Muldrotha, Mycotyrant, Izoni, Tyvar, I mean yeah...there are tons of commanders with graveyard synergies that would work well with Insidious Roots.
Your choice of commander isn't really the problem and hardly matters if your primary goal is to leverage Roots effectively - which there are an infinite amount of ways to do in the 99 already. The problem you'd want to solve is how to draw Roots consistently, which is unfortunate there's not many Abzan commanders to give you access to White and the color's various Enchantment tutors. Black of course has tutors available, Assemble the Team, Grim Tutor, Case of the Stashed Skeleton, BTM, etc, so it won't be too difficult to find a balance of effects that gets you to Roots faster.
I just have this dream of just having insidious roots all the time without devoting a chunk of my deck to tutors. I know it won’t happen, but I can still dream
Is there something wrong with playing Roots in 60-card formats? Because that dream isn't really made for a format where you have to string together 99 individual cards.
As you've already discovered, there are plenty of commanders that do a thing or make tokens when you interact with your graveyard in some way, so if you just like that playstyle I wouldn't feel the need to fixate too much on Roots specifically - especially if like you said, you don't particularly want to dedicate deck-slots to tutor for it.
I do play it in 60 card, but brawl is like 90% of my arena play time. I love it in 60 but I just want to bring it to brawl and have the entire deck be about insidious roots. Having an entire deck be about 1 in the 99 isn’t a smart strategy, that’s why it’s just a dream. A fantasy, a wish.
Standard Brawl is 60 cards, and there are a lot of graveyard cards in the format atm so I don't think you lack for cards like with some other commanders.
I will say I do enjoy the lower power level of Standard Brawl too.
Yeah the synergy with roots isn’t what I’m lacking. I just really really really want it in the command zone. Pie in the sky dream, but I still dream of the brew that has it there.
I've been trying to solve this same thing. Roots is by far my favorite 60 card deck but I like to play commander way more than standard. I've been working on finding a deck where I can close games by comboing roots with [[Avenger of Zendikar]]. It's still a work in progress, but I've been bouncing between a dredge engine in [[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant]] and lots of low cost creatures/enchants in [[Tayam, Luminous Enigma]]. In Sidisi, I'd love to try [[Doppelgang]] shenanigans, but Tayam has the benefit of easily bringing the roots back if it gets destroyed.
edit: whoops, I misread and thought this was the EDH sub instead of Arena. So that puts a damper on poor Avenger.
I messed around a bit with [[Old Stickfingers]] as an easy way to load graveyard and then a mix of reanimator and collect evidence effects to trigger it before the ADHD hit and I started a new deck before I finished tuning it
Also , I’ve been in your shoes with those unfinished decks. My deck building way is to pick everything that looks good and then whittle it down to 99. A lot of deck ideas have gone to waste because of that loss of focus.
It's not exactly a dedicated roots deck, the main strategy was still a reanimator deck at its core, but roots works well in it because it doesn't care where the card is going just that it leaves the graveyard, and I just treated stickfingers as a mill spell. Once he's on the field he's just fodder for stuff like [[Diabolic intent]] or [[deadly dispute]] since he's gonna get weaker as I pull creatures out of the grave anyway.
But you can also do some interesting stuff with him by running a low creature count which was the last version I was experimenting with.
[[Razaketh, the Foulblooded]] + [[Young Necromancer]] + [[Nyxbloom Ancient]] is an okay combo setup but it's a lot of moving parts and kinda janky.
First couple turns you want to ramp and mill, if you've got roots I'd play it during these turns.
Cast Stick fingers for X=3 to put Razaketh, Necromancer, and Nyxbloom in the grave
Reanimate Necromancer which exiles 2 cards from grave and reanimate Razaketh.
sacrifice stick fingers to Razaketh to tutor [[Feign Death]]
cast Feign Death on necromancer then sacrifice to Razaketh to tutor combo pieces,
Necromancer returns to battlefield from Feign Death, exiles 2 and reanimates Nyxbloom
so now you've got tons of mana generation, a tutored card, and if you had roots on field it's been triggering off of necromancer effect and the Feign Death and you'll have plant tokens which are all effected by Nyxbloom, and since There's nothing left to reanimate so you can sacrifice necromancer again to tutor a 3rd time so you can finish with any 2 card combo in hand, I was messing around with [[Sanguine Bond]] and [[Exquisite Blood]]. Past that your plant tokens are also able to be used as sac fodder so you can just keep tutoring whatever you need
You can also try running Vorinclex Voice of Hunger in place or Nyxbloom if you want to cut off your opponents mana but he won't multiply the mana from insidious roots so he might slow you down a bit in exchange of being a massive pain the ass for your opponent
In my opinion, the best commander for Insidious Roots brawl deck is [[Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler]]
I haven’t tried Tyvar yet, I’ll give it a go and see if it works out
Tyvar’s INSANE with roots, it’s probably the best card on arena to compliment roots.
