(Commodore Guff | Art by Matt Stewart)

Masters for Commander

It may have been a tiny set, but Commander Masters had a big impact.

We're back with The Over/Under, the article series where we predict how popular new commanders will become after one year of circulation. Reminder: The line is 1200, so I gave each commander an "Over" or "Under" depending on how many decks I thought it would lead. I also made one Can't-Miss Pick, which is my most confident selection of the set. And, fortunately, since this set was so small, I'll cover all eight selections in-depth. If you want to review my takes from last year, here's the article. But if you'd like to keep reading, carry on. I'll be referencing that article throughout.

Ready for more? Let's get to it.

Overall Impressions

Here's how things broke for Commander Masters...

• Total number of commanders: 8
• Total number of commander decks: 35,641
• Average commander deck count: 4,455
• Most decks: Zhulodok, Void Gorger (12,613 decks)
• Fewest decks: Leori, Sparktouched Hunter (882 decks)

We usually get upwards of 30 commander per set these days, if not far more, so eight is a paltry sum. That said, the average is far higher than any set over the past year. In other words, there weren't many commanders, but of the few we got, they were impactful.

That shouldn't come as a surprise, considering this was a set with the format's title in the title. Furthermore, the product came exclusively in pre-constructed commander decks, which are often the most popular mode of distribution for EDH players. Plus, not only were the commanders sweet—so were the decks themselves. I mean, just check out some of the other cards unique to this product:

• Rise of the Eldrazi
• Darksteel Monolith
• Flayer of Loyalties
• Ondu Spiritdancer
• Composer of Spring
• Titan of Littjara

You've probably seen some, if not all, of these cards at your local tables this past year. They're popular selections in their own rights, and yet another reason these commanders fared so favorably. There were even several exclusive planeswalkers, including a new Chandra (Chandra, Legacy of Fire) and a guy I assumed was a D&D character (Vronos, Masked Inquisitor). All that contributes to one bigtime product.

But that wasn't always obvious. Even at debut, these decks were highly sought-after and therefore pretty pricey, by which I mean, really pricey. The Eldrazi and Sliver decks in particular started at well over $100, leading many players to wonder if that might affect this crop's popularity.

Clearly, it didn't, which is a good takeaway moving forward. Many players likely just bought the commanders as singles (all but Zhulodok are highly affordable), while some others probably theory-crafted lists even without the cards. And for those who bought the decks, 99 and all, I salute you.

Now for some commander-by-commander analysis.

My Solid Selections

We'll go down the list in order, starting with our correct Overs. And this Over, might I say, was very correct.

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 8,277

I predicted Anikthea would be "the best Hand that Theros has ever known," and though it's difficult to validate that claim, I think it's safe to say she's done quite well for herself. Here's a little more of last year's analysis:

"Reanimating enchantments is a fairly novel effect, leading to wonky statements like, 'I swing at you with my Sterling Grove.' More likely, you'll be attacking with bigger threats, like Nylea's Colossus or the newly printed Nyxborn Behemoth."

All three of those cards appear in the average Anikthea deck, along with a bevy of other spicy options, including Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Doomwake Giant, and Destiny Spinner. I went on to mention Anointed Procession and Growing Ranks, and both those cards appear in most of these decks, too.

Overall, Anikthea is pretty obvious in what it wants to do...but that doesn't mean that what it's doing isn't interesting. The same could probably be said of our next commander.

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 3,119

Narci is a pretty sweet Saga commander. Here's the bulk of last year's analysis for her:

"Her payoff grows greater with bigger mana values, so while Bombadil prefers Sagas on the cheaper end, Narci wants big stuff, like The War in Heaven, The World Spell, and the newly minted Battle at the Helvault. The Read ahead subset of Sagas will also be useful, since you get an instant sacrifice if you want it."

All three of those cards appear in more than half of Narci decks, and the Read ahead stuff appears in the form of The Cruelty of Gix. Though I was right on pretty much all fronts, I can't give myself too much credit because, as I mentioned, Narci is fairly obvious in her play patterns. The only innovation I've found is the Sacrifice theme, where deckbuilders seem to be eshewing Sagas for quick-and-easy self-sacrificers, e.g. Unbridled Growth and Seal of Doom.

