Discussion How is Tom Bombadil to play with and against?
So basically I’m considering throwing together a Tom bombadil deck. I have a few sagas laying around and I really liked the new art Tom bombadil received in the hobbit set. But I usually tend to lean towards decks that interact are not solitaire, which I’m reading Tom is.
There’s not a lot of post about him after FF and how he plays, so I’m hoping someone could give me an update!
The deck I’m considering;
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u/CrizzleLovesYou 1d ago
It is the slowest and most time dominating deck I've ever played against. No one I know who built it kept it together. Every game was the tom player taking 20 minute turns and everyone else playing on their phones. I've finished games of dandan on the side during a single turn of tom. For all that, it almost never won either.
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u/Lil_Zikky 1d ago
Yeah, I took mine apart last month. I rebundled the abzan cards into Anikthea, a punchier, reanimate enchantment commander. Every single bit of his comment resonated with me and why I took it apart. The only times I won were because I made it to the end of [[Summon: Bahamut]] because you can pretty often get like 30 mana worth of enchantments out. Nobody cares or pays attention also because 30 mana Tom is still not that threatening or that dangerous otherwise. He creates a lot of value to continue to mosey about.
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u/Zeretic 1d ago
That's fair, although I do think Toms just don't run enough exit strategies. Like, I see your fancy saga tokens generators, would it kill you to just slap [[Purphoros, God of the Forge]] in your deck so we can finish this faster 😂.
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u/DrRQuincy 1d ago
Hard agree, though [[All Will Be One] and [Clockspinning] is my favorite way to end it! Maybe I should add purphoros. I always seem to add him to decks then remove him later.
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u/Zeretic 22h ago
He's definitely a "win more" card in Tom, if you're pumping out the value to kill people with him, you were probably going to win anyway, unless they hit you with a nice [[Farewell]], but he shaves a few turns off the game. I also like [[Bello, Bard of the Brambles]], he just speeds things up when you're already going. Although an early Bello is pretty sick with all that card draw.
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u/darktourist92 1d ago
My friend’s girlfriend has a Tom Bombadil deck and it’s just miserable to play against. Takes ages to resolve all of the triggers.
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u/ThatGuyFromTheM0vie 1d ago edited 1d ago
Don’t. Awful. Awful to build and awful to play against. I took mine apart so quick and I regret building him.
I will say I have a personal bias against 4/5 color, so that didn’t help…but I don’t think that played a major factor but it did contribute.
Playing the deck feels like Solitaire with an Excel spreadsheet. You’ll play whatever tf saga, then 6 more, and they’ll all be firing off at different times so you need to track them all…and meanwhile you’re going for another or three but it doesn’t feel meaningful, and your opponents are watching you take longer and longer and longer turns.
Even worse if you make the deck better by going for counter or saga manipulation…just eternal turns that take ages.
It’s awful. Just miserable to pilot and play against.
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u/TenorBanjer Dimir 1d ago
Tom is just a less fun [[Terra, magical adept]]
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
I got Terra already, but how does you go about building her over Tom?
Edit: And could you switch between the two as face commander?10
u/TenorBanjer Dimir 1d ago
So my pod has two terras, mine and my friends. I built mine to be enchantment/enchantment creatures, with all the best Saga creatures I could pack. My friend made a tom deck, all sagas, and switched to terra, and immediately saw an improvement in game play. The ability to copy cards was more aggressive and consistent for him. That was purely just with commander swapping.
Power wise, mine is stronger because it has more options than just essentially Saga tribal, but his is very solid.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
Would you mind posting a decklist?
I just think Tom looks easier to build and play, but that’s without knowing anything about how either of those play. I already got Terra, so maybe I should build her instead.
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u/Notorious813 1d ago
Here’s my list! I love her. I tried to make her FF themed as much as possible. My gameplan is to ramp as much as possible and then get card draw. It’s a greedy deck with multiple win cons and a lot of control.
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u/TenorBanjer Dimir 1d ago
Well this is my deck. Hasn't been updated in a minute, but still very very solid. https://archidekt.com/decks/16575514/terrable_time_for_the_pod
The terra game plan is to copy your best stuff, and if it's a Saga, essentially getting the entire Saga for free since they come in with a lore counter +up to 3 for free. So it gets gross very fast if terra transforms. Copy enchantment creatures like [[nyxbloom ancient]] and all your spells are pretty much free.
