Unsung Heroes of EDH: I Don't Have a Funny Title for the Letter H, but...Hunding Gjornersen05/25/2011 Hazduhr the Abbot HEY ABBOT! But seriously...  I want this card to be playable...It saves your [card]Sun Titan[/card]...It saves your [card]Reveillark[/card]...Wait, that is a BAD thing. It saves your Karmic Guide...wait, also bad. Are there really a whole lot of white creatures that need saving from damage? I mean [card]Serra Avatar[/card], [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]. Most of the good white cards just don't need the kind of support 'Duhr here offers. At least the card DOES something, but its not a real hit. I used to play the guy in a deck with alot of damage prevention, banding and old en-Kor, but we all used to think [card]Shivan Dragon[/card] was a bomb rare too. At least playing him gets you points for a unique general. Rating: C- Hikari, Twilight Guardian Wow, and we though that [card]Banslayer[/card] made [card]Serra Angel[/card] bad. I hated Kamigawa block for all of its mechanics with very little backwards compatability. "Spiritcraft" was/is a terrible mechanic, and here, the effect is pretty terrible too. OooOooO! I flickers when you play one of 7 tolerable EDH Spirit/Arcane spells. I guess it has evasion and more than 3 power, but it still sucks. Rating: C- Hisoka, Minamo Sensei Wow...I didn't think it was possible to make a bad repeatable counterspell, but they did. Hisoka is alot like having Counter-Top as your general, but it makes you discard cards and creates card disadvantage. He is, in my opinion, one of the worst blue generals simply because he is a repeatable counterspell, which will get you hozed from the start of the game, but he is a BAD repeatable counter, so it will be harder to get to the power level required to defend against that kind of hate. That said, he is not a 100% bad card, there are just a ton of better ones. If you want a repeatable counterspell that is on a similar level as Hisoka, play with [card]Ertai, Wizard Adept[/card]. At least Hisoka doesn't need to tap to counter stuff. A lot of draw could make an interesting deck with Hisoka...well as interesting as Draw-Go can be. Rating: C+ Hivis of the Scale Hivis here is a ROCK star in some environments and Vanilla Ice in others. If someone plays a [card]Karrthus[/card] or [card]Bladewing[/card] deck, he will do you a ton of good. Heck, most metagames have SOMEONE with a dragon or two floating around. That said, most of the "best" creatures in EDH are not dragons these days. I still wouldn't mind stealing a [card]Steel Hellkite[/card] (try typing that quickly, it comes out as "stealing a Steal Hellkite..Gah!) Rating: B- Huang Zhong, Shu General Huang Zhong here is a REALLY interesting card. He is quite small, but his combat ability is one that I don't think appears on any other Legend. Adding a bit of equipment to keep him in a place where one creature is unlikely to be able to do much to him could make a fun deck concept. The obvious [card]Loxodon Warhammer[/card] and [card]Grafted Exoskeleton[/card] choices make Huang Zhong here quite a force to be reconed with. [card]Infiltration Lense[/card] draws you cards if they do in fact block, and [card]Quietus Spike[/card] forces them to block unfavorably. Token decks don't care much about him, but giving him trample will help that a lot. Rating: B+ Hunding Gjornersen God I wish I had good things to say about a dude names Hunging Gjornersen. He has the funniest name EVER. That being said, he is an average sized beater with a mostly worthless (albeit off color) ability that costs the same as a Titan. No one in thier right mind would play with this card, but if you AREN'T in your right mind, this guy is HILLARIOUS! Rating: Taco, because it takes 10 pancakes to cover the roof of a doghouse. 2 Comments Its really good to see how short this list is now a days because it says that commander is a popular and diverse format. The number of absolutely terrible legends on this list makes me happy and sad. It's a lot harder to have a completely unique general these days, but its a lot more likely that you can get in an EDH game at any given place where spellslinging takes place. (I swear I'm not Dr. Suess in disguise) Gallowbraid Dear GOD! If there were more creatures like Gallowbraid and his "brother" [card]Morinfen[/card] I would guarentee I would have to come up with a worse name for that catagory of legends than 'Vanilla Abominations". Not only does Gallowbraid not give you a very powerful creature, it restricts the colors you can play and has a MASSIVE drawback. Sure you have a lot more