Again, not a lot of subtlety here. And the pattern continues with our next commander...

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 4,579

I began the Commodore's analysis with an insightful insight: "[He] looks more like a middle-aged Ron Weasley to me." I think that statement has aged as well as Ron himself—and the rest of my analysis isn't bad, either:

"...Players would probably play [Guff's] static ability by itself as an enchantment, and though his -3 ability probably won't be doming opponents for big damage, drawing two or three cards for zero mana is better value than Ancestral Recall, a card that's banned in EDH."

All true. But I failed to cover a couple things that have become quite popular among Guff-builders: Proliferate and Oaths. Dreamtide Whale is a fine new tool that builds loyalty counters fast, while Flux Channeler and Karn's Bastion are returning classics. We see Oath of Teferi, Oath of Gideon, Oath of Jace, and Oath of Chandra as well. If anyone ever takes the oath again, I'm sure their card will appear here, too.

Alright, thus far, all these commanders pretty much do what they say. This next one is quite a bit different:

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 2,254

That's a pretty tame performance for a five-color commander. In fact, it's the least popular commander we've covered thus far. Why is that? Let's begin with last year's analysis.

"To quote the great Mark Rosewater, 'restrictions breed creativity.' Typal themes are fun because they're a restriction. You have payoffs that require specific creature-type enablers, which restricts your selection and therefore mandates creativity.

...Rukarumel quashes that creativity. All you need do is load your deck with powerful typal enablers, then let your commander change your best creatures into any type. You're not limited by color, either, since you have all five."

I believe this criticism lies at the heart of Rukarumel's underwhelming results. And I think I was even more right than I thought I'd be.

Sifting through this commander's page, we see pretty much only Slivers. Makes sense, considering this Biologist type-shifts Slivers and/or nontoken creatures. But that makes Rukarumel just another in a long line of WUBRG Sliver commanders. Just look at the other six...

1. The First Sliver
2. Sliver Overlord
3. Sliver Gravemother
4. Sliver Hivelord
5. Sliver Queen
6. Sliver Legion

Tough to hang with company like that, especially when you're not doing anything particularly remarkable. Plus, Rukarumel was the secondary commander inside Sliver Gravemother's box, which already set it up for beta status. Overall, it's tough to call a 2k-deck commander a disappointment...but this was pretty darn close.

We've discussed this next one a bit already, so let's discuss it even more.

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 2,520

Weirdly, this did not finish with too many more decks than Rukarumel, despite being a far cooler commander. Here's what I had to say about it last year:

"Putting encore on Slivers is like serving free Guinness on St. Patty's: Things are guaranteed to get wild."

Not that I would know anything about such debauchery. Moving on...

"Imagine stacking the effect of Sliver Legiontwo or three times, or Megantic Sliver, or Virulent Sliver. They also stick around until the next end step, meaning the usual temporal tricks, like Obeka, Brute Chronologist and Sundial of the Infinite, will make those tokens permanent."

All those cards appear in most Gravemother decks, along with even better selections I hadn't mentioned, such as Harmonic Sliver, which pretty much becomes Bane of Progress.

Still, there's little that differentiates Gravemother from our other five-color Sliver commanders. I mean, if you were to cover the commander and check the pages of each of them, it would be difficult to spot any differences whatsoever. I'm guessing that's why Gravemother didn't approach the popularity of, say, The First Sliver. But an Over's still an Over.

Speaking of Overs, this next Over was the Overest Over of all the Overs in this set.

My prediction: Can't-Miss Pick

Final deck count: 12,613

Always a nice confidence booster when my Can't-Miss Pick becomes the set's most popular commander—not that there was much doubt with this one.

"Zhulodok is a fairly straightforward value commander, with shades of Maelstrom Wanderer and Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty."

(For the record, Zhulodok leads more decks than both those commanders combined.)

"Using Affinity cards like Mycosynth Golem and Myr Enforcer...trigger Zhulodok without costing the full 7+...Zhulodok also functions as a nice Eldrazi typal commander, making cards like Not of This World and Conduit of Ruin even better. Oh, and Darksteel Monolith from the precon is tailor-made for this thing."

