Hadleigh Castle by John Constable (1829). Hoarding Dragon by Matt Cavotta.

This last week of December brings to a close my third full year of writing every week about Commander, my second year as a CoolStuffInc.com writer and my fourth year of running a Commander league. My favorite format of Magic: The Gathering is wildly popular and the coming year promises to have more Commander surprises than ever before with Wizards of the Coast's announcement of an increased focus on Commander in 2020.

Before we look ahead, I'd like to take this week to look back on the past year.

Commander League

I probably shouldn't burn too much time navel-gazing, but I would like to go over some of the things I learned over the past year in the Commander League I run every Saturday. It's a monthly league where we have a rotating theme and a very wide range of decks and power levels. Players score points in each game and we recognize the players with the top point totals each month along with the year-end top point totals and highest average points. We again had over 100 players join us at some point over the course of the year and we again played nearly every weekend except for weekends where the store was hosting a prerelease.

I'm there every week so over the long haul it's been very hard to beat me out for the top total point categories. It's happened, but this year again sees me at the top of every category in terms of raw points. I've run the league for four years and will have won three out of the four years. In order to try to make things more interesting, I'm going to remove my name from consideration for 2020's year-end awards for total points.

I'll still be in the running for the top average points, but I've never been able to get the top average anyways - I play way too many janky decks to ever end up with the top average. I had the most points in three individual months this year, down from four last year, and I'll still be eligible for each month's point rankings. Competing to win individual months will still be a fun thing for me to try to accomplish.

Our monthly themes were largely a success, but over the year we did see an increase in the number of high-powered cEDH decks in our league meta. The monthly themes would sometimes allow players to play with powerful commanders, but just as often being on theme would hamstring players and make it much harder to win games. Our top players would stick with their cEDH decks and they would just wreck folks who were playing on theme if those more casual decks weren't built to be able to deal with decks that are capable of threatening a win on or before turn five.

We're still going to do monthly themes but we're adding in some custom point categories that will be chosen by players in the league. I know I really enjoyed having a theme to choose or to build decks for each month even in months where building on theme was more of a blessing than a curse.

We normally vote on changes to how our league runs, but this time around I'm shaking things up without a vote. I'm going to be reworking the app I use to split tables so that folks with cEDH decks get grouped together. It won't be a perfect system but with any luck we'll have fewer games where a Tier 1 deck is up against a bunch of casual decks. We should all be running more removal, but the speed with which the format's top decks are able to win really pushed my hand and forced me to change how we do things.

New Legendary Creatures

Every year brings us new commanders to play with and 2019 was no different. 2019 was as good as any year we've had in a long time so let's take a look back at all the new toys we got to play with.

Ravnica Allegiance

In January, Ravnica Allegiance hit the stores and we were given our first buy-a-box promo card, The Haunt of Hightower. I built a Haunt deck but didn't really enjoy making my friends miserable with a deck centered around hand hate. Forcing people to discard cards is a powerful strategy, but I tend to lean away from decks that make my buddies roll their eyes when I pull it out. I also built a Nikya of the Old Ways deck and won at least one game off the back of a Primal Surge, but that deck also got taken apart well before the year was over.

The commander from Ravnica Allegiance that I wish I had built was Prime Speaker Vannifar. I'm somewhat intrigued by the power and intricacy of a Birthing Pod deck and Vannifar is a walking, talking Birthing Pod. I suspect I'd find that the actual process of winning a game with a Birthing Pod line would be a little too much like playing solitaire, but I do wish I had built her. I might still do so, as I've now got a Vannifar waiting patiently in a binder for me.

I often build decks based upon what I happen to open in booster packs. Something about the randomness of that approach appeals to me, and about a third of my decks probably wind up being created that way. I didn't build around Teysa Karlov, Judith, the Scourge Diva, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, or Zegana, Utopian Speaker. They all either didn't appeal to me or I didn't happen to open one in a booster pack.

Ravnica Allegiance brought us an alternate wincon in the form of Simic Ascendancy and reprints of Breeding Pool, Godless Shrine, Hallowed Fountain, Blood Crypt, and Stomping Ground. We also got a new Gate in Gateway Plaza and I played an O-Kagachi Maze's End deck for a few months in early 2019 before converting it over to Golos, Tireless Pilgrim later in the year. The most powerful card of the set was likely Smothering Tithe, which gave White decks the kind of jolt they have long needed to be able to compete with the other four colors. If there's one card from 2019 that I want to remove every time I see it across from me on the battlefield, it's Smothering Tithe.

War of the Spark

The second set of 2019, War of the Spark, made a much bigger splash than Ravnica Allegiance, giving us a new Krenko, five new Gods, another legendary buy-a-box promo and a card that made an appearance in cEDH.

Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin saw play in casual circles, wasn't nearly as strong as Krenko, Mob Boss and lacked the combo potential that "Old Krenko" would bring to a deck. Feather, the Redeemed breathed a little life into Boros (RW), giving an exciting fresh face to a traditionally weak color pairing. Niv-Mizzet Reborn not only gave us a unique guild-focused deck-building challenge, it also proved to be a viable competitive EDH commander when played with the Food Chain combo. Niv wouldn't maintain its place as arguably the best Food Chain commander for long, but for a brief time it held that vaunted title.

We saw God-Eternal Bontu, God-Eternal Oketra, God-Eternal Rhonas, and God-Eternal Kefnet in War of the Spark. I was only really tempted to build Oketra. The prospect of getting a 4/4 Black Zombie Warrior every time you cast a creature spell always seemed like a ludicrous amount of value to get for casting a one- or two-mana creature. There was a fifth God in the set - Ilharg, the Raze-Boar. I never built Ilharg, but I saw a few Ilharg decks over the course of the year.

The rest of the legendary creatures from War of the Spark gave us a decent range of moderately powerful casual commanders. Tolisimir, Friend to Wolves and Mowu, Loyal Champion were both decent options for the dog-lovers among us. Roalesk, Apex Hybrid and Storrev, Devarkin Lich were weird puzzles that challenged us to find a way to make them good. I think Roalesk turned out to have more potential than Storrev, but I didn't wind up building either one as a deck. Massacre Girl is the last legendary from War of the Spark I'll mention, as she was a hit both flavor-wise and as her potential as an interesting way to try to clear off battlefields.

It's worth mentioning that War of the Spark brought us a long-awaited Laboratory Maniac analog in Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. As a planeswalker, "Lab Man Jace" has different play paths than Laboratory Maniac, but gives self-mill decks another way to seal the deal. You won't cheat it back onto the field with Dread Return, but you can be sure that competitive players are finding ways to sneak it onto the field just when they need it. We also saw a mess of other new planeswalkers with this planeswalker-themed set. Nearly every planeswalker you could name saw a card in War of the Spark and we also saw a few new faces. Most planeswalker decks got a few new toys to play with, though the best planeswalker of the year hadn't yet been printed.

Modern Horizons

As we moved into warmer months, Modern Horizons kicked off what would be an incredible series of Magic set releases. This first set of the 2019 Summer season gave us not one but two cEDH viable commanders.

Niv-Mizzet Reborn's brief position as the premiere Food Chain commander was ended with The First Sliver's printing. The competitive builds of The First Sliver wouldn't generally run any other Slivers but would use the commander's Cascade ability to play your entire deck and win the game. Casual tribal Sliver decks also saw a resurgence with this new commander and a bunch of Sliver reprints in the set. Not to be outdone, Urza, Lord High Artificer was paired up with the then-legal Paradox Engine to make a big impact in competitive circles. Urza's favorite toy was banned in Commander later in the year, but Urza still has the capacity to play a very strong game.

The most notorious of the other legendary creatures in Modern Horizons was probably Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. While it wasn't overpowered in a format like Commander, it had to be banned in Modern because it just dominated the competitive scene in that format. The other legendary creatures were a mishmash of interesting options for deck-builders. Morophon, the Boundless was probably the most widely played as it could lead almost any tribal build and provide an effective anthem effect of +1/+1 and a cost reduction that would get better with the number of colors in a creature's color identity.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician gave us a Black legendary creature with "draw a card" on it, but with enough built-in restrictions to keep it from being completely broken. Ayula, Queen Among Bears was a casual Bear commander, and Pashalik Mons was a new goblin commander with some genuine combo potential. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain was a fantastic legendary toolbox General with the ability to tutor up just the right answer for nearly any situation if built right.

Modern Horizons also brought us our first new "Swords of blank and blank". Sword of Sinew and Steel and Sword of Truth and Justice didn't feel as overpowered as some of the older Swords, but moved us a little closer to completing that cycle. We also saw a cycle of Force cards - Force of Vigor, Force of Negation, Force of Despair, Force of Virtue, and Force of Rage. None of them pack quite the punch that Force of Will does, but it was nice to see Wizards of the Coast print new cards that call back to that old powerhouse.

One of the most interesting things about this set was the incredible diversity of keywords and abilities. There were cards with Convoke. There were cards with Proliferate. There were over 40 non-evergreen keywords on cards in the set. For most Commander players that means there was a decent chance that any weird, janky deck that focused on an odd old mechanic might have a new card or two from the set to put into the deck.