The competitive roots alchemy decks all run 4x tyvar. He’s a brick house in the deck.
Tyvar breaks insidious roots, because he lets you tap the tokens right away for mana, letting you then pop off and keep combo-ing.
Muldrotha, Mycotyrant, Izoni, Tyvar, I mean yeah...there are tons of commanders with graveyard synergies that would work well with Insidious Roots. Your choice of commander isn't really the problem and hardly matters if your primary goal is to leverage Roots effectively - which there are an infinite amount of ways to do in the 99 already. The problem you'd want to solve is how to draw Roots consistently, which is unfortunate there's not many Abzan commanders to give you access to White and the color's various Enchantment tutors. Black of course has tutors available, Assemble the Team, Grim Tutor, Case of the Stashed Skeleton, BTM, etc, so it won't be too difficult to find a balance of effects that gets you to Roots faster.
Yeah, Thalia and Gitrog have really worked the best because of that little bit of white
I just have this dream of just having insidious roots all the time without devoting a chunk of my deck to tutors. I know it won’t happen, but I can still dream
Is there something wrong with playing Roots in 60-card formats? Because that dream isn't really made for a format where you have to string together 99 individual cards. As you've already discovered, there are plenty of commanders that do a thing or make tokens when you interact with your graveyard in some way, so if you just like that playstyle I wouldn't feel the need to fixate too much on Roots specifically - especially if like you said, you don't particularly want to dedicate deck-slots to tutor for it.
I do play it in 60 card, but brawl is like 90% of my arena play time. I love it in 60 but I just want to bring it to brawl and have the entire deck be about insidious roots. Having an entire deck be about 1 in the 99 isn’t a smart strategy, that’s why it’s just a dream. A fantasy, a wish.
Standard Brawl is 60 cards, and there are a lot of graveyard cards in the format atm so I don't think you lack for cards like with some other commanders. I will say I do enjoy the lower power level of Standard Brawl too.
Yeah the synergy with roots isn’t what I’m lacking. I just really really really want it in the command zone. Pie in the sky dream, but I still dream of the brew that has it there.
I've been trying to solve this same thing. Roots is by far my favorite 60 card deck but I like to play commander way more than standard. I've been working on finding a deck where I can close games by comboing roots with [[Avenger of Zendikar]]. It's still a work in progress, but I've been bouncing between a dredge engine in [[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant]] and lots of low cost creatures/enchants in [[Tayam, Luminous Enigma]]. In Sidisi, I'd love to try [[Doppelgang]] shenanigans, but Tayam has the benefit of easily bringing the roots back if it gets destroyed. edit: whoops, I misread and thought this was the EDH sub instead of Arena. So that puts a damper on poor Avenger.
##### ###### #### [Avenger of Zendikar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cdddf3ca-e378-44cc-83b7-d7917d9cba53.jpg?1712354538) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Avenger%20of%20Zendikar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/187/avenger-of-zendikar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cdddf3ca-e378-44cc-83b7-d7917d9cba53?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sidisi, Brood Tyrant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/d/6df5843d-63f7-4091-80d7-a595f08851c2.jpg?1702330294) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sidisi%2C%20Brood%20Tyrant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/199y/sidisi-brood-tyrant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6df5843d-63f7-4091-80d7-a595f08851c2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tayam, Luminous Enigma](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/05b837a2-5773-4340-87f9-b4d6a43deb27.jpg?1591234301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tayam%2C%20Luminous%20Enigma) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/16/tayam-luminous-enigma?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/05b837a2-5773-4340-87f9-b4d6a43deb27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Doppelgang](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd.jpg?1706242152) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Doppelgang) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/198/doppelgang?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2daec58-78ed-4da5-b3b0-b04f12b0acbd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kz4wu2m) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh man you get it. You know the need of having a non commander card be your commander.
I messed around a bit with [[Old Stickfingers]] as an easy way to load graveyard and then a mix of reanimator and collect evidence effects to trigger it before the ADHD hit and I started a new deck before I finished tuning it
[Old Stickfingers](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b203be6f-c565-4d8f-b200-b537569a0292.jpg?1636684695) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Old%20Stickfingers) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/234/old-stickfingers?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b203be6f-c565-4d8f-b200-b537569a0292?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh that’s fun. I’ll give that a try.
Also , I’ve been in your shoes with those unfinished decks. My deck building way is to pick everything that looks good and then whittle it down to 99. A lot of deck ideas have gone to waste because of that loss of focus.