Neither the Golem nor the Enforcer appear in the standard Zhulo decklist, though there is an Artifacts theme that takes advantage nicely. The other three cards I mentioned were fairly predictable. And hey, it didn't hurt that some of the best creatures printed in Modern Horizons 3 were Eldrazi.

I've also got a working theory that I honestly probably should've noticed sooner. You know how Wizards frequently teases commanders from upcoming sets several months in advance to build hype? Those commanders always seem to go Over. Unsurprising, since they're incentivized to reveal the set's best first. But also, I think early previews simply have bonus time to accumulate decks, leading to easy Overs.

Zhulodok was one such commander. If memory serves, it was the first card previewed from this set. I'll pay closer attention moving forward.

And now we reach the Unders. I only predicted two for the entire set. Here's the one I got right:

My prediction: Over

Final deck count: 882

We commenced last year's evaluation with a compliment:

"...[Leori is] the first commander in the game's history to specifically reference planeswalker types (Deification from March of the Machine: The Aftermath mentions them, but obviously that isn't a commander)."

That's still true, by the way, even a full year later. Evidently, specifying a planeswalker's type isn't exactly fertile soil for designers. After listing some of the more common planeswalker types (of which there are admittedly many), I concluded thusly:

"In my opinion, the setup cost is too damn high. How often does one have multiple planeswalkers in play, let alone those with overlapping types? In my experience, they're a lightning rod for attackers, especially if you're doing some additional chicanery with them. I just don't think this commander will work the way it's advertised."

But hey, players still tried. Regarding the lightning-rod status I mentioned, many players defended their 'walkers with stuff like Onakke Oathkeeper, Silent Arbiter, and Pramikon, Sky Rampart. Sounds annoying. They also packed most of the planeswalkers I noted, with numerous Chandras, Teferis, and Jaces in attendance. (Still no Space Beleren, but that's unsurprising.)

Despite all that, Leori came about 400 decks short. It seems, indeed, that the setup cost was too damn high.

My Big Mistake

I use the singular here because, believe it or not, I only got one selection wrong. And it was...

My prediction: Under

Final deck count: 1,397

Close. So close! If I'd called Omarthis correctly, it would've been the first time in Over/Under history that I got an entire set right. So what went wrong? Let's check the takes.

"Other than being an avid Ugin cosplayer, Omarthis doesn't appear to have much going for itself."

I stand corrected.

"Modular creatures are decent enablers, though there aren't many of them and they demand more artifact creatures, which limits the viability of nonartifact colorless bangers, like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which you'd otherwise want to use.

Overall, this guy feels pretty scattered. Even its own precon doesn’t support it enough, which doesn’t bode well for its future success."

I was on the right track with the modular creatures; most Omarthis decks play Arcbound Crusher, Scrapyard Recombiner, Arcbound Ravager, and more. The problem was my reasoning: When you've got all those counters, who cares about Eldrazi titans? I mean, 22% of these decks still play Kozilek, the Broken Reality and 18% play Kozilek, the Great Distortion. But still, the Eldrazi titans don't do much with counters, which is why their absence didn't matter.

The takeaway: I have a hard time evaluating colorless commanders. Some are obvious Overs, but others, like Omarthis, don't seem to have enough juice to be worth the squeeze. Seems I need to reevaluate my juice-to-squeezing ratio.

Recap

Correct Picks (7)

1. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos - Over
2. Narci, Fable Singer - Over
3. Commodore Guff - Over
4. Rukarumel, Biologist - Over
5. Sliver Gravemother - Over
6. Zhulodok, Void Gorger - Over
7. Leori, Sparktouched Hunter - Under

Incorrect Picks (1)

1. Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate - Under Over

My Commander Masters Prediction Percentage: 88%

My Overall Prediction Percentage: 76%

I didn't get the clean 100%, but I can't complain about a solid 88. I mean, it's only three points short of my career-high 91% of Kaldheim, so I'll take it. Here's hoping our next set has a smaller class of commanders like this one. (It won't.)

Read more:

The Over/Under - Predicting the Popularity of Bloomburrow Commanders

The Story of Flubs, the Fool

Kyle Massa

Kyle A. Massa is a writer and avid Magic player living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His current favorite card is Flubs, the Fool. Kyle can be found on Twitter @mindofkyleam.