Core Set 2020

Moving into July we saw Core Set 2020 hit the shelves. The Core sets aren't generally aimed at the Commander audience. These days every Magic expansion has something for us and this was no exception.

The first to catch my eye was Yarok, the Desecrated. I wound up building a Gray Merchant of Asphodel deck around Yarok, but I saw a lot of generic ETB "value" builds that were sneaky powerful. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim was probably my favorite commander from Core 2020. I played a Maze's End build for a while before converting it into a more generic lands toolbox deck which I'm still working on optimizing. Omnath, Locus of the Roil is in many ways one of the most exciting new legendary creatures in the set. Not only does it have the words "draw a card" on it, but it also represents an implied promise that there might eventually be a four and then a five color version of Omnath. I've never even built an Omnath deck and I find that really exciting. I can't imagine how impatient an established Omnath pilot must be to see the next incarnations of that legendary Elemental.

The rest of the legendary creatures in Core 2020 represented another varied and interesting set of mostly casual commanders. Kykar, Wind's Fury might be the most exciting, giving Jeskai deck-builders a viable creature to build a storm strategy around. The set had a few additional multicolored legendary creatures. Kethis, the Hidden Hand cared about legendary spells, Rienne, Angel of Rebirth cared about multicolored creatures and Kaalia, Zenith Seeker stayed true to her roots and cared about Angels, Demons and Dragons. Much like the new Krenko, "New Kaalia" wasn't as broken as her predecessor, Kaalia of the Vast.

There was a cycle of five mono-colored commanders in Sephara, Sky's Blade, Atemsis, All-Seeing, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Gargos, Vicious Watcher, and Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, all of which were interesting and none of which were particularly broken. Vilis might have been the most powerful of the lot, giving its controller the ability to draw cards equal to the life you lose, but with a CMC of 8 he is probably too expensive to be anything but a casual commander. I slotted Drakuseth right into my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck.

Core 2020 has a few interesting cards outside of the legendary creatures. Colossus Hammer was a big hit with voltron decks that run ways to cheat equip costs, giving the equipped creature +10/+10 at the cost of no longer being able to fly. This heavy hammer costs one but has an equip cost of 8 to keep it from being too unbalanced. We saw a cycle of leylines get printed in this set, some of which were new and a few of which were reprints. The set also saw a cycle of five Elemental Knights, five Temple lands which let you scry when they enter the battlefield, and a couple of other powerful lands in Lotus Field and Field of the Dead.

Commander 2019

Our busy summer of Magic expansion sets was capped off with one of the more successful Commander products to date. Late August saw four preconstructed Commander decks released to a growing player base. We saw a Sultai deck built around the morph mechanic, a Naya deck built around the populate mechanic, a Rakdos deck built around the Madness keyword and a Jeskai deck loosely built around a Flashback theme.

I picked up the Sultai and Naya decks and played each a few times before pulling them apart and building new decks with the pieces. The most interesting commanders for me were probably Grismold, the Dreadsower and Marisi, Breaker of the Coil, though neither deck has seen a lot of success in terms of wins and losses. I've just really enjoyed my versions of both decks. While I didn't buy either the Rakdos or Jeskai deck, I have been very impressed by K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. The ability to pour your life total into casting spells so powerful. At Commandfest DC I saw a young K'rrik player with Bolas's Citadel and Aetherflux Reservoir on the field just wreck a table of very powerful decks.

My general feeling about the theming of the decks was that I felt they could have done better, but that all four decks still wound up being entertaining and were an excellent entry point into the format for a casual player. An entrenched and experienced Commander player might easily find these precons to be disappointing but they weren't really made for us. If you're the kind of deck-builder who thinks about how to use cards like Food Chain or Birthing Pod to break a new legendary creature wide open, you might not be the target audience for a precon deck. I was still able to have a lot of fun with the many decks I built and played out of just two of the precons, but I recognize that I might be an outlier. There are a lot of established Commander players who seem to love to hate each year's precon release and I don't think that changed this year.

Throne of Eldraine

The biggest surprise out of Throne of Eldraine for us Commander players wasn't from the main set but from the "Brawl" precon decks Wizards of the Coast put out into the world.

Two of the more powerful legendary creatures Commander players got their hands on this year came out of the Brawl decks. Korvold and Chulane, when build competitively, make for very strong Commanders. My own Chulane build hasn't been able to close out games the way I thought it would, but I've definitely seen how good a Chulane combo deck can be. Korvold is no slouch either, turning a sac-oriented strategy into some impressive card draw and commander damage kills on anyone who can't deal with flyers.

