Statistics for my 2020 EDH decks [Article]

[Oversoul]

About a year a go, I published a statistics brief on the decks I played in the West Coast Commander League (WCCL) in 2019. At that time, I imagined that I'd probably play in more of the WCCL weekly events in 2020 than I did in 2019, and that I could do this again with more data. That turned out not to be the case. So at first, I wasn't even going to bother, because I didn't play enough decks to get good data. After sitting on it for a few days, I figured I'd at least try to come up with something. So, with the caveat that the data here is severely limited, I'm writing this article as a point of comparison.

The 2019 analysis can be found here. As a reminder, that data was drawn from 3 South Sound Magic events and 39 WCCL events. Moving forward, I can't be sure what kind of decks I'll include or exclude in articles like this one, but since my data is so limited anyway, I expanded the pool a bit from just the decks I played in the WCCL. I expanded it just about as much as I could, actually. But let's just go over the details. These are the decks in the pool.

• 3 decks originally built in 2019 but updated and played in casual games in 2020.
• 2 decks built for the WCCL in 2020, but not actually played in the WCCL because of event cancellation.
• 1 deck built for casual play at the CPA.
• 1 deck built for a South Sound Magic Brawl event.
• 8 decks built for and fully piloted in WCCL weekly events.

That comes out to 15 total decks and (because one of those is a Brawl deck) 1,460 individual card slots. If I'd rigidly stuck to only including the decks built for and played in successful WCCL meetups, I'd only have 800 individual card slots, so you can probably see why I expanded the data collection here. Those are the 15 decks I put in my spreadsheet. And while I'm being so detailed about this, let's also go over what's not in the pool.

• A deck built around Mishra, Artificer Prodigy, built in 2020. I was still refining this list and scrapped it for parts to use in WCCL decks. It was built and tested, but saw no actual gameplay and had nothing to do with the WCCL. Also, I never published a final decklist for it.
• An updated Rasputin Dreamweaver deck, started in 2019. This project went on hiatus, but I had enough cards together and just needed to finalize a list. I dismantled the deck as part of my big 2020 card-sorting project.
• A newer deck with Archelos, Lagoon Mystic as commander. This is a more recent project and remains unfinished.
• An Omnath, Locus of Rage deck that I created as a thought experiment.

Before we get to the data, let's go through the dates, commanders, and my stupid deck names...

1/5: Sliver Queen "She's a Killer Queen"
1/12: The Gitrog Monster "Gitrog County Mana-Laundering Scheme"
1/19: Axelrod Gunnarson "Axelrod's Bonfire" (event aborted due to low participation, schedule conflict with Theros Beyond Death prerelease tournament)
1/26: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant "Mesmerizing Zombies"
2/2: Erebos, Bleak-Hearted "Paint it Bleak"
2/9: Estrid, the Masked "Estrid's Saga"
2/16: Korvold, the Fae-Cursed King "I am King!" (Brawl deck for South Sound Magic's Ultimate Melee Event)
2/23: Lord Magnus "Erhnamagnus, Lord of the Loam"
3/1: Barrin, Master Wizard "Barrin's Spine"
3/8: Lady Caleria "The Worst Tooth and Nail Deck"
5/25: Yarok, the Descrated "Ever Eat a Pine Tree" (updated from 2019 and played in several kitchen table games)
7/6: Ramses Overdark "Is It Dark In Here Or Is It Just Me?" (played right here at the CPA with Mooseman and Bill)
11/22: God-Eternal Oketra "The End of Eternity" (updated from 2019 and my current default for suspected low-power tables)
11/22: Phelddagrif "Epic" (updated from 2019, but technically the only 2020 gameplay with this one was before the update; I'm counting it anyway)
12/6: Torsten Von Ursus "Unsavory Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" (event aborted due to low participation, WCCL players couldn't get the hang of webcam Magic, apparently)

Those 15 decks have 1,460 total card slots and I used 677 unique Magic cards across them. The previous year had 1,360 unique Magic cards across 4,160 total card slots. So statistically, my 2020 decks were more diverse than my 2019 decks, with the percentage of unique cards going up from 32.7% to 46.4%. Trying to evaluate that is weird, though. The 2019 pool is much bigger, so maybe we could expect more repeat performances with more decks. On the other hand, the 2019 pool is sufficiently small that I could have (and would have) used other color identities, which would mean that the diversity could easily have gone up, if I'd gotten to play in more events. There are statistical techniques to look at the spread of these things as well, because it seems like it matters if I try to compare a pool with man large "staple" numbers and isolated single-use ones to another pool with fewer large numbers, but more two-ofs and three-ofs. Hypothetically, we could line up two pools so that the simple calculation of unique cards divided by total slots comes out to the same value, but with extremely different spreads. 2020 was a total mess, but I'll keep this in mind for future years if I do manage to keep generating data.

I covered color identity in the article for the 2019 decks. The most meaningful thing I can think of for color identity is to show the progression. Which color identities do I play the most? Which ones haven't I explored yet? Here's 2019:
WUG: 4
UBG: 4
WU: 3
BR: 3
RG: 3
WUB: 3
WRG: 3
W: 2
R: 2
WG: 2
UB: 2
UR: 2
UBR: 2
WUBRG: 2
U: 1
UG: 1
BG: 1
WBR: 1
UBRG: 1
B: 0
G: 0
WB: 0
WR: 0
WUR: 0
WBG: 0
URG: 0
BRG: 0
WUBR: 0
WUBG: 0
WURG: 0
WBRG: 0
Colorless: 0
Total: 42

And here's 2020:
WG: 3
WUG: 2
UBG: 2
WUBRG: 1
BRG: 1
BG: 1
BR: 1
UB: 1
B: 1
U: 1
W: 1
WU: 0
RG: 0
WUB: 0
WRG: 0
R:
UR: 0
UBR: 0
UG: 0
WBR: 0
UBRG: 0
G: 0
WB: 0
WR: 0
WUR: 0
WBG: 0
URG: 0
WUBR: 0
WUBG: 0
WURG: 0
WBRG: 0
Total: 15

Combining those, we get:
WUG: 6
UBG: 6
WG: 5
BR: 4
WU: 3
RG: 3
WUB: 3
WRG: 3
W: 3
UB: 3
R: 2
UR: 2
UBR: 2
WUBRG: 2
U: 2
BG: 2
UG: 1
WBR: 1
UBRG: 1
B: 1
BRG: 1
G: 0
WB: 0
WR: 0
WUR: 0
WBG: 0
URG: 0
WUBR: 0
WUBG: 0
WURG: 0
WBRG: 0
Total: 56

So the color identities I have yet to fill in are Mono-Green, Orzhov, Boros, Jeskai, Abzan, Temur, and all of the four-color combinations that include white.