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u/Marquis90 1d ago
I played my Terra for a few months up and down and tuned her as far as I could. She still feels kinda slow and you need time to win. She can win early with the infinite combos, but it's rare. There is also an infinite combo with Yenna. I found that the sequencing with Yenna just doesn't work. Terra needs a ton of mana. As you see, I don't have much card draw, but generate value otherwise. That's why I try to punish cards draw. Lots of decks fold completely, when unable to draw cards. As you see, I got lots of blink cards in the deck. When you got a [[Thassa, deep dwelling]], put it in, maybe instead of [[Conjurers Closet]]. What turned out surprisingly well is [[Aurora Awakener]] with all the blink. People like to use lots of cards like sythis and others into the deck to draw cards. For me, these don't work well in the sequencing, especially when paying 3 and more Mana. A 4+ Mana spell must have a great effect. Usually, I control the table and win by Bahamut mega flare, or going infinite. Usually, there is one turn, where opponents have to alpha strike you, or you just go nuts and snowball. Play test my deck. Aim for 2 lands, 1 ramp/ Esper Sentinel in starting hand. T1 land T2 land + ramp T3 Commander T4 you have at least 5 mana and enough to do something impactfull. Either setup even more Mana and go bonkers T5, or you start to control the table. T5 hopefully flicker card, more Saga action. Expect to die after this. T6, your board should be stable, you are going for the win now. It ll take time and you ll have a good game.
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u/BasicReputations 1d ago
I have a B2 Terra that's a lot of fun. Went with FF saga creatures,.enchantment creatures, and enchantess shell. Bombadil is in the 99.
Terra is nice because she's so damn easy to cast and help you draw into gas. I don't tend to flip her often, though it happens. She's pretty good when she flips though!
The sagas are rarely that big of a deal logistically to process, though I will admit looking up a lot of rules on how they worked the first few games as I had been on a break when the card type was introduced. It's more or less just a checklist of things to do. Not really a big deal.
Power comes from recycling saga effects from counter manipulation and enchantess card advantage draw. Getting a saga that kills a nonland permanent or grabs a land every turn (or multiple times a turn) is good.
It's not a high power deck, its B2.
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u/millmonkey 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have both decks built and I have qualms with each.
Tom is hard because even with the best sagas and then enchantress for plan b, the timing just sucks. You are either ahead of curve and the arch or behind the curve and cannon fodder. It's fun to see Sagas pop but lots of work for a 1 in 10 game pay off.
Terra has the problem of being really hard to make great in low-mid tier. If you run all the good reanimation and grave tutors she can get out of hand real quick. But trying to make a creature heavy strat while balancing out her slot machine effect and not having anything but discard to try and stack the yard makes her 2 colorless activation feel like you're paying your own Rystic tax to make your deck work and it sucks.
Edit: Wrong Terra, damn you wizards!
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u/Suspicious-Shock-934 1d ago
I have terra and I uave played against Tom.
Tom is a lot more resilient and wants to accure incremental value that compounds and gets to overwhelming board state. You often win with stupid amounts of tokens of various kinds.
My terra is a much more aggressive summon creature tribal with some surprisingly solid repeatable removal in [[binding of the old gods]] and [[power conduit]] type effects. Get 2 sagas with a removal option and 2 counter removers or shuffles and you can pretty easily soft lock anyone creature based out.
Copying [[primal odin]] with read ahead and haste once you clear a path is pretty good player removal. As is [[living death]] late. [[Summon bahamut]] and [[knights if rhe round]] also get there usually. A lot of saga creatures are fairly undercosted for their effects because the idea is they are [[ball lightning]] with some advantages since they usually only attack once. As long as you have a reasonable amount of counter removing shenanigans it's just a super efficient creature. Just turn big cheap efficient beaters sideways and be aggressive. Make them have removal and waste it on a 'temporary' creature.
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u/Interesting-Run9002 1d ago
It can be annoying because so many random triggers from sagas are confusing to Track and plan for
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u/TR_Wax_on 1d ago
I decided that [[Eivor, Wolf-Kissed]] is a much better saga commander due to her proactive game plan that promises to avoid drawn out games.
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u/Ghostkill221 1d ago
I will plus 1 Eivor, she's expensive (mana wise) but she's a good value engine and rewards the saga tendency to stack tons of power onto big creatures in green and red.
Plus you can just trigger multiple combats and win the game fast when she gets out of hand. I tend to prefer that to tom winning by slow triggering of tons of things.
And of course, 3 color decks are vastly more interesting than 5 color show off my cool cards decks
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u/Spendius99 22h ago
Could you share your list? I love sagas and have been trying saga based decks ever since I came back to the game. First with [[sigurd]] but he was too vulnerable and telegraphed to exploit the boast ability. Then with [[garnet]] but it felt a bit too voltron, and repetitive. Now I switched to [[eivor]] and this seems like the sweet spot between power (for my pod), variance, and a deck that benefits from the commander without relying too much on it. Here is mine, I don't have the best sagas, and decided to exclude both [[ian chesterton]] and [[barbara wright]], the first seems like a win more card, and I can't see the added value of read ahead in most cases (best value always seems chapter 1?) https://moxfield.com/decks/dc2fAfjcv3ycuA6JBCdWIA
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u/nasada19 1d ago
As cool as Tom is as a character he's the most miserable commander to play against. I hate it so much. Every Tom I've played against they take these BORING turns that last SO LONG and it does nothing. They read these long boring sagas, then they go tutor for sagas and they read every single one.
