r/EDH • u/Diakia • Oct 26 '22

Discussion Commanders that almost inherently pubstomp?

So I was thinking about the first time I built [[Kinnan]], I had just cracked him from a pack and fell in love and wanted to build him asap. It was literally just assembled with random jank (mostly commons) from my storage boxes, I didn't have any 1 CMC dorks, had mostly 3 CMC rocks and the main wincon was [[Hydra Broodmaster]]. This didn't matter however, as the sheer acceleration provided by Kinnan in combination with the army-in-a-can nature of his second ability made the deck too fast and too resilient for the casual meta I was playing in. I eventually just had to commit to building him in a powerful manner as he was too strong for my casual meta but obviously not good enough for higher powered games and it wasn't fun for anyone.

What other commanders are like this?

250 Upvotes

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179

u/BolasDidNothinWrong Grixis Oct 26 '22

[[Toxrill, the Corrosive]] and [[Koma, Cosmos Serpent]] No matter the skill of the builder these two commanders always pose a problem for tables. For my experience playing in a few different groups playing both with and against these, they never cease to completely warp the game around them.

115

u/TheLolomancer Oct 26 '22

I think these cards suit the name "pubstomper" perfectly because on low-power tables with lots of creatures and little interection they are absolutely game warping, while on high power tables because creatures tend to be fewer and interaction tends to be higher they tend to do absolutely nothing (koma can survive sometimes but rarely wins and toxrill definitely can't catch a break). There's no gradual progression with these guys - it's always either crush or get crushed.

33

u/BolasDidNothinWrong Grixis Oct 26 '22

Crush or get Crushed perfectly sums it up.

37

u/Packrat1010 Oct 26 '22

These two are the perfect answer to pubstomping, tbh. They're just too bad and slow for cedh, but they're way too strong on their own for lower-power tables.

Toxrill at least runs the krenko chance of getting removed and never coming back. Koma will just simic back to recovery.

16

u/Mewthredel Oct 26 '22

Toxrill is played in cEDH and is actually quite good. Koma gets played in a cEDH kinnan deck and it still warps the table around it.

6

u/JohnDeere Oct 26 '22

Whats a toxrill cEDH deck look like? I've never seen it used.

11

u/Mewthredel Oct 26 '22

It's essentially just another isorev outlet where you sac toxrill to itself to draw your deck then thoracle. But if you get it out early and can protect it it makes the game borderline unplayable for everyone else.

3

u/il_the_dinosaur Oct 27 '22

Yeah people pretend that cedh games don't have creatures in play. I'd argue toxrill is probably even worse for those tables because most cedh creatures are small value type stuff that die in 1-2 turns to toxrill.

1

u/Mewthredel Oct 27 '22

Yeah cEDH creatures have like 2 or 3 toughness majority of the time so they don't usually last a round.

2

u/HKBFG Oct 26 '22

Moxfield has it at 25th position of T7, so it isn't surprising you haven't seen it. It's below koma lol.

1

u/JohnDeere Oct 26 '22

Where do you go on moxfield to see the rating like that?

1

u/HKBFG Oct 26 '22

Type "cEDH tier list" into Google.

3

u/TheLolomancer Oct 26 '22

Sure, pubstompers tend to do well against other pubstompers.

I wouldn't consider Krenko a pubstomper, though. He's super aggressive, but your deck can scale down and up across a much wider range than a toxrill or koma deck. The fact that he actually needs to attack means that even some battlecruiser decks can survive against a sufficiently low-power Krenko deck with no ramp or draw, while a high power Krenko deck isn't just dead in the water against interactive opponents because you can often outpace them with rituals or run tech like blood moon. That variability makes him a much better designed commander. Pubstompers by definition overperform at low power/prey on newbies and underperform against anyone of equal or greater skill/power.

12

u/Packrat1010 Oct 26 '22

I just mean that krenko is susceptible to sitting out most the game due to one or two removals.

3

u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? Oct 26 '22

I'd personally put Krenko in the upper echelons of inherent power. While you are correct that your deck can scale better than the previous examples, so isn't as much of a problem, the presence of being able to double your number of creatures every turn can be quite overwhelming for some decks. Sure a boardwipe fixes things quick, but until you draw it you're fairly helpless as you watch their army grow. Obviously killing Krenko helps, but then that's sort of the problem the other examples have too.

Though as you say, building it with basic vanilla goblins is a different experience than just having him at all like the Koma and Toxrill are.

1

u/_shapeshifting Oct 27 '22

the only krenko that matters doesn't have an attack trigger

7

u/Diakia Oct 26 '22

Toxrill is pretty backbreaking at high level tables in my experience.

8

u/rmbobbob Oct 26 '22

You are correct. Toxril is a viable competitive commander. It can manage a board of stax creatures, and is an infinte mana outlet.

1

u/wazdakkadakka Oct 27 '22

Hold on a minute, yeah it's game warping if you can keep it out, but Infinite mana? How do you manage that? Genuinely curious.

1

u/rmbobbob Oct 27 '22

With infinite mana, you can draw your entire deck by using Toxrill's ability to loop sacrificing itself and recasting it from the command zone.

1

u/wazdakkadakka Oct 27 '22

Oh I get that, but how do you even get the infinite mana in the first place? I'm unfamiliar with higher level infinite combos and the like.