life in EDH, but do you really want a 5/5 trampler THAT bad!? Rating: F (I wish I could give it an F- or something its THAT BAD) Glissa Sunseeker Glissa the First is another one of the few legends on this list that suprise me. I have often considered using her as a general, and in today's artifact heavy era (anytime a set comes out, the new mechanics tend to show up in greater numbers for a while) she seems like a rock star. I don't have a list for you right now, but a decent body (with an offcolor first strike splash) and repeatable artifact destruction for free, Glissa seems like a strong choice. Rating: A- Gosta Dirk Wow, I never thought I would have had something nice to say about one of the "blocks Landwalk" generals, but if I had to play with one Gosta here would be it. 7 for a 4/4 first strike is unimpressive, but Islandwalk is on a TON of major creatures. [card]Thada Adel, Acquisitor[/card], [card]Inkwell Leviathan[/card] and several others that show up in EDH regularly. Rating: D+ Grandmother Sengir [card]Weed-Pruner Poplar[/card] is better than this card, and it is not what I would call super awesome. Surely you would rather play with [card]Visara the Dreadful[/card] at the point you would consider The Baron's mom...or at least [card]Cabal Patriarch[/card]. She is still playable I suppose...She is removal, and compared to Gallowbraid she looks like a rock star! Rating: C- Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior Guan Yu is a good card simply because he is an unblockable general. Here is why no one uses him: 1. The card is Friggin expensive. 2. His second ability reads like a drawback in commander...I mean come on! Tuck is one of the more heated debated in the EDH community and this guy TUCKS HIMSLEF...if you want. Rating: B Welcome back to the second installment of the Unsung Heroes of EDH. Today we will take a look at the unused legends that start with 'C'. Seems a little like there is a pattern in which players do not use black generals starting with the letter 'C'...well except [card]Chainer, Dementia Master[/card]. Cabal Patriarch This guy seems to be pretty strong to me. He has actually been sitting in a box on my Magic table waiting to have Commander Greven il-Vec taken apart and make a deck around him. Being a sac outlet, psudo-graveyard-theft-prevention, and (with a little help from A LOT of tokens) can take out Indestructable monsters such as [card]Blightsteel[/card] and [card]Darksteel Coloss[/card]i. His 5/5 body isn't BAD but without any kind of evasion it isn't phenominal either. Slapping almost any equipment on this bad boy and he can get in for some General Damage wins as well. Definately worth giving this guy a shot. He will make a strong deck AND get you points for originality. Rating: A- Cao Ren, Wei Commander Cao Ren is a 3/3 unblockable for four that takes a miniscule amount of life away from you compared to your starting 40. Cao Ren makes a pretty strong voltron general. He is harder to remove because of his color, and a [card]Loxodon Warhammer[/card] makes his swing give you back time and again the life you lost to cast him. I imagine this guy would see more play if he was released in the US. His only real drawback is that 3/3 is considered small-ish in EDH, but that never stopped [card]Isamaru[/card]. Rating: A Chandler Chandler is a victim of his colors. Artifact creatures like [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] and [card]Steel Hellkite[/card] run rampant in this format. He will almost always result in card advantage each time you run him out. Red, however, is looked down upon as the worst color in multiplayer. Chandler is another general I have been meaning to throw a deck together with. Throw in a [card]Thran Forge[/card] or a [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card] and other similar cards and he reads "Destroy target artifact or creature." The more I look at this card, the more I want to make the deck. RRR should not be too hard to achieve. The only major problem with Chandler is that he is only a 3/3 and is rather fragile having no kind of protection or evasion, he is basically a removal spell as your general, but a decent and versitile one. Rating: B+ Cloudhoof Kirin So, my inital thought when I see this card is: Milling sucks in EDH, Spiritcraft sucks in EDH, and [card]Air Elemental[/card] isn't that impressive as a general. I did a Gatherer search for blue Spirits and Arcane spells and was a little suprised. [card]Heed the Mists[/card], [card]Tradewind Rider[/card], [card]Soramaro, First to Dream[/card], and the plain and simple fact that there