Looking at the spreadsheet, it seems that the smaller pool has skewed the distribution of lands more this time around than it did in 2019.

Basic lands
Plains: 49
Forest: 46
Swamp: 43
Island: 29
Snow-Covered Island: 28
Snow-Covered Swamp: 24
Snow-Covered Forest: 13
Mountain: 11
Snow-Covered Plains: 10
Snow-Covered Mountain: 1

That's a striking paucity of mountains. I believe the ratios here would normalize if I'd been drawing from a bigger pool of decks.

Non-basic lands (that appeared three or more times)
Marsh Flats: 14
Strip Mine: 13
Ash Barrens: 9
Misty Rainforest: 9
Verdant Catacombs: 9
Windswept Heath: 9
Wooded Foothills: 9
Flooded Strand: 8
Maze of Ith: 7
Arid Mesa: 6
Gaea's Cradle: 6
Polluted Delta: 6
Savannah: 6
Wasteland: 6
Bloodstained Mire: 5
Scalding Tarn: 5
Tropical Island: 5
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: 5
Bayou: 4
Command Tower: 4
Fabled Passage: 4
Prismatic Vista: 4
Temple Garden: 4
Bazaar of Baghdad: 3
Breeding Pool: 3
Forbidden Orchard: 3
Glacial Chasm: 3
Hall of Heliod's Generosity: 3
Reliquary Tower: 3
Tranquil Thicket: 3
Tundra: 3
Underground Sea: 3

I wouldn't read too much into it, but I do find it amusing that Marsh Flats jumped from #10 to #1. Generally speaking, although the ranking of the various duals and fetches shifted around, they're still scattered in there with the same utility lands. I think I'll do a side-by-side comparison. But first, let's move on to artifacts. As with last year, for all of the non-land categories, I'll do a modified top ten list, going down the numbers until I've got at least ten cards, but listing all of them at that point without worrying about ties. So if I get the top 9 cards and need just 1 more to get 10, I list everything that ties for 10. Last year, this meant that I had a category with 16 cards in the "top ten." This year, in the case of artifacts, we have a top 13.

Artifacts
Sol Ring: 14
Anvil of Bogardan: 9
Arcane Signet: 8
Mana Vault: 8
Mox Diamond: 8
Grim Monolith: 5
Ashnod's Altar: 4
Skullclamp: 4
Chromatic Lantern: 3
Crucible of Worlds: 3
Mana Crypt: 3
Sensei's Divining Top: 3
Zuran Orb: 3

We have a top 12 for white. As I write this I worry that red is going to dip into the one-off cards, because I just didn't have very many red decks in this pool. Red had low numbers in 2019 too. There's probably something meaningful to be said about that.

White
Swords to Plowshares: 6
Enlightened Tutor: 5
Serra Ascendent: 5
Winds of Abandon: 5
Eternal Dragon: 4
Smothering Tithe: 4
Academy Rector: 3
Idyllic Tutor: 3
Mother of Runes: 3
Oblivion Ring: 3
Sun Titan: 3
Wrath of God: 3

Blue also dips down to 3 for its top 11. Last year saw Mana Drain just barely above a few other cards. This time, we have a five-way tie.

Blue
Arcane Denial: 6
Brainstorm: 6
Cyclonic Rift: 6
Mana Drain: 6
Rhystic Study: 6
Force of Will: 4
Mystical Tutor: 4
Counterspell: 3
Intruder Alarm: 3
Ponder: 3
Swan Song: 3

Yet again with the bottom of the list including cards I only ran 3 times in 2020. But this time, it's a top 14 list because black had more of these thrice-included cards than white and blue. Also, black tops out at 7 instead of 6.

Black
Toxic Deluge: 7
Vampiric Tutor: 7
Dark Ritual: 6
Demonic Tutor: 6
Damnation: 5
Dark Petition: 5
No Mercy: 4
Black Sun's Zenith: 3
Culling the Weak: 3
Decree of Pain: 3
Exsanguinate: 3
Plaguecrafter: 3
Razaketh, the Foulblooded: 3
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: 3

While going through the black cards, it occurred to me that only 3 of my 2020 decks have red in their color identities at all. To make matters worse, it looks like we can't even hit that ceiling of 3. The Sliver Queen deck doesn't have many red cards in it, but it does have a few of my favorites. But then the Korvold deck is a Brawl list, containing only cards that were legal in Standard at the time. There's absolutely no overlap between the red cards of those two lists, nor would I really expect there to be any. I doubt that either list has much overlap with the Axelrod list, but let's see which cards did manage to make it into my decks twice.

Red
Chaos Warp: 2
Wheel of Fortune: 2

Ouch. That's it for red. Not even worth analyzing. But green should get the best showing for 2020. Here's the green top 14, which goes all the way up to 9 appearances and bottoms out at 5.

Green
Regrowth: 9
Sylvan Library: 9
Abundance: 7
Crop Rotation: 7
Spike Weaver: 7
Cultivate: 6
Genesis: 6
Harrow: 6
Kodama's Reach 6
Earthcraft: 5
Elvish Reclaimer: 5
Khalni Heart Expedition: 5
Seasons Past: 5
Spore Frog: 5

In 2019, the distribution of my top multicolored cards was similar to what it was for my red cards. In 2020, it should be pretty easy to beat red. So while we don't quite see a top 10, I can provide a top 7 using the cards that I ran more than once.

