I see commander as the format of Magic that is the most geared towards fun rather than just winning. As such I have removed as many of the un-fun cards from my decks as possible while still putting up a fight against the players soly interested in winning.
Hence there is no Curiosity infinite combos nor are there any counter spells. My aim is not to win but to be fun for my opponent to play against.
I will note that my playgroup allows the use of proxies and that is why despite this deck being in budget it still contains Bribery, Sol Ring and Consecrated Sphinx. We allow the use of proxies so that players on a lower budget can still have fun against the more competitive/richer players.
I'll now explain some of the more unusual choices:
Bulwark
is the reason I created the deck I got this card when I was eight from a bootsale and when I finally learnt to play aged 22 I wanted to put it into a deck. Everyone played commander at Uni and when the Izzet Golgari deck box came out I had my perfect deck al worked out. Even though there are some potentially more powerful cards out there my playgoup has still learned to fear this little enchantment. Even if you have nothing to do with your large hand size you'll still be taking a sizeable chunk out of their lief totals each turn.
Capsize not realy fun in my opinion but so long as you dont abuse it with infinite mana it has its place. Again I only have this Becosue I found it at the Bootsale and can't bare to part with it.
Dismiss Into Dreams is what Wizards gave to blue commander players to help compensate for the change in legend rules. Yes we can't kill with clones anymore but just about everything that targets in our decks do with this enchantment. We can't get hexproff generals but they cant make them any bigger themselves either. A really worthwhile peace of kit in any blue commander deck.
Elgaud Shieldmate
a fun and cheep alternative to Swiftfoot Boots and other hexproff cards.
Llawn, Cephalid Empress This is a teaching tool for me. Lots of players keep using Iona, Shield of Emeria which I personally think should be banned, it just doesn't add anything fun to the game. Hence Llawn, Cephalid Empress is here for the short term to remind players how irritating this kind of effect is. Most of the time i just let it get put to the bottom with Mindmoil.
Stranglehold
goes into every red deck I have. This is a singleton format, whats the point in all the other cards in your deck if you always tutor for the exact same cards every game?There is nothing wrong with looking for answers when you know there is one card in your deck that can save you then its great but otherwise spending ages searching through your deck every turn just slows the game down.Many of my friends rely on tutors so heavily that they are out of the game the moment this comes down and no one els wants to destroy it. So long as you are not tutoring excessively yourself its well worth it.
Sword of Kaldra Can allow Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind to kill with general damage and can turn a single activation of Mindmoil into a board wipe. I don't know why I see this card so rarely in Izzet decks.
Torpor Orb sorts out a lot of infinite combos and some of the more devastating commanders. You no longer need fear a flickered
Sylvan Primordial
. Only a few of my own creatures are effected and it has been funny to Bribery my friends Phage the Untouchable and kill him with it.
Treetop Sentinel
Another bootsale card I can't quite seem to part with. It works very well against all the green flying dragons in my playgroup.
Vandalblast This isn't an unusual choice but I just want to tell all new players to ensure this is in your red decks! It destroys a turn one sol ring and late gate it can wipe out a huge mass of other ramp effects without touching your own. I very powerful effect with a very low price tag.
If there are any other cards that you are wondering why they are hear, or equally why they are not, then please feel free to ask.
