MTG: Weekly EDH – Top Five – Rise of the Machine
Just when we thought the spider was indestructible, a Phyrexian angel swoops in to remind us why she’s the Praetor’s voice.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our ongoing series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering, where you use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory.
EDHRec.com is a great source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one. They also provide a definitive ranking of which Commanders are ranking the highest each week. These are the top five Commanders for this week, based on decks built and logged playtime.
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored
The sun still rises on the empire of Pants Laser, and it’s well deserved. Discover is such an incredible mechanic, and with just a few doubler tricks (Helm of the Host, Mirror Box, etc), you can play your entire deck in a single turn.
Gishath, Sun’s Avatar
The biggest, baddest dino on the block is still our second entry and well-deserved. As strong as Pantlaza is, with all the tricks it can do, it’s hard to compare to the raw power of Gishath. This is the perfect deck for the “turn cards sideways” strategy.
Hakbal of the Surging Soul
Keeping his shiny bronze medal, Mer-cules himself is maintaining Merfolk supremacy. I built a Hakbal deck back when the precon dropped, but hadn’t gotten a chance to play it until this week. Let’s just say…I get this ranking. Hakbal, left to his own devices, is a problem.
Edgar Markov
Too fabulous to die, we have Edgar Markov maintaining his fourth-place seat. Vampires, specifically Mardu vampires, are always a powerful choice, and the Ixalan newcomers keep making it better. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Eddie move up in the next week or so.
Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice
Finally booting Tymna, we have New Capenna’s most thorough building inspector, Atraxa. Honestly, I’m surprised it took her this long to get back on the top five. Her nasty keyword soup, plus a free proliferate trigger, makes her a deadly Commander. Most tables I’ve played with have a KoS rule for Atraxa, on the same level as Urza or Kaalia.
What are your thoughts on this week’s commanders?
