Staying power: C19 commanders

[WWolfe]

How many and which of these new commanders from C19 do you think will stick around and you'll see consistently 6 months from now compared to which ones will fade into obscurity within that time period?

[Red_Wyrm]

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is definitely going to see play. Although I am curious to see if he is played more as a commander or in the 99 because I think there are just better options for a commander, but he is a great card to accelerate you forward. He is undoubtedly powerful, but for my taste, he is boring as the commander.

Anje Falkenrath will definitely see play as she is really the only madness commander out there. It isn't that she is the best, but she is simply the only one I can think of.

Elsha of the infinite seems great because she is a unique form of card advantage. If the deck is built properly, she is basically a vedalken orrery, especially with cards like Brain Storm, Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack. I am sure there are many more, but those come to mind first. Sevinne, the Chronoclasm seems like he/she would fit nicely into the Elsha deck, but Sevinne doesn't seem like a particularly amazing card to lead.

Ghired, Conclave exile I think will contend with Trostoni for the populate deck, but I like that they are different, so it kind of fits your play style. Do you want to Aetherflux Reservoir people? (The answer to that is always yes) or do you want to beat people into the ground through relentless attacking?

Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer is the only morph commander in Sultai. You have animar, soul of elements in Temur, so it comes down to do you like red or black, I think. Kadena is definitely better for strictly morph because of the attached card draw, but to make the most out of her (him?) you have to have cards like leyline of anticipation or Yeva, Nature's Herald to get that cost reduction as much as possible, whereas animar works for all your morph cards right at 3 counters, and he has protection, because why not? There are also more directions to go with animar. Your opponents know what you are doing with Kadena, not that that will actually help much against morph. I think it will be similar to  Ghired vs Trostoni.

Nothing else stands out as sticking around.

[CleanBelwas]

I think K'rrik will do well. What he offers is quite unique, so there will be a lot of people trying to break him. He's also superb flavour wise so there'll be people, myself included, who will go full Vorthos with him.

I think there's a lot of potential for pet decks here. Some fun, unique and interesting offerings that appeal to a lot of different play styles. I think there will be a few that appear fairly regularly, though not in huge amounts, just as peoples fun, favourite pet decks.

Egg Lady could be a big one for this, though personally I can see it playing out pretty similarly each game and could get old quite fast. But if you like eggs, she's fun.

Greven could fall into this category too. Seems like a real fun voltron build. A lot of cards combo very nicely with him and I imagine that's going to be a lot of fun to pilot.

Pramikon could also fit into this category. Kind of fun and interesting and offering something a little different. Some people will love it. Also Rayami.

A few others seem like solid commanders, if a little obvious. Chainer and Elsha particularly. I imagine most peoples versions of these decks will look pretty similar.

The rest seem a little underwhelming to me. Especially Kadena. Poor Kadena. Whether it's morph or Sultai you want to play, Kadena probably won't be your first choice. Kadena is the Davvol of C19.

[dexflux]

Fade into obscurity: Rayami, Kadena, Tahngarth, Grismold

Stick around: Atla Palani, K'rrik, Elsha

Somewhere in between: Anje, Chainer, Greven, Pramikon, Marisi, Volrath, Sevinne, Ghired, Gerrard

Now for my reasoning:

Rayami, Kadena, Tahngarth and Grismold are incredibly niche. Keyword soup, morph, and both types of stranger group hug for each Tahngarth and Grismold are relatively rare archetypes to be seen and I highly doubt that those commanders will change that. Apart from Rayami they are also pretty lacking in power.

Atla Palani explodes into semi-random fatties, which is essentially Timmy's dream incarnate. I can see that sticking around easily. K'rrik tries to break the color black, which has been, in my experience, one of the most loved monocolors, therefore I can see him stick. Elsha is noncreature, nonland, instant speed Future Sight in colors that can abuse that. I'm not perfectly sure if Elsha will stick, but I'm fairly certain.

