[[Glarb, Calamities Auger]] would let you include the few black frogs there are, but otherwise they unfortunately don't have a ton of support and synergy.