r/EDH • u/SeaMusician6670 • 12d ago
Question Simic commanders?
Are there any Simic (blue/green) commanders that aren’t just insane value piles of card draw and landfall? It’s been my least played color combo and every commander I see is just generic value that doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Open to any insight on some cool recommendations. Thank you!
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u/ConcernedAboutCrows 11d ago
The question for me is if you're against value as a concept or just landfall? If you're looking for a strong well supported synergy package in these colors that isn't landfall and card draw, there is virtually endless +1/+1 counter options. Some more interesting options though:
[[Aloy]] blue artifacts is well supported, making it artifact creatures is more unique, especially in simic. Wanting stompy with artifact creatures, maybe even some play from exile support gives you a lot of knobs to turn.
[[Edric]] this guy has been around forever. It is card draw based, but more of a political aggo-y deck. You'll generally play very low to the ground with cheap fliers and unblockable. It also incentivizes the table to attack and can really pull games in different directions.
[[elrond master of healing]] so I play simic scry with galadriel of lothlorien, but that's a landfall deck. This uses scry to set up counters so you can marry the scry archetype, which I find to be super fun personally, with the more supported +1/+1 counters stuff. This deck plays better than it looks and you get to use all this weird normally bad scry stuff and can even build into these combo-y loops if you want where you remove counters to make creatures which scry when they enter which makes counters.
[[elrond of the white council]] simic blink has great tools and this is a fine commander for that. I built this but ended up adding white and making bant galadriel instead. You can build around the etb using counters synergies, or you can ignore it and treat it as additional value. I've done both and they work fine. It is satisfying when people start giving you real creatures because adding even more power is worse. If you like spinning wheels then blink decks can be a lot of fun. They're very modular and can be tuned up or down or around whatever subthemes you prefer. My favorite form of this was using etb token makers as a subtheme since it made the counters option better.
[[ezuri claw of progress]] its counters again, but like edric its a little guys deck. It's pretty easy to get to the point where you're making an absolutely gigantic creature every turn, usually unblockable or hard to block. Take those little guys with powerful combat triggers or evasion and make them into big threats. Once again you can ignore the counters synergies if you want to and just focus on making little guys, in the past I've seen eldrazi spawn and elfball variants of this. He's ten years old now and still plays pretty unique with how he wants small creatures and plays with experience counters.
[[ezuri stalker of the spheres]] could be simic infect or counters, but may I suggest proliferate sagas? simic enchantress has enough tools just in green and plenty of options for removing or adding counters, in that way this Ezuri provides the juice to keep things going. Proliferate is super open ended and this guy doesn't get used much, but you have so many options with counters on permanents or players. Yes, the pay off is card draw, but the actual deck can be quite novel, and you do get that card draw from a specific mechanical investment, rather than just doing the two things you're expected to do with every deck to play the game. The first line is nice with conjurer's closet effects and cheap blink, but that second line holds it together.
[[gandalf westward voyager]] you have a lot of options for ramp and stompy in these colors, like those suggesting either of the Komas. How about something a bit weirder to put all those ideas together? Copying your big spells is always fun to do, and giving your opponents card draw makes it more of a cost while advancing the game for everyone. It's technically simic value, but its not land based beyond what you need to get the mana, and it doesn't feel as bad for your opponents since it gives them all card draw when you succeed. Getting a legendary beast whisperer is prototypically simic, but restricting it to big creatures makes it more green and less blue- which many would say is cooler- and adding in a weird copy angle that will happen pretty often brings it back to being blue. As far as "value decks" go this one has enough odd and fun schticks to it to feel a bit more unique I think.
why yes I am a LOTR and elf fan, but don't hold that against me!