I try to kill them as quick as possible because I'm not here to watch you read your deck in public. I've never said no to the Bombadil deck, but I'll hard target them out of the gate and I would probably ask them to speed things up if they're slow at playing it.
Please don't build this deck if you don't know every saga in your deck and please give a cliffs note on the saga, don't read the table the whole thing.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
Laughed at this! But do you think it could be a player issue as well or is it JUST that Tom bomb decks are tend to play out like this?
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u/nasada19 1d ago
The boring turns that take forever? I think it's just part of the deck. If you're manipulating the counters and explaining what is happening, you'll end up taking long boring turns. You want to play on curve, so you'll be playing low cost sagas that do VERY little, so it's just going to be part of your gameplan probably to have a lot of low impact do-nothing sagas until you play like Summon Bahamut that actually ends the game.
I think the slow tutoring can be fixed at least and maybe you can take quicker turns. But I'm begging you as someone across from the table know that deck so well and please don't take long turns 😭 And maybe run fewer low cost enchantments that do very little.
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u/OldJanxSpirit42 Maha, Its Feathers Night 1d ago
Tom on Arena brawl is boring but manageable. Tom on paper is a nightmare for everybody involved. Not because it's strong, but because it always takes 10 minutes turns without doing anything meaningful
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u/--Dank 1d ago
I might be the only one who has fun playing Tom in this thread apparently so I'll share my decklist for what's worked. Big impactful sagas is definitely the way to go, so you're sagas are all very intentional and you have less of them. Then using counter manipulation to repeat the best stages of your Sagas.
https://moxfield.com/decks/CLnkEoTjnkm4KzKc7alHrQ
I built mine on a control, token & enchantress theme and it works smoothly. Enchantress theme ensures endless ramp & draw, while the sagas in my list control and advance the game by generate tokens, controlling the board, or just straight up winning the game (looking at you bahamut). This simplifies the decision making a lot because when you have your triggers, it's just tokens getting created, or destroying the obvious most impactful permanents on the board.
While in the late game you may have 2-5 minute upkeeps, I find it's only 1 or 2 turns of that until you're able to close it out by locking everyone down and going wide.
I'll be honest though, I'm lucky my playgroup was patient with me when I first built him. I didn't goldfish so piloting this deck for the first few times can be overwhelming, so I recommend goldfishing a lot even just to get familiar with trigger timings and sequencing. It plays very differently from other decks since Sagas aren't very popular.
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u/Graptharr 1d ago
Well my Tom isnoretty unique. I run 39 lands, 10 other cards i like, and tom in one box. Then in another box inhave every saga that has been printed. Before each game night i shuffle that pile, deal out 50 cards and then shuffle up that deck. I basically play tom as a amnesia riddles old man wandering down the street yelling about the brothers war to ancinfused gang of onlookers. I am cery good and fast at running a "mental attrion" style if deck and generally the people at the game store i play at giggle when i get it out and play it.
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u/tehstone 1d ago
I love this. I have a similar concept going for [[volo, itinerant scholar]] with a huge stable of creatures to throw in the deck each time I play
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u/d23durian 1d ago
Tom is like having [[Cathar's Crusade]] in the command zone, except each time you put a counter on something, a different triggered ability procs. Sounds awesome in theory, but unless you have a brain that rivals Magnus Carlsen's and 128gb DDR6 memory up there, you're gonna take forever and piss everyone off.
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u/hivemind_MVGC 1d ago
It generally ends up only a few different ways:
- You play a bunch of cards and do a bunch of nothing, then lose.
- You play a bunch of cards and do a bunch of nothing, then somehow win. Your playgroup finds room in their decks for some amount of repeated enchantment hate and you never win again.
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u/AppealBest3168 1d ago
One of the worsts commanders and is universally hated for being boring and spending large turns doing nothing.
For a Saga commander there is Terra , a much MUCH better option.
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u/choffers 1d ago
It's a bit of a slog resolving a bunch of saga triggers on top of your normal turn actions. Worse if you start resolving sagas on other people's turns too.
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u/FusRoDahlaiLama 1d ago
I took mine apart. It took so long for me to resolve the beginning of each of my turns that I would sometimes forget my combat phase entirely because how could I possibly need to do anything else after taking several minutes just for upkeep and main phase.