The others fill known strategies, sometimes with a twist.
Black-red got a nice boost in variety this year, but I have my doubts that people will start to change, for example, their Meren to Chainer (similar strategy) or their other Rakdos commanders to one of the three. Chainer enables grindy strategies though, but those aren't well liked at casual tables.
Anje is interesting without the madness part, but the madness archetype itself lacks good cards to be any kind of viable. Most builds I've seen are Doomsday, Animate Dead and Worldgorger Dragon, so nothing new. Greven is super strong, but lacks identity beyond being Hatred on a stick with bringing really good card draw to Rakdos. He's massively goodstuff and aggro in those colors.
Pramikon and Marisi fill the same niche Queen Marchsa (long may she reign) does - politics! They can shape the game with little effort and build around some board disruption, all being WRX. I expect those two to have a decent following, but nothing major - goad and a Mystic Barrier in the Command Zone go a long way.
Volrath is a special case: interacting with counters as a massive Clone on a stick that distributes -1/-1 counters seems pretty goodstuff-y, but I think there may be more to have. I expect him to have some success, but fall off, because he also screams Voltron, which is a weak strategy most of the time in the modern EDH meta.
Sevinne and Ghired, both face commanders, are what I would call a bit lacking in identity. Sevinne supercharges flashback but doesn't enable it, and Ghired just does fatties (albeit kind of aggressively). I haven't really seen aggressive token strategies yet, but rather build-a-board workshops ending with Craterhoof Behemoth for a massive alphastrike - I expect Ghired to end up the same, especially because he's 5cmc. At least he enables himself.
Gerrard is either eggs or Boros boardwipe protection, which is nice and complements the colors while enabling new brews. But because he's Boros, he will sit upon the throne in the broken castle that is the currently worst color combination in EDH - although it is getting better.

tl;dr: Some stuff is easy to break (Atla Palani, K'rrik, Elsha), others are perfectly balanced (for example, Greven and Marisi) and will therefore see medium amounts of play and others are so underpowered (Grismold, Tahngarth) I can't believe they printed it. Some niches were filled (Anje, Kadena) and future design space has been opened (or maybe closed, because Anje could be broken someday). Glad to see more goad and weird design (Pramikon) in the Command Zone.

[Morganator 2.0]

Tahngarth, First Mate, Sevinne, the Chronoclasm, Ghired, Conclave Exile, Marisi, Breaker of the Coil, Volrath, the Shapestealer, Grismold the Dreadsower, and Greven, Predator Captain are all going to fade into obscurity. They either don't have enough to build a deck around, or are part of an archetype that has been done over too many times. In the case of Grismold, both.

I think that Elsha of the Infinite, and Atla Palani, Nest Tender are the highlight commanders. These two have something new, and are strong enough to keep people's interest. Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero is also looking promising as a Boros combo commander. I think we'll be seeing these commanders for a long time.

As for the rest of them, I'm not quite sure. Stuff like Pramikon, Sky Rampart and Rayami, First of the Fallen look like they will lose their luster very quickly. And I'm really not sure what will happen with Anje Falkenrath and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth.

[WWolfe]

Morganator pretty much summed up exactly what I was thinking. The only thing I'd add is the new Chainer may end up somewhere between fading out and staying around on the fringe.

[Judaspriester]

I've already build my Rayami, First of the Fallen deck andm, at least until now, I'm exited to try it. I'll be interesting how it will going on the long term.

Atla Palani, Nest Tender is without question a very interesting commander, I'm just afraid that it will get boring kinda fast, at least if you follow the breaking eggs strategy.

For the others, I like Tahngarth, First Mate and  Marisi, Breaker of the Coil but not enough to build another deck around them (I've already got more decks that I can play  ).  Greven, Predator Captain will be a interesting addition to my Najeela deck, but not interesting enough to build a deck around it.

The big question here is, about what powerlevel we are talking about? I think at the kitchen table we'll see most of them here and there (they at least seem more interesting than c18), but with a rising powerlevel, there will be lesser play. At the top end I think there may stay Elsha of the Infinite, Atla Palani, Nest Tender and maybe Chainer, Nightmare Adept.