The other two Brawl legendary creatures, Sir Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale and Alela, Artful Provocateur, are both strong options with a lot of potential. I've recently thrown together a Sir Gwyn deck, in part because I want to finally see Elbrus, the Binding Blade at work. I've seen Alela decks in action, but I still think Chulane and Korvold are the stronger of the Brawl deck Commanders. The third card shown above is Arcane Signet - a mana rock that will probably become a mainstay of any deck built around a Commander with more than two colors in its color identity.

Throne of Eldraine brought Commander players a lot more than just the Brawl deck cards. The buy-a-box promo was Kenrith, the Returned King. Kenrith is an amazing mana outlet for decks that want to make infinite mana, but I've been enjoying him as a casual +1/+1 counter themed deck and I can't see bothering to build the competitive version.

While Kenrith might be head and shoulders above all of the other legendary creatures in the main set, there was a veritable army of Knights and Nobles for us to build decks around. The Knight that sparked my interest the most was definitely Syr Konrad, the Grim. Syr Konrad damages all of your opponents and he's in Black so giving him infect is fairly easy. I haven't yet given in to my cold Black heart and built a Syr Konrad infect deck but I could see him being able to hold his own in a semi-competitive meta.

My biggest surprise out of Throne of Eldraine was probably Grumgully, the Generous. The ability to put +1/+1 counters on your creatures seems like it would make for a decent Gruul goblin deck but I've had a lot of success with my persist combo build. It's often underestimated and tends to win games out of nowhere.

Eldraine also brought us Syr Faren, the Hengehammer, Syr Carah, the Bold, Syr Elenora, the Discerning, and Syr Alyn, the Lion's Claw along with Gadwick, the Wizened and Linden, the Steadfast Queen. The legendary creature I most wanted to be excited by was Rankle, Master of Pranks, but for some reason he just didn't inspire me to actually build a deck around him. The fact that his abilities are all symmetrical probably had something to do with my lack of interest.

Beyond legendary creatures, Throne of Eldraine really delivered the goods, giving most players a decent number of new toys to slot into existing decks. My Narset, Enlightened Master deck got both Embercleave and All That Glitters. The Great Henge, Faeburrow Elder, Keeper of Fables, Once Upon a Time, Happily Ever After and many more flavorful Eldraine cards found their way into our decks. That most powerful Planeswalker of the year I mentioned earlier, Oko, Thief of Crowns, even came from Throne of Eldraine.

Final Thoughts

I think my favorite three decks from the past year were probably Kenrith, the Returned King, Grismold, the Dreadsower and Grumgully, the Generous. I am very fond of them all, for a variety of reasons.

My Kenrith build doesn't win a lot of games but I enjoy seeing what sorts of synergies I can create with my +1/+1 counters and every one in a while I am able to murder an opponent with a giant pumped-up Kenrith. I'm optimistic that eventually I'll land a Simic Ascendancy win with the deck. I've come close and I really don't play the deck that often.

Grismold, the Dreadsower seems to do a little of what Kenrith wants to do. It's built around token creation and token hate and when I play it I do enjoy giving out all of my little 1/1 Plant tokens and then of course murdering them to make my Commander huge. My favorite thing about the deck is how well the deck's Eldrazi Spawn and Scion token theme works with the overall strategy.

My best deck of the past year is easily Grumgully. The multiple redundant persist creatures, ETB payoffs and +1/+1 counter sources combine to create a deck that feels like it's almost inevitably going to get a table-killing combo going if the game goes long enough. I'm still learning the deck but it's wonderful to have at least one build from this year that's been able to win games right out of the gate at a rate far beyond anything I expected out of it. Last year's surprise was Marwyn, the Nurturer and Grumgully is for me this year's dark horse.

I really enjoyed building and playing my first Slivers deck in 2019. I also really enjoyed putting my Narset, Enlightened Master extra turns and steps deck back together. Narset was always a bit of a guilty pleasure and after months of having it in a less competitive version it was a lot of fun to put the good stuff back into the list again.

One final highlight of the year that I should share is how much fun it was to build and play a Phelddagrif Voltron Enchantress deck. Murdering folks with the big purple Group Hug Hippo didn't happen that often, but when I was able to pull it off it always amused me. Hippos are one of the most dangerous land animals in Africa, so it always felt strangely fitting to load Phelddagrif up with Ancestral Mask, Daybreak Coronet, Steel of the Godhead and maybe Eldrazi Conscription and send him at an unfortunate tablemate. The deck isn't together any longer but I could see myself rebuilding it again someday. It was a lot of fun.

If you've got your own top commanders from 2019 I'd love to hear about them in the comments. What did I miss? What did you build this year and which of your new decks did you enjoy the most? Did you enjoy the ones that won the most or were there less powerful decks that you just loved to build and play?

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading and I'll be back next week with another installment of my monthly "Winning Ways" series.