You know what my favorite part about
Deckstats EDHREC is? The stats.
Nope, doesn't have the same ring. But let's look at the numbers.
Name | Number of commander decks (as commander) | Number of commander decks (as 99) |
Athreos | 1,314 | 4,791 |
Ephara | 634 | 3,602 |
Erebos | 633 | 13,038 |
Heliod | 272 | 8,834 |
Iroas | 717 | 10,002 |
Karametra | 1,385 | 4,798 |
Keranos | 697 | 4,292 |
Kruphix | 1,417 | 6,786 |
Mogis | 840 | 4,190 |
Nylea | 155 | 9,988 |
Pharika | 212 | 1,748 |
Phenax | 1,475 | 3,125 |
Purphoros | 929 | 15,595 |
Thassa | 502 | 12,781 |
Xenagos | 1,411 | 9,183 |
So our top 5 as commanders (in order) are Phenax, Kruphix, Xenagos, Karametra, and Xenagos.
Our top 5 as part of the 99 are Purphoros, Erebos, Thassa, Iroas, and Nylea.
Now I've seen each of these as a commander deck, and even piloted a few of them. I think I'm giving an accurate description, but maybe some of you have seen different builds.
Athreos: Shadowborn Apostle deck, that works fairly well.
Ephara: The deck functions by flashing in creatures or creature tokens on their opponent's turn. This deck is hot garbage.
Erebos: Massive card draw to get into a combo. The problem is that
Sidisi, Undead Vizier is just better.
Heliod: The drunken-love child of a token deck and enchantress deck. It suffers from the regular problems with mono-white.
Iroas: Typical boros aggro deck.
Karametra: I've seen a couple builds for Karametra. There is enchantress (which has since been replaced by Estrid and Tuvasa), and a landfall deck that used stuff like
Titania, Protector of Argoth as a win condition.
Keranos: Mass everything destruction.
Jokulhaups,
Decree of Annihilation,
Obliterate. Stuff that misses enchantments and planeswalkers, but hits everything else. I've been told it's not fun to go against.
Kruphix: Several builds. Competitive builds tend to be heavy combo oriented, with lots of mana ramp and card draw. Casual builds use eldrazi.
Mogis: Boardwipes everywhere. Make sure no one ever has creatures, and win with incremental damage. The deck runs out of resources very quickly.
Nylea: Exactly what you think it is. Big creatures. The person who was playing this deck eventually switched it to
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero.
Pharika: Garbage. Think reanimator, but you only ever get snakes.
Phenax: Incremental mill deck, with lots of creatures with defender.
Puphoros: He makes a good commander, usually using token strategies with a goblin sub-theme (most good token generators in red make goblins). He works better as part of the 99 in either
Krenko, Mob Boss, or
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher.
Thassa: Unblockable Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents. Go
Whelming Wave! But in all seriousness it's not a good deck.
Xenagos: Like Nylea but more effective. Big creatures,
Pathbreaker Ibex, and extra combat steps.