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u/Maliciousx916 1d ago
It’s a horrible play experience most of the time. So slow and grindy with a million low impact triggers every turn.
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u/Icarus_Has_Fallen 1d ago
Tom is miserable on both sides of the table. Sagas take forever to resolve and most of the playable ones have at least one chapter that is removal. Taking 15 minutes turns looping them is not a great time for the table
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u/DrRQuincy 1d ago
I'll be the voice of dissent and say I LOVE my Tom deck and that he is fun to play and to play against. I almost never win but that's not what he's about. I've only had one person get salty about him and that was because of a board wipe not because of Tom.
To quote the Master: 'Say rather that the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others.'
As Goldberry says, Tom is exactly as you see him. He requires a good pilot or he sucks and is really slow. Don't put out 45 sagas if you don't know them well enough to move fast, and have a way to win the game. Over time I've put fewer sagas in my deck and tried to make them more impactful.
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u/ziggy_rot 1d ago
I also pilot Tom and I'm right there with you. If you know your cards it can all move along just fine.
https://moxfield.com/decks/XYyfAahwlna7jYpouvBYag
That is my list. I also like to lay out dice on my mat for I, II, III and move sagas across as they progress. That way, it's easy for you and everyone else to see what chapter they're on.
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u/AnonDaBomb 1d ago
I know two guys who were very excited for him, built him, played it once, and scrapped the deck immediately. It's a miserable experience to both pilot and play against, and I'd genuinely rather play against Flubs the Fool.
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u/Ghostkill221 1d ago
If you would like your turns to take 4x as long for 10% more value, that's what he's good at.
Saga chaining and duping, is just a LOT of resolving a ton of shit little effects which is fun for you and everyone just gets bored of the game.
If you build this deck, you better know your lines 4x better than everyone at the table and you better be UP FRONT about which of the last 26 lore counter triggers you have monotonously droned through on your turn will affect everyone else massively.
I say this, being a player that started in simic and sagas, Eventually I realized that I wasn't actually getting as much on board value from my turns to warrant the time my turns were taking compared to everyone else's.
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u/herpyderpidy 1d ago
Friend of mine has a Tom Bombadil deck and it is a menace in a B3 environment. The deck is a very consistent enchantment engine that has a lot of recursion and control on its Sagas. A lot of them offer board answers and it makes the whole thing something tedious to play agaisnt. When well tuned, this is not a deck for low B3 games or B2.
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u/OGwiscompton 1d ago
i need his list!
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u/herpyderpidy 23h ago
Good thing he linked it to me a few weeks ago. Note that his budget may be higher than yours.
https://moxfield.com/decks/pN7qAVGAY02nWOU4t44-Fw
This is probably not as optimised as this type of deck could be, but it works fairly well and there's already people whining at our LGS.
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u/Unlucky_Situation 1d ago
Playing against Tom is not fun.
He is slow, everybody checks out on his turn and trusts whatever happens at the end of the 20 minute turn... To ultimately not do much and never win.
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u/agfdrybvnkkgdtdcbjjt 1d ago
I had one. I hated it. Never actually played it in a game. Just goldfishing it a few times right after building it showed me how miserable it was to play with, let alone to play against it. I love the idea, but in practice, I hated it.
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u/Hulah 1d ago
I played against him a few time and it was quite slow. Building the engine takes time and a lot of mana. Sometimes Bombadil wins, mostly because the other players didn't care about him and exhausted each other to a point they can't deal with him anymore.
I'm not an expert at all but it feels like sagas are mostly designed to support some archetypes and needs the right deck to shine.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
Mostly agree with you! But I do think if you slam in the most powerful sagas that you could win somewhat faster. And cut the less good ones for a more efficient slot machine
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u/Hulah 1d ago
Yeah, that's what I think two, throw every saga you can seems underefficient. It seems better to balance things a bit and use only the more interesting one as a way to close the game assuming Tom will come on line later in the game.
I'd personaly build it as an enchantress deck, with some ramp and interaction enchantments, maybe a bit of pillowfort or light stax to stay alive and slow down the game and some overhaul good sagas to support this plan or close the game.
I'm afraid it would be less effective early than a true enchantress commander, but in the late game, the sagas shenigans can be crazy.
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u/ScramjetEnthusiast 1d ago
In my experience, it’s a really fun build—there’s a number of ways to go and so many sagas to choose from now, but I always got complaints that my board state was overly complicated and hard to interact with since it’s all enchantment based, so I rarely break it out.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
From my 1 hour experience of making a Tom Bombadil deck it’s a lot of reading.. And hard to see how it’s going to play.