Multicolored
Lim-Dul's Vault: 4
Mirari's Wake: 4
Assassin's Trophy: 3
Dragonlord Dromoka: 2
Nature's Chant: 2
Sterling Grove: 2
Villainous Wealth: 2

 

[Oversoul]

Going by card type, my top 18 creatures are dominated by green.

Creatures
Spike Weaver: 7
Eternal Witness: 6
Genesis: 6
Elvish Reclaimer: 5
Serra Ascendent: 5
Spore Frog: 5
Eternal Dragon: 4
Academy Rector: 3
Birds of Paradise: 3
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove: 3
Mother of Runes: 3
Oracle of Mul Daya: 3
Plaguecrafter: 3
Razaketh, the Foulblooded: 3
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: 3
Sun Titan: 3
Titania, Protector of Argoth: 3
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: 3

My top 15 enchantments show a lot of repeats from 2019, with some notable changes.

Enchantments
Sylvan Library: 9
Abundance: 7
Rhystic Study: 6
Earthcraft: 5
Khalni Heart Expedition: 5
Mirari's Wake: 4
No Mercy: 4
Smothering Tithe: 4
Burgeoning: 3
Defense of the Heart: 3
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove: 3
Intruder Alarm: 3
Oblivion Ring: 3
The Mending of Dominaria: 3
Zendikar Resurgent: 3

This pool for 2020 includes very few planeswalkers, and only one of them showed up twice. Here's all 12 of them.

Planeswalkers
Liliana, Dreadhorde General: 2
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame: 1
Elspeth, Knight-Errant: 1
Estrid, the Masked: 1
Garruk, Cursed Hunstman: 1
Gideon Blackblade: 1
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: 1
Narset, Parter of Veils: 1
Sorin Markov: 1
Tezzeret the Seeker: 1
Tezzeret, Artifice Master: 1
Ugin, the Ineffable: 1

Here are the top 17 sorceries.

Sorceries
Regrowth: 9
Toxic Deluge: 7
Cultivate: 6
Demonic Tutor: 6
Kodama's Reach: 6
Damnation: 5
Dark Petition: 5
Seasons Past: 5
Winds of Abandon: 5
Black Sun's Zenith: 3
Decree of Pain: 3
Exsanguinate: 3
Gaea's Blessing: 3
Idyllic Tutor: 3
Life from the Loam: 3
Ponder: 3
Wrath of God: 3

And rounding out the card types, here were my top 15 instants of 2020.

Instants
Crop Rotation: 7
Vampiric Tutor: 7
Arcane Denial: 6
Brainstorm: 6
Cyclonic Rift: 6
Dark Ritual: 6
Harrow: 6
Mana Drain: 6
Swords to Plowshares: 6
Enlightened Tutor: 5
Beast Within: 4
Constant Mists: 4
Force of Will: 4
Lim-Dul's Vault: 4
Mystical Tutor: 4

Last year, I did a curve of card frequency. At the time, I think I hoped I'd have more data for 2020 than for 2019. Obviously that was very wrong. Perhaps 2021 can catch up. For those who don't keenly remember my article for the 2019 statistics, what you're about to see here is a correspondence between a number of times a card shows up in the pool and the number of cards that match this value. For instance, the first line represents basic Plains. It showed up 49 times. Because no other cards showed up 49 times, the number 49 gets an value of 1, and I represent this with the line "49: 1." All of the cards at the top of the frequency curve are basic lands, and we can easily tell that any value above 15 must be either a basic land or one of those cards like Relentless Rats or Persistent Petitioners, and in my case they're just basic lands.

49: 1
46: 1
43: 1
29: 1
28: 1
24: 1
14: 2
13: 2
11: 1
10: 1
9: 8
8: 4
7: 6
6: 18
5: 15
4: 16
3: 45
2: 87
1: 464

This approach might seem kind of obscure, so I'll provide another example. The curve shows that there were 6 cards to appear 7 times in my EDH decks. Those six cards are, let's see...

Abundance
Crop Rotation
Maze of Ith
Spike Weaver
Toxic Deluge
Vampiric Tutor

Each of those showed up in 7 different decks within my dataset. The raw data is a bit much, although not so much as it was for 2019. But what this compressed frequency curve shows us is a kind of diversity metric. For the 2019 data, I commented on how the frequencies rose, then fell again, then rose again.

I closed out the analysis of the 2019 data by listing all of the cards besides mana rocks and lands that appeared 10 or more times. I did that because almost every deck runs some mana rocks and lands, and those cards primarily just form a mana base, so by excising them, I can get a clearer snapshot of which meaningful cards I used in lots of decks. The cutoff at 10 was arbitrary, but I was trying to select from the top and I had to set a cutoff somewhere. Since my 2020 data has so few decks, I'll move the cutoff to 5. Here are the 31 cards I used in 5 or more EDH decks in 2020.

Favorite cards for casual EDH?
Anvil of Bogardan: 9
Regrowth: 9
Sylvan Library: 9
Abundance: 7
Crop Rotation: 7
Spike Weaver: 7
Toxic Deluge: 7
Vampiric Tutor: 7
Arcane Denial: 6
Brainstorm: 6
Cultivate: 6
Cyclonic Rift: 6
Dark Ritual: 6
Demonic Tutor: 6
Eternal Witness: 6
Genesis: 6
Harrow: 6
Kodama's Reach: 6
Mana Drain: 6
Rhystic Study: 6
Swords to Plowshares: 6
Damnation: 5
Dark Petition: 5
Earthcraft: 5
Elvish Reclaimer: 5
Enlightened Tutor: 5
Khalni Heart Expedition: 5
Seasons Past: 5
Serra Ascendant: 5
Spore Frog: 5
Winds of Abandon: 5

 

[Oversoul]

So I did a thing, but it's kinda the same topic as this article was, so I'll post in the same thread instead of starting a new one...