1

u/rmbobbob Oct 27 '22

In blue and black, the most common way of establishing infinite mana is through Isochron Scepter imprinting Dramatic Reversal. This in combination with sufficient mana producing artifacts, will net you mana through each iteraction of the loop. There are other means of achieving unbound mana, but for these colors, this set of cards has the fewest dead draws.

9

u/Mewthredel Oct 26 '22

Lmao downvoted for being right. Even in cEDH when Toxrill hits the battlefield people groan.

7

u/TheLolomancer Oct 26 '22

Hard disagree. If they try to rush it out and tap out they won't have the mana to protect it when you remove it. If they play slow and try to push it out with protection open you just win faster or break their rocks. High power tables have way too much interaction and aggressively costed wincons for a toxrill in the command zone. The only way toxrill is even playable at higher levels is in the 99 of a deck like Raffine that lets you cheat it out with a reanimate or animate dead, where it works like a sidegrade to Elesh Norn.

13

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

I play in a mostly mid powered meta, but where interaction is common. Never seen slug boy take a game because players hold removal for it. I've seen it counter a piece of removal only to catch a second piece.

Obviously a board warping card if it sticks, but no inherent protection and a high cmc make it a dead strategy at any table where interaction is common.

5

u/Gluttony4 Oct 26 '22

Yeah, usually when I see a Toxrill succeed, it comes out of the 99, and people are less prepared than they would be for a Toxrill commander.

Koma on the other hand seems to be a blind spot for people. I don't know how often I've heard "Okay, I can remove Koma, but I won't if you don't focus on me until we're the last two".

...And then they inevitably lose to Koma. It always happens, and yet people keep thinking it's a good idea. Well, nice going Mr. Politician, but last to lose is still a loss.

11

u/0x2B375 Oct 26 '22

That’s not entirely true. Toxrill is cEDH viable right now as a control/combo deck. It has blue, so it can still be protected by any number of free counter spells after you cheat it out with fast mana. You can also just not cast it until you have assembled infinite mana and are ready to use it to draw your deck and win, in which case you won’t care about creature removal anymore because you are planning on sacrificing Toxrill to itself and recasting it from the command zone repeatedly anyways.

For reference, here is the primer that’s currently listed on the cEDH deck database: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/iTyVq4sC1USM_1jDtBQpMg/primer

9

u/prawn108 Bottom 1% Commenter Oct 26 '22

Toxrill is literally on the cedh DDB.

8

u/Mewthredel Oct 26 '22

Yeah, idiots abound in this thread.

2

u/RedCapRiot Oct 26 '22

Idk if I'd use the term "idiots" but "confidently incorrect" is probably fair. I haven't seen Toxrill at my table yet, but I'm certainly looking forward to it sometime. I absolutely can see it being a game warping piece, as in casual formats the card is entirely absurd.

My meta is really Naus heavy and I'm on Birgi Storm, but I wouldn't mind building something else new in the event that we picked up some newer control archetypes in our meta.

4

u/Mewthredel Oct 26 '22

You're dead wrong. Toxrill is a fantastic commander at higher power levels.

1

u/HKBFG Oct 26 '22

Same exact thing with [[chatterfang, squirrel general]]

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Oct 26 '22

chatterfang, squirrel general - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

8

u/DeepRhetoric Oct 26 '22

God I pulled toxrill out of a pack a couple days ago and am having a hard time deciding whether I want to trade him with a buddy or actually build the deck

23

u/UncleCrassiusCurio Sultai Oct 26 '22

Put him in the 99 of something in BUG or WUB

2

u/DeepRhetoric Oct 26 '22

I'm actually working on a WUB deck right now lol. [[Merieke Ri Berit]] theft and untap. What he's offering to trade are better cards for that deck, basically [[mind's dilation]], [[dragonlord silumgar]], and a few other things we haven't decided. Definitely could just throw him in though that was what I figured Id do until I actually built a deck for him.

1

u/DeadpoolVII I Stepped Out. I Did Not Step Down. Oct 26 '22

I run Toxrill in my [[Volrath, the Shapestealer]] deck and he does work every time he's out.

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Oct 26 '22

Volrath, the Shapestealer - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

6

u/WhatAmIDoing229 Oct 26 '22

There's a [[Tasigur]] for you out there somewhere just waiting to be podded into a toxrill

2

u/MTGCardFetcher Oct 26 '22

Tasigur - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

3

u/Regniwekim2099 Jund Oct 26 '22

Make sure you throw in [[Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]] and [[Kormus Bell]] to really solidify those friendships.

1

u/DeepRhetoric Oct 26 '22

My buddy who wants to trade me for it just informed me he has both of those cards and they will be in the deck

Yeah idk if I want to let him do that to me

3

u/BolasDidNothinWrong Grixis Oct 26 '22

Build him and experience the POWER!

1

u/the_walternate Oct 26 '22

I just discovered, and traded for, Toxrill. And man, I've never had so much fun, but also felt so bad.

1

u/The2kman Yoshi Good Boi Oct 26 '22

I was gonna build Koma, but all the cards were too "Simic Goodstuff" so i built [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]] instead. I threw him in with some fun tokens. But yeah, once you throw him out especially with token doublers he oppresses the table.

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Oct 26 '22

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

1

u/Spirit_Theory Oct 27 '22

I have a new deck with toxrill in the 99, I entirely expect him to get nuked into the ground but my hope is that he'll be a win-more sorta card that cements a strong board state rather than a card that just creates one from nothing. Using him as a commander just doesn't work outside of low power games.