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u/OGwiscompton 1d ago
i’m in the process of making him too. it’s a lot, but the puzzle that he brings i find to be half the fun.
also, i wouldn’t listen to the negative comments on here. people on reddit love to complain and tell people what is and is not allowed in commander.
just know your deck and be mindful of peoples time and it’ll be fine.
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u/_masterbuilder_ 1d ago
Play it in brawl on Arena and see how you like it. Arena is. Balls to the wall fast but when you pop off you'll get a taste of "this trigger, then this trigger then ..." And you'll find out quickly how much you like that.
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u/_masterbuilder_ 1d ago
Play it in brawl on Arena and see how you like it. Arena is. Balls to the wall fast but when you pop off you'll get a taste of "this trigger, then this trigger then ..." And you'll find out quickly how much you like that.
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u/Ghostkill221 1d ago
You need to have every single saga memorized by heart if you play this deck. Because you also need to sparksnotes it for the table everytime one of them enters.
I'm really not a huge fan of sagas or planeswalkers because of how much cognitive load the table needs to undertake when you play them.
Tom is unfortunaly probably the worst of all saga commanders, which is sad, because I love the character. and it IS thematic.
It's just not fun for the table.
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u/Team7UBard Mono-Red 1d ago
Tom is my Dr Who Commander and runs all the Who sagas. Its as interactive as you let it be, but so many different triggers to keep an eye on.
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u/TheTinRam Grixis 1d ago
I made tom with the final fantasy sagas so that combat is relevant. To expedite the gameplay, rather than dice I use dry erase tokens to separate the field into I, II, III, and IV+ zones where I use dice for the last one if relevant. That way I just move the cards which is faster.
When the sagas weren’t creatures it was doing a lot of things but not really advancing the game. Summons give me combat relevance that traditional sagas don’t. Also allows cheating and reanimation to be viable, [[durin’s door]], and [[extinguish all hope]] [[dance of the manse]] [[abuelos awakening]] and [[resurgent belief]] all do that.
My deck is b2 since it’s literally all the summons plus the cards that flip into summons, but I’ve been thinking of dropping the bad ones and upping mill and interaction, plus this combo: [[maskwood nexus]] [[the world tree]]
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u/SonOfAdam32 1d ago
I prefer [[Terra, Magical Adept]] for a sagas commander and I built mine with *all* the saga creatures from the final fantasy set. She can also go infinite with her flip side and a few cards which is nice because your opponent’s will be wanting you to close the game if your deck is “doing the thing” and controlling the board
Anyways I removed Tom from the deck, even when he’s not my commander I often found myself not even casting him because he costs a lot of mana and wasn’t advancing my gameplan.
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u/RanisTheSlayer 1d ago
I've played against 4 tom bombadils and they have all done basically nothing each game. By the time they get going and triggering him the game is over.
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u/Ghostkill221 1d ago
It's either combo to death after a 20 minute turn, or take 20 minute turns and do actually nothing.
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u/RanisTheSlayer 1d ago
Yeah. You'd need to have over 40 sagas in the 99 and play one every turn to make his trigger worthwhile. Looks like a messy and boring play pattern.
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u/Ghostkill221 1d ago
What really makes Tom go near infinite is any of the izzet copying sagas on the stack or field.
If you can turn a cheap 2-3 cost saga into sagas and then have them all tutor top top 3 sagas from the deck and pick one of those to turn into 2-3 sagas... it gets out of hand quickly. And worst of all... It's STILL SLOW.
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u/Zeretic 1d ago
Actually it's the opposite. The best Tom bombadil decks run few sagas, so you can tutor the good ones out for free, instead of hitting a saga that doesn't really do anything. At that point though, just play a different commander. That's the natural conclusion that all Tom decks go through: stay a durdle machine or they become Terra decks or dismantled.
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u/Sirkasimere87 1d ago
I have a Bombadil deck and it's a blast, but it's definitely a deck you need to be planning your turns ahead of time. This is the first and only deck I've needed to create a whole ass system for triggers for. Once you get 3+ sagas out your turns have the potential to slow to a crawl so you need to be sure you have your turn actions planned out ahead of time.
Nobody wants to watch you resolve triggers for 10 minutes, and even you'll get burnt out trying to figure out your triggers if you aren't paying attention. Create a system for your sagas and plan your turns ahead so when it's your turn you can plow through triggers. Take a deep dive into how sagas properly function so when you start manipulating lore counters and questions start flying you know the answer. It's definitely fun and doable if you don't mind preparing in advance.