This is a silly idea, but I thought it might be fun. I noticed that the website EDHrec wasn’t drawing on any of my decks for its data collection. So I fixed that. I uploaded a whole bunch of my decklists to Moxfield, a site that EDHrec trawls. A little less than a month later, while browsing a commander I’d played before, it occurred to me to locate my own decklist through EDHrec. There’s no practical point to this: obviously I know what I uploaded to Moxfield, so there are no surprises. But EDHrec does display a small amount of information for each deck, and it amused me that I could compare my own decks to other decks using the same commanders.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I’m going to hunt down every one of my lists using EDHrec and I’m going to see if I can find anything amusing about what I find. Moxfield displays my decks in alphabetical order by title, so let’s go.

Axelrod’s Bonfire
Commander: Alexrod Gunnarson (29 decks)
Right away I notice that my deck is the most expensive one according to whatever system EDHrec uses to calculate the price of a deck. Checking my list, I am finding Bazaar of Baghdad, which is worth more than any other entire deck among the other 28 Axelrod Gunnarson lists, so it’s not a close contest. Got to love Bazaar of Baghdad. Also, if not for a few other outliers, this commander’s page would be dominated almost entirely by extreme budget decks, which is interesting. The median deck price on the page is $122, and only 8 of the 29 lists are worth more than $500.

Bant From the Loam
Commander: Arcades Sabboth (19 decks)
EDHrec has a metric called “salt score.” It is generated by voluntary polls that go out to the community every couple of years, and every card is assigned a “salt score” based on community rating. Absurdly, the saltiest card in the database is not Island, so something is wrong with their methodology. But you can see the top 100 saltiest cards here: https://edhrec.com/top/salt. My Arcades Sabboth deck has a salt score of 78.63, which is easily the highest for this commander. The second-highest salt score on the page is only 55.82.

Barrin’s Spine
Commander: Barrin, Master Wizard (34 decks)
Although I’m seeing that my deck appears to be the most expensive one for this commander, it’s not by as wide of a margin as I might have assumed. Looks like a few other players are fans of using expensive cards with this old wizard. I do find it a bit striking that even though I am running 22 artifacts and have multiple slots dedicated to artifact-specific mechanics, EDHrec doesn’t detect any themes in my list.

Bearadise Lost
Commander: Kydele Chosen of Kruphix & Reyhan, Last of the Abzan (16 decks)
It looks like this is the first commander (going through in alphabetical order) for which my deck is not the most expensive one. In fact, someone from a year ago has me beat by almost a thousand dollars! But I do have the only “Snow” theme in the list, so that’s unique.

Bonus Spite
Commander: Thrasios, Triton Hero & Vial Smasher the Fierce (1,452 decks)
This is an extremely popular pairing and I would not have been able to find my deck in the list if I hadn’t known the date on which I uploaded it, and even then I had to click a couple of decks before I found mine. All of the other decks I clicked on had Thassa’s Oracle in them, so there’s that. Not a lot else comes to mind. After seeing multiple commanders for which my decks are substantially more expensive than the others on EDHrec, this has been the second instance of it not even being close. I don’t have the highest Salt Score or anything. I easily have more artifacts than most of these lists, but I’m spotting one that surpasses mine by a single slot. Oh wait, here’s something. Fewest creatures. I have to go back several pages, over 500 decklists, before one of them is tied with mine on that metric.

Breaking a Few Eggs
Commander: Atla Palani, Nest Tender (2,706 decks)
We’ve got another popular commander and it’s getting tough to locate my decks now. I actually pulled it off on my first try by guessing from the dates that my deck would be on the third page of 100 decks and by seeking out a list with a single planeswalker (I used Domri, Anarch of Bolas). But there isn’t anything remarkable about my list overall. My deck gets the “Pod” theme, which seems common for this commander.

By Your Powers Combined, I am Captain Jhoira
Commander: Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain (2,427 decks)
I can’t find my deck! In fact, I’m pretty sure that it couldn’t possibly be in here. My best guess is that EDHrec is excluding my list because Paradox Engine has been banned in the time since I played it, so my deck is “illegal.”

Caribou Tribal
Commander: Chulane, Teller of Tales (3,810 decks)
This is the most popular commander so far and I’m getting kind of good at quickly locating my deck based on what I know about it. In this case, it was the “Snow” theme that gave it away. Disappointingly, EDHrec did not pick up on my Elk Tribal theme at all. Salt Score is a bit lower than most of the other decks on the page, possibly because my deck is garbage.

Eberyn’s Finest Omelettes
Commander: Sir Shandlar of Eberyn (14 decks)
Ha, finally my deck stands out again. I have the most expensive deck on the page, the one with the highest Salt Score, and the only one with a “Sacrifice” theme. I also have at least double the artifact count of any other Sir Shandlar deck on EDHrec. It looks like “Eggs” isn’t possible as a theme on EDHrec, so they went with the broader concept of “Sacrifice” instead.

Epic
Commander: Phelddagrif (647 decks)
My Group Hug deck does not have a Group Hug theme according to EDHrec. Clearly, they don’t know what they’re talking about. I do find it interesting that it would get omitted, looking at my list.

Epic (WCCL Version)
Commander: Phelddagrif (647 decks)
Yes, this one shows up twice. The WCCL version of this deck has a whopping 24 enchantments. That’s much higher than the average, so I thought it could be my claim to fame. But then I spotted a deck that made it into the list after this one but before my regular version, and it has 34 enchantments. That’s a lot! I investigated. It’s a Replenish deck. Nice.

Erhnamagnus, Lord of the Loam
Commander: Lord Magnus (5 decks)
It shouldn’t be too hard to stand out among only 5 lists. Yeah, mine is more expensive than all of the others combined. So that’s easy. Also, it’s a bit strange that this list doesn’t have a “Lands” theme, considering what’s in it.

Estrid’s Saga
Commander: Estrid, the Masked (1,402 decks)
Well, this one is looking pretty unremarkable. The deck right before mine is worth more than double what mine is, and several of them on the same page have higher Salt Scores. The distribution of card types isn’t unusual for an Estrid list. I’ve got a totally normal deck here! But it is a bit strange that I don’t have the “Enchantment” theme. Most decks have either “Aura” or “Enchantment” listed as a theme, and EDHrec doesn’t think my deck with 28 enchantments in it and 14 cards that care about enchantments in it counts as an enchantment-themed deck. What is going on here?