were 70 cards listed brought me a little hope, but after sifting through all of those cards, they are all still weak alone and Cloudhoof Kirin's Spiritcraft ability wasn't good enough for most of them to be in a deck for synergy alone. All in all, this is one of few generals that just plain old isn't that good. Even though it isn't a vanilla abomination, there are WAY better Mill generals if that is your schtick (See [card]Szadek[/card]) and Cloudhoof Kirin isnt even a card I would consider building in even the most casual metagames. That said, at least the card does SOMETHING unlike [card]Jedit Ojanen[/card]. Rating: D- Commnder Greven Il-Vec I have actually been running this guy for quite some time. He is a HOUSE with 7 power and build in evasion. Black rarely cares about sacrificing a dude and sometimes tutoring into a turn four [card]Solemn Simulacrum[/card] makes him card draw to boot. Here is my Greven deck. Rating: A+ Crovax the Cursed Baby Crovax here does several things OK, but nothing super well. He is a tolerable sac outlet, but offers little control of it. He is a cheap creature that COULD be a decent beater that gets scarier each turn, but without a food supply he shrinks. Black can't steal stuff very often ([card]Enslave[/card] non-withstanding) so the sacrifice is often a drawback rather than helpful. His [card]Jump[/card] ability gives him some evasion, but all-in-all there are a TON of generals that do what Baby Crovax does but a LOT better. Rating: C Welcome back to the second isntallmen of the Unsung Heroes of EDH. Today we will be exploring those legendary creatures that no one has claimed to lead a deck in battle starting with the letter 'B' Let's BEGIN Balthor the Stout Balthor here was one I was suprised that no one has ever used as a general. Tribal legends tend to get thrown in to decks by a certain type of player quite often. Then, I did a Gatherer search on barbarians. There are not too many, 32 to be exact, with a whopping 5 aren't legal in a Balthor deck, and without granting all barbarians haste, Balthor start to seems a lot more underwhelming. I may try and create a deck for him some day, but hopefully some more barbarians start coming out again. Rating: C (B+ if more barbarians get printed that are even somewhat playable) Barktooth Warbeard As a member of the group of legends from Legends I have lovingly nicknamed "the Vanilla Abominations" Barktooth here has a goofy name...and thats about all he has going for him. Rating: F Barrin, Master Wizard Barrin here is a general that I piloted for quite some time with great avail. I can't find the list anymore but he is a STRONG general. (I will post a list as soon as I find it.) In a color full of stealing effects, a sac outlet that can also bounce your [card]Mulldrifter[/card] is GOOOD! Play with this card. He is a hidden gem, and unlike [card]Azami[/card] he won't get you hozed out of the game....the first few times. Rating: A+ Blind Seer Blind Seer here is another general with a ton of potential but not enough cards to back him up. I almost build a deck for this guy, but mono-blue has almost NO color hozers, and the ones that it does have arent that powerful even if they work on all colors. [card]Flashfreeze[/card] becomes a slightly cheaper [card]Counterspell[/card], [card]Dream Tides[/card] and [card]Dreams of the Dead[/card] are a bit interesting, and [card]Chill[/card] gains absolutely nothing. All in all, Blue can hack the color of spells like a champ, but it needs a second color to capitalize on it. Worth a for-fun-only build. Rating: C+ Boris Devilboon Boris here is kind of bad for what he does, but he is one of very few cards in black/red that can create a token every turn with some reliability. [card]Rakka Mar[/card] is a bit better, but does not allow access to black (the color of the two that likes to use those tokens the most). It seems as though black can also do the token generating thing (with [card]Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder[/card] and [card]Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet[/card]). Boris only really fits in one VERY small niche; a black and red general that does not need any other cards to be in any zone to make a token reliably once per turn. All in all, he is a funny old legend, but not all that good. Rating: D+ | 
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 About ShoeShoe has been playing MTG since mid to late 1994, He acquired the nickname ‘Shoe’ through a stupid joke made during a MTG game CategoriesAll ArchivesJanuary 2013 |
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