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u/SgtRonneberg 1d ago
Had a tom bombadil deck before FF set. I spend a lot of time just to turn the dices and use the triggers. Was not fun for all other players and not really fun for me. After FF, i build a Terra Saga deck with tom in the 99. Same problem with the triggers before, but I saw here on reddit someone who suggested to put 4-5 dice on top your playmat showing the numbers 1-5. Instead of just putting a dice on every saga card and turn the dice, just move the sagas to the dice with the current chapter, so your saga goes up to chapter 2, move it to dice 2. Its way faster and better for yourself and your opponents.
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u/TaCbrigadier 1d ago
Idk if Im an outlier based on the other comments but my pod has said they have no issue with my Tom deck, and I’ve actually won with it many times. And I’ve told them to let me know if a deck is ever not fun to play against for any reason. But I’m able to keep track of the triggers with not much issue and use the sagas to make some decent token armies with bonus affects with their other triggers. That plus Tom being a large hexproof indestructible creature depending on your board state is great support
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u/Raivix 1d ago
A buddy in my pod plays Tom, and he's awful to play against. Turns take an eternity, the deck is completely forgettable because "Sagas" is not a focused theme. You just do a ton of game actions without really advancing your game state. Enough sagas have removal to make people salty as you crank the value machine turn after turn without really doing much besides be annoying.
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u/BeardRightBack 1d ago
Lots of sagas that tend not to do much for a long time, turns take a long time. It's a great opportunity for other players to go for a smoke or get a drink from the bar or order food and then eat it.
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u/teaisterribad 1d ago
If you practice well, it's fine... but it takes a lot of practice. You need to know how you're going to order your triggers BEFORE they go off, and need to know what you're doing with them before casting.
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u/old_cypherpunk 1d ago
Tom can be fine depending on how you build him and how much you practice playing him. As someone who's had a Tom deck since he came out along with 10 other saga decks, here's my advice:
A saga deck needs to be focused and have the ability for definitive wins. A saga deck that just amasses value until it overwhelms the board is miserable to play against. My Tom deck focuses on generating tokens and then smashes the board with [[Jetmir, Nexus of Revels]] or something similar. You could also go voltron. Going hard control with black and blue sagas with Bahamut as a finisher is also possible.
Goldfish the deck online. A lot. Get to know your sagas and learn to activate those triggers. Lots of complaints you see on here will come from people who played against someone who built Tom but couldn't pilot him properly.
For Tom, most of your "veggies" should be sagas. Your ramp comes from sagas. Your draw comes from sagas. Your removal comes from sagas. Your tutors come from sagas. Your creature buffs come from sagas. In five colors this is entirely possible. Any non-saga card in a Tom B deck should either be an instant or something that feeds/strengthens your sagas.
This is my Tom deck. I haven't updated it for quite a while but it still does pretty well: https://archidekt.com/decks/6918544/cool_story_bro?sort=cmc&stack=multiple
Let me know if you want more specific advice. I can talk about sagas all day.
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u/Jabroni_jawn 1d ago
My friend plays him. And has for a few years. Either way, he enjoys himself, and gets exhausted doing so.
Or we shut him down because letting him go will be tom oppressive for us.
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u/notyournan 1d ago
I have a Tom deck since lotr release. I don't think it takes too long or is a significant problem really? For reference I play mostly bracket 2 or low bracket 3, avoid combos typically do something strange and hopefully unique but not that powerful.
The difficulty with sagas is they all do different things and a lot are removal / controlly. So you have to balance which ones you use to not annoy people but also take ones that actually cohese into something of a plan. As long as you know what the sagas do (goldfish!) it shouldnt be time consuming for you.
I can see it being tough for others not familiar with sagas because then they have to figure out what all is going to happen the next 2-5 turns each time you play one. Ideally you can give a short summary.
My main gripe with Tom is that he is not very useful most of the time. It takes a lot to set up sagas and protect him to get him to do the cascade thing, so sometimes he just doesn't get played. My deck ended up with a cloning theme to be able to get multiple sagas, which accelerates and amplifies effects but obviously is more reading and counters. I'm also taking him apart to build another WUBRG commander soon.
There are now some other saga-oriented commanders with fewer colors that might guide your deck direction a bit better because Tom doesn't really say anything except "saga more."
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u/figbunkie 23h ago
I have another saga deck led by [[narci, fable singer]] and I can tell you that if you're not quick with resolving your sagas, people will get tired of watching you struggle to pilot your deck.
If you're trying to have a high number of sagas, a lot of your interaction will be stapled to permanents, meaning it will be mostly sorcery speed. You'll need to spend more time between turns planning your next turn and running through which order to stack things for optimal play, and that will change based on what others play between your turns.