Ever Eat a Pine Tree (redux)
Commander: Yarok, the Desecrated (4,424 decks)
I knew it would be a bit trickier with such a popular commander, but things actually got a bit weird here. I found my list on the fourth page (100 decks each), so it was buried about where I expected. I don’t think that this deck diverges too much on the surface from the other Yarok decks surrounding it. It’s more expensive than most of these, but dwarfed by some of the others. Creature count is below average, but higher than some. No, what’s weird here is that my deck is tagged with the “Pod” theme. This makes no sense, as my deck isn’t a Pod deck and doesn’t remotely resemble a Pod deck.

Ever Eat a Pin Tree (WCCL version)
Commander: Yarok, the Desecrated (4,424 decks)
Yeah, I’ve got nothing. The “redux” version is significantly improved from this version, but they’re similar enough that there’s a lot of overlap. Both have a “Pod” theme, so I’ll just reiterate that this makes no sense at all. My deck doesn’t have Birthing Pod and doesn’t look or play like any Pod deck I’ve ever seen.

Gabriel Voltron
Commander: Gabriel Angelfire (48 decks)
Now here’s something cool! After trying to find something interesting about my two Yarok lists, I was reconsidering this whole project. But Gabriel? Check it out. My deck is the only one with an “Equipment” theme. Although I’m now wary of these theme designations, this appears reasonable, as my list has the second-highest artifact count and most of the others use an “Aura” theme instead. I also have the second-highest creature count, the second-highest deck price, the second-highest Salt Score, and the lowest enchantment count. Wow.

Gitrog County Mana-Laundering Scheme
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (2,033 decks)
The issue I anticipated here is that I’m using a popular commander and one that can helm a variety of archetypes, so it’s difficult to stand out in this crowd, and stuff is all over the place. I should have a “Lands” theme, but came prepared not to expect that. Turns out my deck is given a “Graveyard” theme, which also makes sense. What else? Well, I’m tied for the third-highest sorcery count. Oh wait, nevermind. I was still on the second page. There were 100 more decks I didn’t see. Yeah, I’ve got nothing.

Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (2,033 decks)
I have no idea why not, but for some reason, this deck of mine isn’t cataloged on EDHrec. When this happened with the Jhoira deck, I quickly realized that it was because of Paradox Engine. But everything here should be 100% legal. Well, I’ll move on for now.

Gneiss Lady
Commander: Damia, Sage of Stone (965 decks)
This was a $150 budget deck in 2018. How much has it gone up? Well, EDHrec is displaying it as $291. Also, the creature count of 4 is low, but certainly not the lowest for Damia.

Goblin Lives Matter
Commander: Pashalik Mons (124 decks)
Well, EDHrec has some issues. I did find my deck, and pretty easily, at that. But EDHrec thinks my creature count is 59. It should actually be 34. Keep in mind that EDHrec is correctly counting my instants, sorceries, artifacts, and enchantments here. All are exactly right. But when it comes time to count creatures, somehow it goes crazy.

Hastily Constructed Bolas WCCL Deck
Commander: Nicol Bolas, the Ravager (1,842 decks)
For the third time now, EDHrec doesn’t show my decklist. With the Jhoira deck, I figured it was the presence of the now-banned Paradox Engine, and maybe that is why. But now it’s happened two more times. I don’t notice a pattern here. At least, not yet.
Addendum: Moxfield had incorrectly duplicated my commander and included it in the maindeck, so despite the list I copied and pasted being correct, the version on Moxfield displayed 101 cards. I've fixed the error, but we'll have to wait for EDHrec to pick up my list.
One more update: My deck is now correctly displaying, and this has been my only deck that EDHrec marked with a "Planeswalker" theme. I forgot that I was running 14 planeswalkers in this one.

Haters Gonna Hate
Commander: Olivia Voldaran (318 decks)
Found this one quickly enough just by looking for the list that had exactly 6 artifacts and 6 enchantments. EDHrec doesn’t detect any themes for my deck, so there’s nothing about it that really stands out. It does show up as the only Olivia Voldaren deck for 05/05/2021, though.

Hit 1975 Single by Gary Wright
Commander: Rasputin Dreamweaver (120 decks)
Hey, I’ve got the cheapest Rasputin Dreamweaver deck on EDHrec! This deck was built to fit a $150 budget, as per the rules of the event I originally designed it for. Everything in the main deck is cheap. But Rasputin Dreamweaver was still only $115 back in 2019. The card spiked earlier this year. EDHrec displays this list as being $488. I figured that my list would be the cheapest. But I didn’t expect to find three more decks that are almost as cheap, at $494, $494, and $505. That’s crazy.

I Can Count to Eleven
Commander: Godo, Bandit Warlord (460 decks)
This was a $200 budget deck in 2019, but it’s all the way up to $285 now. That’s actually kind of weird to me, and not for the reason you might expect. I’m not in the least surprised that the prices of cards have gone up. But some of the biggest contributors to my budget in 2019 have been reprinted since and have decreased dramatically in price. Those drops more than compensate for the gradual uptick of most of the cards in my list. So I need to find the cards that spiked so much that they drove the price increase even despite the slight downward trend for the rest of the deck. Oh, it’s Mana Vault. I mean, a huge chunk of it is Mana Vault. Also notable: even though this was built to be a budget deck, it’s downright extravagant compared to some lists for Godo. Looks like 111 of the 459 other Godo decks are cheaper than mine, with those deck prices ranging from $284 all the way down to $23. On the other end of the spectrum, the most expensive Godo deck is $10,246.

