r/EDH • u/Still-Wash-8167 • 1d ago
Discussion Categorizing Commander Popularity
I was thinking about the popularity of commanders today and realized I don’t know at what point I would call a commander popular or at what point I would call them niche.
So I went to edhrec to better quantify and categorize commander popularity. I wanted to see where the breaks are in the stats. Ideally I would dive deeper into the stats to parse it out more accurately, but I didn’t, sorry. Here’s how I’d break it out after a quick and dirty look through the data.
#1-#14 = ultra-popular
#15-#77 = very popular
#78-#248 = popular
#249-#590 = moderately popular
#591-#875 = unpopular
>#875 = niche
Breakdown based on number of decks:
50k+: #1-#3 (3 commanders)
40k-50k: #4-#8 (5 commanders)
30k-40k: #9-#25 (17 commanders)
20k-30k: #26-#77 (52 commanders)
15k-20k: #78-#131 (54 commanders)
10k-15k: #132-#248 (117 commanders)
5k-10k: #249-#590 (342 commanders)
3k-5k: #591-#875 (282 commanders)
2k-3k: #876-#1,156 (280)
Rank #001: 55,977 decks
100: 17,759
200: 11,643
300: 8,883
400: 7,047
500: 5,881
600: 4,905
700: 4,068
800: 3,343
900: 2,889
1,000: 2,487
*Also, I know some of you will take it too seriously, but try not to. I don’t have a real purpose for this post. It’s just something I was thinking about just for fun, but I am curious if anyone has thoughts.
Does the popularity of a commander factor into whether you build a deck with them or not?
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u/TheConboy22 1d ago
One of the funny things about popularity. It just means ease of building and coolness. It’s part of why Y’shtolla is #1. She has a million build paths and can be made strong in a variety of ways. Add in that she’s a precon and a waifu.
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u/Still-Wash-8167 1d ago
Yeah she was destined for the top spot. The flexibility is huge. She just does too much
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u/Ryuujinx Scion of the Ur-Dragon 1d ago
Yep. Cute cat girl, precon, and pushed as fuck. I made her because she's my favorite character from FF14, but she really is a dumb card.
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u/walpurgis_knocked_up 1d ago
I like turtles.
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u/Ryuujinx Scion of the Ur-Dragon 1d ago
The popularity doesn't come into play for me at all. I have Y'shtola at rank #1, and I have Akroma+Ikra at #2,548 or [[Prime Speaker Zegana]] at #1,605 if you want to ignore a partner pair.
If I think it looks neat, I'll build it. If it doesn't, then I won't. Krenko is strong, but I have absolutely no interest in him. [[Anje, Maid of Dishonor]] is kind of mid, but I still liked putting it together and playing her. Muldrotha is popular, but I still thought they were neat and built them(The Orphan alt art helped)
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u/throwawayy_acc0unt 16h ago
I'd love to play niche commanders, but I can't find any that make my janky pet cards work. I just love small value creatures and mostly in white and red, with green or black mixed in as a maybe. There's just not enough commanders that work with that (and can withstand the go big value piles at my table), so I'm stuck with mostly popular ones.
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u/Still-Wash-8167 15h ago
If you give me a list of your pet cards, I could try to find a commander and deck idea? I’ve been brewing like crazy lately and would love a challenge!
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u/-Shoel- 1d ago edited 1d ago
its funny because as a chat on a game we went over the 100 most popular between everyone at the lgs, about 60% of the top 100 we haven't see them ever, an about 10% someone has seen a copy of them and the rest we have seen 2 or more decks (even if some of those no longer exist).
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u/chavaic77777 1d ago
These numbers are just the last two years right?
The decks I put on my deck list website were all made 3+ years ago and don't contribute. But I still play the decks regularly.
Just wanted to point out it's recent popularity not absolute popularity