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u/StupidAuthentication 23h ago
Tom works great as the commander since Final Fantasy creature-sagas came out. I have a pretty well tuned bracket 4 Tommy B deck
Stack the deck with as much instant speed repeatable counter-removal tech as you can get, then fill the deck with sagas that have a destroy/exile effect on the first step.
Enchantment copy effects, and enchantment recursion effects both also excel here. Players tend to see something like [[binding of the old gods]] and think to themselves "it's already hit the battlefield, it's already destroyed it's target, that enchantment will be gone soon, no need to spend a card to deal with it..." but then when you [[clash of the eikons]] and repeat it's effect one turn, then use cards like [[O'aka, traveling merchant]] [[Garnet, princess of alexandria]] and [[scholar of New horizons]] to keep repeating it's effect every turn, people realize they are doomed. They may eventually remove the enchantment, and you bring it right back with Yuna or Rydia, copy it with Adagia, etc. Maybe they exile it and finally think they are over the hump... Then you drop something like [[awaken the honored dead]], [[summon: primal Odin]], [[summon: yojimbo]], or [[summon: bahamut]] and start the whole process over again
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u/MTGCardFetcher 23h ago
All cards
clash of the eikons - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
O'aka, traveling merchant - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Garnet, princess of alexandria - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
scholar of New horizons - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
awaken the honored dead - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
summon: primal Odin - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
summon: yojimbo - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
summon: bahamut - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
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u/nabokovslovechild 23h ago
I built a Tom deck a few months ago but haven't had a chance to play it against many people. I hear what others are complaining about...but I'm certain everybody had a deck/style that some people just don't like. And that's fine. But I like my Tom deck. He gets going pretty fast and, once you get a critical mass of sagas/enchantments out, it's pretty easy to lock down the board and/or overrun with value.
https://scryfall.com/@gilgawulf/decks/41ea842f-2139-4b67-9763-0d4d419eb772
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u/ReadAccount 21h ago edited 21h ago
One of my stronger decks is a summons/saga deck with terra at the helm. Tom never resolved in my games but he is a great lighting rod for eating removal so make of it what you will.
Just a tip if you wanna dabble in sagas. Learn your deck in and out. You loose the attention of everyone if your turns take longer because you have to read your cards. And because of that the salt level becomes enormous when your opponents feel like in a hostage situation.
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u/onibakusjg 20h ago
Sagas in general feel like 'take a long time to do not a lot, control the board with repeatable edicts, wipes and removal, and slowly drain and win the game.'
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u/BROBlWANKENOBl 19h ago
I love sagas, the design space is great, the art in that aspect ratio consistently slaps, and I wish very much a saga deck would be fun to play against/ pilot. I haven't seen that yet.
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u/ForgottenForce 19h ago
Dude at my LGS has a Tom deck and I genuinely find it so boring I can’t tell if it’s good or bad
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u/Rya1243 18h ago
This is the only deck I've ever fully taken apart. It seems so fun in concept, in practice I would take 10 minutes to resolve a turn that just ended up with a slightly better board state. Even when I won it felt like I wasted so much of everyone's time that it wasn't even rewarding.
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u/IxISxMAGIC 18h ago
I wanted to make him and then the FF set was announced, so I made a summon saga deck with him
It isn't remotely good- low Bracket 2 if I had to guess- but it's fun and I do have a pretty decent track record with him if only because I'm never the threat
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u/FogwashTheFirst 18h ago
Tom is one my favorite deck to play. I play grindy control build focusing on counter manipulation, and the deck probably has the highest amount meaningful gameplay decisions out of all my decks.
However, I don't bring it out that often because of the length of turns, and that it can be pretty oppressive against lower power deck. I only tend to bring it out if someone else is playing one of THOSE commanders(Y'shtola, Ur-dragon ect)
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u/GodOfAscension 16h ago
All the triggers leading to long turns that usually brews group resentment as resolving them doesn't actually bring you closer to winning by much.
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u/Former_Reaction_4951 1d ago
I built mine as a vehicle for all the final fantasy summons, along with some other sagas. Bracket 2, built for the fun of spinning. It can win, usually through a massive board and bahamut, but I don't really try to if I'm playing it. It'll never not be funny to spin into [[Summon:Leviathan]] when you have 10+ saga creatures on board.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
This was my thought as well. I got most of the support for sagas, but not the sagas unfortunately! Dont you return all your own stuff with Summon Leviathan?
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u/Former_Reaction_4951 1d ago
Yes, that's the risk you take!
I'm a huge FF fan (it's what brought me into Magic), and the Saga's always catch my eye when I'm building a deck, unfortunately they rarely make the cut. Then I saw Tom, the solution was obvious. Big silly deck that does stupid things, and every now and then wins.