If You Wanna Fight That’s Fine With Me
Commander: Savra, Queen of the Golgari (317 decks)
Hey, this is an easy one! My Savra deck is by far the most expensive in the database. It also has the highest Salt Score. The theme EDHrec tagged it with is “Sacrifice” but that’s typical for Savra. What’s amusing is that if I were to just look at the specifications for these decklists, I’d think mine must be some fancy high-power deck that pushes Savra to the limits, but actually this list is even crappier than most of my West Coast Commander League decks.

Is It Dark In Here Or Is It Just Me? (redux)
Commander: Ramses Overdark (44 decks)
This is the exact decklist I played in the game with Mooseman and Bill here at the CPA. The thing I find striking here is that I became convinced that this list had way too many auras and that I should cut that number down the next time I tried it, so I’d think that would be reflected on EDHrec. Well, my deck has 21 auras. It’s easy enough to see that 21 is actually on the low end for a Ramses Overdark deck. 27 of the 43 other decks have more auras. There’s 1 other deck tied with mine on the aura count, and of the remaining 15 Ramses decks, 1 of those lists is another of mine anyway. So the majority of Ramses Overdark deckbuilders clearly seem to think that 21 auras is too few. This strikes me as insane. Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.

Is It Dark In Here Or Is It Just Me? (WCCL version)
Commander: Ramses Overdark (44 decks)
Oh, this is a fun one! My “redux” version of this deck is a much more interesting deck and makes better use of the commander, but the version I used in the League has all sorts of stupid, overpowered crap in it. So I’ve got the highest Salt Score for any Ramses Overdark list on EDHrec, and by a lot. My Salt Score for this deck is 73.12, while the next highest list only has a measly 42.37. I hereby crown myself King of Salt. And since I bring up deck price so much, I just want to assure everyone that this list isn’t the most expensive on the page. In fact, someone else has a Ramses Overdark deck that is $6,663 more than mine. A bargain! Wait a minute. The Salt Score on the expensive deck is only 29.10? How? Most of the expensive cards in EDH also come with high Salt Scores. They must be using Juzam Djinn and stuff. Let’s see. Yep, this is totally an Old School EDH deck.

Karador Dredge
Commander: Karador, Ghost Chieftain (1,524 decks)
Oh, here’s another one that doesn’t show up. But I forgot that this deck would now have a banned card. Iona, Shield of Emeria was legal in EDH at the time I was playing this list. So this fits the pattern I suspected with Jhoira, that EDHrec isn’t including my decks with now-banned cards in its data collection. But it doesn’t explain how GCMLDA and my stupid Bolas deck were also not recorded.

King’s Feast
Commander: Kenrith, the Returned King (5,074 decks)
I found my list, but it’s buried under 509 more recent lists. This is an extremely popular commander and I don’t think I can find anything remarkable about my weird and unfocused pile that stands out in the crowd. Kenrith decks are all over the place. I’m sure mine is running an unusually high amount of “Adventure” cards, but that doesn’t show up in the list.

Knights Charge with Good Cards (also bad cards)
Commander: Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale (2,686 decks)
This one blends in, but I expected it to. The issue here is that I was running a modified precon, and decks built from precons are enormously popular on EDHrec. I can’t show it, but this would likely be the deck of mine that has the most overlap with other decks on EDHrec. I get Knight Tribal and Equipment themes, just like many of the other Syr Gwyn decks. I’m normal!

Little Friends
Commander: Boris Devilboon (19 decks)
I have the most recently submitted Boris Devilboon deck on EDHrec! There have only been two this year. Boris is somewhat bad and doesn’t get out much. My list easily has the highest Salt Score. EDHrec awards me no themes, but I can see that Demon Tribal and Aristocrats are both popular themes for this commander.

LLCLFOLD
Commander: Omnath, Locus of Rage (1,626 decks)
I was anticipating being able to say that my deck has the lowest land count for this commander, since the low land count is kind of the gimmick here. Of course, I can’t say that. But, somewhat annoyingly, the list EDHrec creates for these lists doesn’t include land count. It counts the other major card types, but not lands. However, I can use the filters, and a quick check shows that 114 of these Omnath decks have fewer lands than 33, which is the land count in my deck. That’s insane. It took some effort for me to get the land count all the way down to 33 and still have a functional list. It looks like 3 of these decks only have 18 lands. I suspect that the problem here is that not all of these are real decks, by which I mean that most of these decklists aren’t ones anyone would actually play. This doesn’t necessarily entail maliciousness or anything. Some people will save a list of cards for a deck in-progress and make it public, so EDHrec would pick it up as an actual list. I imagine that these deckbuilders intended to make cuts at some point, but their rough drafts made it into the data.

Loomsday Device
Commander: Rasputin Dreamweaver (120 decks)
The first thing that jumps out at me is that this deck doesn’t have a “Blink” theme. A lot of the Rasputin Dreamweaver decks do get that theme, but mine doesn’t, and I have no idea why not. I’m running tons of blinky stuff. Also, this list is running more creatures and fewer enchantments than all of the Rasputin Dreamweaver decks that are more expensive than it. How’s that for a meaningful metric?

Mesmerizing Zombies
Commander: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (1,795 decks)
Well, I’m glad that this time my ridiculously expensive deck is, by comparison, not remarkably expensive. Yikes, this commander sees some expensive decks. My list seems to be ranked 51st on deck price, and the first 8 lists are all more than double the value of mine. I appreciate not being the fat cat in the group. But how is it that 105 decks are saltier than mine here? I must have been slacking with this list.

 

[Oversoul]

Needs Mor Beatdown
Commander: Palladia-Mors (20 decks)
I’m starting to notice that a lot of the Chronicles commander options have multiple budget decks so extreme that they’re down in the double digits. 6 out of the 20 Palladia-Mors decks are below $100. I’m assuming that there’s some prolific playgroup that plays with old cards on very low budgets. Good for them. My deck is the second most expensive here. It’s also the second highest on Salt Score, but loses out to a different list there. Technically, I’m also tied for the second most planeswalkers too.

Not to be confused with The Ur-Dragon
Commander: Ur-Drago (5 decks)
Pretty sure my deck would have been the only Elemental Tribal theme for this commander if EDHrec had picked up on that. So I don’t get any themes, but with only 5 decks, it’s easy to stand out, especially when your deck is more expensive than all of the other decks combined. Also, my list is the Saltiest, has the most artifacts, and has the most enchantments.

