Protecting your commander: what method do you prefer?

[CleanBelwas]

We all like our commanders.

We like it when they're around, doing their thing.

This usually means they'll end up dying sometimes.

How do you like to protect your commander?

When answering, please assume you can only pick one. Obviously, a combination of these options would be great, but if you could only pick one, which would you choose and why? What kind of effects are you playing against most that lead to your decision? Do you see more swords than wraths? Or the other way round?

[Aetherium Slinky]

I like countering stuff. Almost all of my blue decks have a handful of counterspells for this purpose. The cool thing about counterspells is that they also work offensively and can stop others from winning if I don't need to protect my game plan.

[Inbread]

Gonna depend pretty heavily on the deck, but as I prefer mid to low power tables, Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves are my go-to protection for any deck where I badly need my commander alive.
What kind and how much commander protection I include usually depends on how expensive my commander is, how essential to my game plan my commander is, and also how scary my opponents think my commander is.

[MajordomoTom]

Hyena Umbra and similar auras are very effective.

Nice in my Zur the Enchanter deck. Though usually I tutor up something to eff with the other player's commander. Like Frogify.

[Aetherium Slinky]

Hyena Umbra and similar auras are very effective.

Nice in my Zur the Enchanter deck. Though usually I tutor up something to eff with the other player's commander. Like Frogify.

Hint: Imprisoned in the Moon and Darksteel Mutation are better since they can't get their commander killed so easily. With Frogify they can make a deal to attack someone and have that other player block so that their commander gets killed and sent back to the command zone.

[robort]

I don't aim to protect my commander like I used to but for preference I would go with the boots/greaves. Not only do they protect your commander they can also protect any other creature as well.

[The Golgari Guy]

Personally, I don't usually devote card slots specifically to protecting my commander. I also think that Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are largely overplayed precisely because people are overly afraid of their commander (and their stuff in general) being targeted. Of course, the fact that they are overplayed doesn't mean that they are bad: they are actually some of the best equipments in (casual) EDH if you can take advantage of the haste ability.

Sure, your commander can die, but you can cast it again. In many decks, my plan to "protect" my commander is just to have enough mana to cast it again as many times as needed. I also value graveyard recursion highly, and sometimes you can just let your commander go to the yard and reanimate it later. These are just some example of ways to "protect" your commander without actually devoting card slots to this.

The best way to protect a commander also depends on the specific synergies of the deck. For example, Stubborn Denial is amazing with commanders with power 4 or greater, and Heroic Intervention or Flawless Maneuver are ideal for decks that tend to amass large boardstates. And as mentioned by MustaKotka, counterspells are great to pretect your commander because they can be used to stop other threats.

All that said, if I had a commander that I wanted to protect at all costs, without knowing anything about specific synergies or the colors of the deck, I would still choose Lightning Greaves*. Overplayed, yes, but still an excellent card

(*) Unless of course I'm playing Voltron or something similar: I want to be able to target my commander in that case!

[MajordomoTom]

... those are in my deck also, I was just throwing out something amusing.

yes, Zur can lock down an opponent's commander pretty brutally.

Hyena Umbra and similar auras are very effective.

Nice in my Zur the Enchanter deck. Though usually I tutor up something to eff with the other player's commander. Like Frogify.

Hint: Imprisoned in the Moon and Darksteel Mutation are better since they can't get their commander killed so easily. With Frogify they can make a deal to attack someone and have that other player block so that their commander gets killed and sent back to the command zone.

[Lusunu]

Commander protection varies so much for me from deck to deck. Sometimes I don't need to protect my commander because they have their own protection-Uril, the Miststalker and Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon come to mind.

But when I have to, Darksteel Plate and Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots are far and away the best way to do it. If I don't have access to those, I actually prefer flicker spells like Ephemerate or Cloudshift. Particularly because I can use it in conjunction with my own board wipes to save my favorite thing.