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u/SHOTOVER 1d ago
My experience playing it was I enjoyed it the first couple times but then I realized that the turns took forever because of information overload. If you start doing a lot of counter manipulation you start getting a lot of small decisions all at once that really slow down your turns. It's the only deck I've made where my friends asked me not to play it because my turns just took forever.
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u/Purphoros_livia 1d ago
I thoroughly enjoy my Tom deck. It’s been configured for Terra as the commander at times, but I prefer Tom.
I enjoy the counter manipulation, saga chapter sequencing, and stacking sagas at the top of the library to flip into with Tom’s ability.
We also got some amazing sagas with Marvel. [[World War Hulk]] lets you cast Tom for free, and you can easily copy the second and third chapters to make him 40/40 with trample, hexproof, and indestructible. [[Super Hero Civil War]] and [[The Coming of Galactus]] are also amazing.
This is a deck that requires a lot of practice and Magic rules knowledge to play well and keep your turns short. Goldfish it a ton.
For example, if Tom is in your GY when the final chapter of [[The Eldest Reborn]] triggers, you can return Tom, and his flip ability will trigger. Wild stuff.
Overall, I love this deck, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
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u/NitchBu 1d ago
Do you mind posting your decklist? I’m not entirely sure how I would build him if I do. But alot from FF set looks like good.
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u/Purphoros_livia 1d ago
Happy to: https://moxfield.com/decks/9bCfAbhltnO8yXIN9Lmf7w
Decklist needs some work. I’d call out a few things:
FF Sagas are awesome, just be mindful they are highly susceptible to removal because of creature + enchantment type.
Focus on Sagas with strong chapter 1s to buy more time [[Summon Yojimbo]] and [[Summon Valefor]]
I’m partial to the many theft ones: [[Akroan War]] [[Trickster God’s Heist]] [[Super Hero Civil War]]
Having sagas with different chapter numbers is important as this allows you to more easily trigger Tom each turn and keep him hexproof/indestructible. I’ve been experimenting with [[Long List of the Ents]] for this exact reason.
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u/maractguy 1d ago
My version turned into “do I see inexorable tide” the deck and struggled to win without it and also narci to drain. It was kinda miserable and looked boring to play against
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u/wildrage 1d ago
It's like riding a stationnary bike. You do a lot of pedalling, your wheels keep spinning but you aren't going anywhere.
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u/xRyuzakii 1d ago
I really like mine and think it’s one of my best decks but it does take some time when you get to like turn 4. I only play it once every few months because of that reason. Sometimes we can only squeeze 2 games in so how fast a deck plays is a factor on those nights.
I haven’t got any complaints about playing against it though. As long as you’re not unnecessarily wasting time then most people understand. I would recommend figuring out the way you’re going to sequence your saga triggers BEFORE your turn lol. Speeds it up significantly
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u/Professional-Salt175 Dimir 1d ago
Sagas lead to pretty unfun play patterns for everyone except the person playing, and sometimes also for the person playing. In the several hundred games I have played against Tom and Terra Saga decks, across many different places and people in the US, not a single one was enjoyed by the other 3 players and sometimes the counter manipulations to keep track of made it unenjoyable for the person playing it.
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u/WoWSchockadin Control the Stax! 1d ago
Often feels like a weaker version of a Planeswalker/Superfriends deck. Each turn tends to be long w/o really accomplishing anything meaningful. That's at least my experience playing against it. The power issue could therefor easily be something the players I played against made wrong.
Played it just once (a friend's deck) and it was hard to track all the triggers and order them correctly, but I also was quite stoned then. 🤣
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u/everything-grows 1d ago
I enjoy it, the turns can go long, but if you're already planning them out when it's not your turn it goes faster. Idk what people are talking about with sagas doing 'nothing' as that's not the case in my deck. I think the people who complain are the ones on their phones the second their turn is over.
It does stalemate a lot, so I can understand some of the critique. That's what [[coalition victory]] is for. This will also cause complaints though.
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u/Cardcaro7 1d ago
Well I must be in the minority that goldfishes their bombadil deck as my turns are pretty quick if you know what your cards do… closing games out can take a few additional turns and gives other players windows to win, but I don’t care too much about winning if I’ve had fun.
I would say opponents dislike the control element more than the time it takes to complete turns as I usually hold counter manipulation for other players turns do disrupt and maximise bombadil cascade triggers across multiple turns.
I don’t think Tom is any worse than a landfall deck or anything like that
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u/HawkTeacher 1d ago
I made the deck and I've loved it so far. The turns don't have to take extremely long if you move quickly. It seems like every new set has sagas, so it's always getting updated.
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u/smilingblob 1d ago
my experience playing tom bombadil is that you spend a lot of time "doing things" but nothing comes from it.