Not-So-Mysterious Santa
Commander: Barktooth Warbeard (12 decks)
And here it is: the greatest thing I’ve ever created. Why must I share the glory that is Barktooth Warbeard with 11 other players? They are not worthy. My deck is the only one with a Snow theme. It’s more expensive than the other 11 decks combined, and comfortably maintains the highest Salt Score for the commander. I haven’t checked, but my list is probably also the only one running Grandmother Sengir and Uncle Istvan. Family is important to Barktooth Warbeard.

Notice of Proposed Land Use Action
Commander: Rubinia Soulsinger (290 decks)
Apparently there isn’t a theme on EDHrec for swapping lands with your opponents, and that’s a shame. So EDHrec doesn’t know what to do with this list and doesn’t assign it a theme. Although I loved this deck, there isn’t anything that makes it appear special at first glance on EDHrec. Somewhat amusingly, the Rubinia Soulsinger deck that is, by far, the most expensive was registered on EDHrec on the exact same day that my list was registered. It easily has the highest Salt Score and shares some of the same cards as mine for no discernable reason, and yet I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I don’t know who this other person is, but I think we should hang out some time.

Oloro 2HG Budget Deck
Commander: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic (2,718 decks)
This wasn’t my deck, but I did help build it and it is inextricably linked to my Damia deck, so I figured I’d include it. Mostly, I was curious about how much the budget climbed. Turns out my partner’s deck didn’t really fare much better than mine on staying at a low budget. EDHrec has it at $311, more than double what it was when we registered the list in 2018. Notably, this is one of just two Oloro decks that gets tagged with the “Counterspell” theme. Also, I noticed this before, but EDHrec is inconsistent when it comes to reporting creature counts. The only creature in this list is the commander, so the number of creatures should be either 0 if the commander doesn’t count or 1 if the commander does count. EDHrec shows it as 1. And yet, there are a whole bunch of Oloro decks that do display as having 0 creatures. So yeah, that doesn’t make sense at all.

Paint it Bleak
Commander: Erebos, Bleak-Hearted (122 decks)
Here’s another case of me having the most expensive deck on the list and the Saltiest one too. The thing that’s a bit odd is that my Erebos deck isn’t really all that expensive. If I hadn’t thrown my copy of The Abyss in here, this would potentially drop by one place. That might also be the deciding factor on the Salt Score too. Oh, and they gave me the “Aristocrat” theme.

Please Sir, Play a Legendary Land
Commander: Livonya Silone (7 decks)
This is kind of the precursor to my Omnath deck, but with a lot of baggage related to my fake ninja gimmick (long story). So I’ve got the Snow theme. I’ll admit that my deck is the most expensive again, but it’s worth noting that half of the other lists are expensive too, and the other half are much lower. I have no idea how that happened. My Salt Score is much, much higher than those of the other decks, though.

She’s a Killer Queen
Commander: Sliver Queen (276 decks)
I’m a bit surprised that Sliver Queen has so few decks and not in the least bit surprised that some of these decks are among the most expensive decks I’ve seen on EDHrec. Sliver Queen might be the default commander for the “Five Color Jam All My Expensive Cards Together” archetype. I don’t know how prevalent this archetype is in reality, but some of these lists might not have actually been built with real cards. Or perhaps they have been. I’m not here to judge. But the 20 most expensive lists here are all above $30,000 and it’s rare to find even a single deck with that kind of price tag for any other commander I can think of. Anyway, my deck shows up with no themes and nothing special. There’s a lot of variety among Sliver Queen decks, so I can’t think of any unique distinction my list could claim.

Slow CVT
Commander: Teferi, Temporal Archmage (398 decks)
There’s a bit of homogeneity among Teferi, Temporal Archmage decks, which makes distinguishing mine uninteresting. Now, it’s not all homogeneity. But the ones that really stand out as divergent aren’t doing the sort of thing that mine is doing. So I’m not assigned a theme and I’m at a bit of a loss here. My deck is blatantly modeled after the “Chain Veil Teferi” lists that were somewhat popular in cEDH in 2019, although new printings diminished their stock considerably. My version is deliberately slowed down, but that doesn’t come across when looking at the data in this way. I figured maybe I’d be the only person running Mana Short in a Teferi deck, but nope: 3 other decks are all running Mana Short for some reason.

Splice World
Commander: The Mimeoplasm (1,205 decks)
Who could be stupid enough to run deck with The Mimeoplasm as commander and no maindeck creatures? Surely no one but, oh, nevermind. One other person did. Why? This was supposed to be my thing. It’s a bad thing. There’s no smart reason to ever do this. I cannot believe that someone else stole my idea. Oh, I see. The gimmick here is that the person mills all players simultaneously and then uses The Mimeoplasm to steal abilities from other players’ creatures. I guess that makes way more sense than my own reason for going creatureless. Anyway, I have the most expensive deck here, which is surprising. I thought that with over 1,200 decks, some people would be doing extravagant lists. Actually, they are, but I just beat them out anyway. Now that I think about it, that’s weird.

Stangg’s Brothers and Sisters
Commander: Stangg (34 decks)
Because of reprints, Stangg is a sensible option for someone looking to go ultra-budget on an old-fashioned commander. So I’m not surprised to see that the cheapest deck here is only $20. But I am surprised to see so many expensive decks, as Stangg is mediocre and not particularly relevant or interesting to build around. Don’t get me wrong: I love all my Legends legends. But jumping through hoops enough to make Stangg good involves jumping through enough hoops that you could have made a legitimately bad commander good too. For this reason, the $100 and $200 decks don’t surprise me. You work with what you’ve got, and Stangg is kind of a nice challenge in that regard. But fully 8 of these lists are over $1,000. Why bother? I mean, I know why I did it, but my reasons were silly.