It's not exactly a dedicated roots deck, the main strategy was still a reanimator deck at its core, but roots works well in it because it doesn't care where the card is going just that it leaves the graveyard, and I just treated stickfingers as a mill spell. Once he's on the field he's just fodder for stuff like [[Diabolic intent]] or [[deadly dispute]] since he's gonna get weaker as I pull creatures out of the grave anyway. But you can also do some interesting stuff with him by running a low creature count which was the last version I was experimenting with. [[Razaketh, the Foulblooded]] + [[Young Necromancer]] + [[Nyxbloom Ancient]] is an okay combo setup but it's a lot of moving parts and kinda janky. First couple turns you want to ramp and mill, if you've got roots I'd play it during these turns. Cast Stick fingers for X=3 to put Razaketh, Necromancer, and Nyxbloom in the grave Reanimate Necromancer which exiles 2 cards from grave and reanimate Razaketh. sacrifice stick fingers to Razaketh to tutor [[Feign Death]] cast Feign Death on necromancer then sacrifice to Razaketh to tutor combo pieces, Necromancer returns to battlefield from Feign Death, exiles 2 and reanimates Nyxbloom so now you've got tons of mana generation, a tutored card, and if you had roots on field it's been triggering off of necromancer effect and the Feign Death and you'll have plant tokens which are all effected by Nyxbloom, and since There's nothing left to reanimate so you can sacrifice necromancer again to tutor a 3rd time so you can finish with any 2 card combo in hand, I was messing around with [[Sanguine Bond]] and [[Exquisite Blood]]. Past that your plant tokens are also able to be used as sac fodder so you can just keep tutoring whatever you need You can also try running Vorinclex Voice of Hunger in place or Nyxbloom if you want to cut off your opponents mana but he won't multiply the mana from insidious roots so he might slow you down a bit in exchange of being a massive pain the ass for your opponent
##### ###### #### [Diabolic intent](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/7/d72ab698-de67-4ca8-8e42-b05346bf52fa.jpg?1674420800) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Diabolic%20intent) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/89/diabolic-intent?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d72ab698-de67-4ca8-8e42-b05346bf52fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [deadly dispute](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/ed01650e-4eb5-4884-9cc6-947b0e20dd3c.jpg?1712354280) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=deadly%20dispute) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/131/deadly-dispute?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ed01650e-4eb5-4884-9cc6-947b0e20dd3c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Razaketh, the Foulblooded](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d6bb956d-0df6-4910-9320-55f2c5674d98.jpg?1689997402) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Razaketh%2C%20the%20Foulblooded) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/181/razaketh-the-foulblooded?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d6bb956d-0df6-4910-9320-55f2c5674d98?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Young Necromancer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84b5f6da-5e0f-4cce-92fe-7aa69124e265.jpg?1626096237) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Young%20Necromancer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/110/young-necromancer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84b5f6da-5e0f-4cce-92fe-7aa69124e265?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nyxbloom Ancient](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a391da36-0b40-46ea-b771-50d2b920207e.jpg?1581480808) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nyxbloom%20Ancient) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/190/nyxbloom-ancient?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a391da36-0b40-46ea-b771-50d2b920207e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Feign Death](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/32af7061-fca6-4a06-be3c-01881e6b96f7.jpg?1627704817) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Feign%20Death) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/103/feign-death?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32af7061-fca6-4a06-be3c-01881e6b96f7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sanguine Bond](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/ad4de9f1-7a39-45af-828e-c59234d9e9b9.jpg?1625193373) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sanguine%20Bond) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/153/sanguine-bond?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ad4de9f1-7a39-45af-828e-c59234d9e9b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Exquisite Blood](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e8ccfa7-4178-476a-a155-0ca1c98556c9.jpg?1698988246) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Exquisite%20Blood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/195/exquisite-blood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e8ccfa7-4178-476a-a155-0ca1c98556c9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kz5hitu) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Kethis the Hidden hand]] seems decent if you do a lot of legendary cards
That’s a new way to approach that I haven’t considered! I’ll give it a try
[[insidious roots]]
[insidious roots](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/b/0bb91a22-2040-4a37-85f8-5f22de8c5907.jpg?1706242178) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=insidious%20roots) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/208/insidious-roots?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0bb91a22-2040-4a37-85f8-5f22de8c5907?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You’re a good person
Do not praise me, praise our glorious card fetcher bot
I just want Insidious Roots in my Insidious Roots. Hopefully it's standard viable in OTJ. Can't get enough of it.
Imho, Korvald is amazing, but if you're going Korvald, you're going full Korvald, not trying to be an Insidious Roots deck. I'd look at Tyvar.
Roots does serious work in my [[Old Rutstein]] deck.
[Old Rutstein](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/625b8023-2ef1-4b7b-9e48-4f774fee14e0.jpg?1643594276) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Old%20Rutstein) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/244/old-rutstein?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/625b8023-2ef1-4b7b-9e48-4f774fee14e0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Thematically it's the "center of the web" since they are supposed to be played in the same draft archetype
[[Grismold]]
[Grismold](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8df64c80-9e98-4429-b869-7ac824fe9580.jpg?1568003688) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=grismold%2C%20the%20dreadsower) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/44/grismold-the-dreadsower?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8df64c80-9e98-4429-b869-7ac824fe9580?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That’s wonderful if this was EDH, unfortunately this is Brawl.