14 years ago (!!) the term "Shard" was born in the Shards of Alara set, where the plane of Alara was split into 5 sections - each only able to access three of the 5 mana colours.
This year, the latest set Streets of New Capenna brings back the Shard concept with warring crime Families, much like The Godfather, each Family has carved out it's own piece of the pie.
The center colour in the group is the "primary" colour, giving most of the direction and flavor of the cards, and the allied colours either side provide support mechanics. (Which is different to a wedge colour scheme where the support colours are the "enemy" colour pairs)
Colours | Common Name | Capenna Family Name |
GWU |
Bant | Brokers |
WUB |
Esper | Obscura |
UBR |
Grixis | Maestros |
BRG |
Jund | Riveteers |
RGW |
Naya | Cabaretti |
It's too early for New Capenna to be making a mark here, so lets look at the position BEFORE it drops!
An interesting top section here - on a very satisfying note, the top 5 is one of each shard combination - the top two most popular commanders Korvold, Fae-Cursed King]] and Alela, Artful Provocateur have two things going for them. First, they come from the [s[Throne Of Eldraine set - a famously overpowered set, and secondly, they are the commanders from the first ever set of brawl decks - cheap 60 card standard legal commander style decks, that are then fairly easy to upgrade to a full 100 card commander deck - Wizards wanted to push these decks power wise, so a lot of players picked them up
I didn't expect Arcades to be in the top 5 here - the engine is strong, but the deck kind of builds itself here - play a wall or blocker with defender which replaces itself with a new card, then use all those high toughness cards to attack in. I would have thought it was a little restrictive - but I guess the concept is a bit different
Rounding out the top 5, we have Kess, Dissident Mage, who has strong CEDH backing and Gishath, Sun's Avatar - lets face it, who DOESN'T like smashing face with dinosaur tribal?
Decks | Commander |
7,354 | Korvold, Fae-Cursed King |
5,646 | Alela, Artful Provocateur |
4,894 | Arcades, the Strategist |
4,800 | Kess, Dissident Mage |
4,761 | Gishath, Sun's Avatar |
4,455 | Chulane, Teller of Tales |
4,364 | Lord Windgrace |
4,317 | Nekusar, the Mindrazer |
4,249 | Oloro, Ageless Ascetic |
4,096 | Atla Palani, Nest Tender |
The number we're looking at here is the 75% quartile - 25% of decks for a commander are built to be more expensive than this price (so 75% are less expensive)
Also shown on the chart is the 90% quartile - so only 10% of decks are built to be more expensive than this - if the 90% marker lies outside the thin line, it is classed as an outlier to the data - an unusually high value compared to the rest
A few interesting call outs here:
75% $$$ | Commander |
$20,969.50 | Armix, Filigree Thrasher // Kraum, Ludevic's Opus |
$20,960.00 | Kraum, Ludevic's Opus // Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools |
$20,709.00 | Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
$19,512.00 | Armix, Filigree Thrasher // Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker |
$18,960.50 | Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker // Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools |
$18,636.00 | Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Tymna the Weaver |
$8,610.25 | Jeska, Thrice Reborn // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
$8,118.50 | Dargo, the Shipwrecker // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
$7,040.00 | Krark, the Thumbless // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
$6,759.25 | Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Vial Smasher the Fierce |
Using the EDHRec salt scores to rank our Shard Commanders, (Basically, this means the most maddening decks to play against - depending on what type of person you are, that might just mean the most fun to play), we see
Salt Score Average | Commander |
77.84 | Sakashima of a Thousand Faces // Tymna the Weaver |
73.47 | Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker // Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools |
68.02 | Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Tymna the Weaver |
67.04 | Kraum, Ludevic's Opus // Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools |
66.65 | Armix, Filigree Thrasher // Kraum, Ludevic's Opus |
66.23 | Sen Triplets |
64.53 | Jeska, Thrice Reborn // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
63.54 | Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh // Silas Renn, Seeker Adept |
61.62 | Armix, Filigree Thrasher // Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker |
59.11 | Thrasios, Triton Hero // Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful |
Thanks again for reading - what other subjects would you like to look at? Let me know on social media (click the icons at the bottom of the page) or comment below!.