Sunastian’s Magic Ramp
Commander: Sunastian Falconer (9 decks)
Ouch, with these old commanders we could play “Guess which deck is Oversoul’s” at this point and everyone would win. One deck is more expensive than all of the other 8 combined and that same deck has almost double the Salt Score of the next Saltiest deck. This gets repetitive and also makes me feel awkward, so let’s focus on the positive. Hey, my list is the one with the most planeswalkers. Score!

The End of Eternity
Commander: God-Eternal Oketra (791 decks)
We’ve had a few duplicate commander entries here, but I presented both because the decks were so distinct. I don’t think that I need to explain why my record-setting budget Rasputin Dreamweaver deck is very different from the Rasputin Dreamweaver deck I played in the West Coast Commander League. But God-Eternal Oketra is an exception. I uploaded 3 lists, and all of them are merely different versions of the same overall list that I kept around over time. We don’t need to go over the same deck here that many times, so let’s just see if we can isolate any version of it at all. And the answer, it turns out, is “not really.” That’s sad. I’ve had this deck for so long, it’s been kind of special to me. But EDHrec can’t place it within a theme and no version of my Oketra deck is so unusual that it stands out particularly. I mean, I found them all easily enough, because I knew where to look within the date range and because I counted the card types in all versions of my deck and looked for those counts. I guess the most prominent distinction is that the final version of my Oketra deck is the 9th most expensive deck for the commander. But at this point, I’ve grown weary of price as a distinction. I wish we could see more categories in the table here.

The Notorious M.R.B.
Commander: Merieke Ri Berit (395 decks)
More of the same we saw with the Oketra deck, really. I uploaded 2 distinct decklists for this commander, because despite considerable overlap, there are some important differences. EDHrec fails to recognize any themes for either list, despite tagging nearby lists as having the “Theft” theme. Why? I have no idea. Well, the best I could come up with is the count of sorceries. Both of my lists have 15, which is unusually high for this commander. A single list has a whopping 20 sorceries and 9 more decks are right behind that with at least 16, but then my 2 decks are following on their heels. So yeah, sorceries.

The Worst Tooth and Nail Deck
Commander: Lady Caleria (15 decks)
Was there ever any doubt? Of course my Lady Caleria list is the most expensive one and and the Saltiest one too. Whatever else can be said about me, my penchant for throwing obnoxious and expensive cards into EDH decks helmed by bad Legends commanders appears to be almost entirely unrivaled. I’m so special! Oh, and my deck is way Saltier than the competition too, not just the highest on the scale by a little bit. No, it’s only blowouts for us. Anything else? Themes? I cackled when I thought of the EDHrec robots trying to classify this garbage deck. So, I’ve got the third most instants and the most sorceries. Oh, and I have the fewest artifacts. I have no idea what about Lady Caleria would make for an artifact-heavy deck, but that’s on other people. Not me.

Uncle Stephen’s Tub-’o-Lard
Commander: Progenitus (539 decks)
You know, I thought I was being really clever with this deck, but it gave me some of my worst performances and looks pretty unremarkable sitting here among 538 other Progenitus decks. I have regrets. The frustrating part is that I don’t feel like I learned a lesson and I still think that my list looks cool. Reviewing it again for the first time in a while, I find myself thinking, “This seems like it would be fun to play.” This may or may not constitute proof that I am an idiot.

Unsavory Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Commander: Torsten Von Ursus (9 decks)
To no one’s surprise at this point, my deck is worth more than all other Torsten Von Urses decks in the database combined and it also has the highest Salt Score, about double the next highest one. I’m also tied for the lowest artifact count. EDHrec tagged this deck with the “Sacrifice” theme, which seems pretty odd.

Volrath’s Too Many Themes
Commander: Volrath, the Shapestealer (986 decks)
It makes sense that my deck I named for trying to cram too many themes together doesn’t have a recognizable theme to the robots. For the record, my themes were intended to be copying opponents’ creatures, putting counters on creatures, stealing creatures, face-down creatures, and casting Madness spells.

Waste Not and Gwenny D Had to Regulate
Commander: Gwendlyn Di Corci (75 decks)
This commander has experienced quite the price spike since I played my deck. Gwen is not for the budget-minded player. My deck gets the “Wheel” theme instead of the “Discard” theme according to the EDHrec robots, but whatever. Close enough. My list is third on price, but a quick look reveals that of the two top decks, the first is a nonsense “all expensive cards” deck along the lines of those Sliver Queen entries I mentioned earlier, and would not play well in a real game. The second appears to be a reasonable (albeit expensive) deck for Premodern EDH (I didn’t know that it was a thing, but that’s definitely what this list I’m looking at is for). So my list is kind of the most expensive “normal” Gwendlyn Di Corci deck. It’s the most expensive “Wheel” deck. I’ve got the sixth highest Salt Score and the second highest sorcery count. I’ve also got the third lowest creature count.

We Are Vannifar’s Elves
Commander: Prime Speaker Vannifar (683 decks)
Oh. I was having trouble finding this one. And then I figured it out. I played this deck before Flash was banned, and there’s a Flash in my deck. So EDHrec passed over my list as an illegal deck. I think we can now definitively state that this is what’s happening when a now-banned card shows up in my lists. But I also failed to find a couple of decks that should have been innocuous.

You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly!
Commander: Gosta Dirk (6 decks)
Here we go. Last deck, and it’s an original legend with only a few decks in the database. We all know what this means. My deck is more expensive than all others combined, my deck is the Saltiest by a wide margin, and my deck is the only one with a Snow theme. Also, I’ve got the most instants and the most sorceries. I’m tied for the fewest enchantments and one slot away from being tied for the fewest artifacts. One of these decks is not like the others, and it’s mine. Sadly, EDHrec doesn’t recognize “give creatures flying” as a theme, because this deck is great at that.

So yeah. Not sure if that was of any interest to anyone else. It looks like three of my decks didn't make it onto EDHrec due to the presence of cards that were legal when I played them, but have since been banned. One more had a mysterious error on Moxfield (and only on Moxfield), so I've got to wait for it to get uploaded. And Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal doesn't turn up, but I have no idea why not.