1) Browse commander options till I find one that calls to me and doesn't want any cards I can't afford (for example, all my green decks tend to be voltronish to not want Gaea's Cradle). 2) Come up with the card abilities that I'm going to need in the 99 to directly produce the strategy. 3) Use Gathe...

I like the suggestions along the lines of white's triggered catch-up abilities, but I'd probably vary the idea by color. White - If you do it, I do it. Just as suggested. Black - If you would do it, sac a land as an additional cost. Red - If you do it, take damage equal to the number of lands you co...

Aside from the existence of super legends for several archetypes, such as Korvold, Fae-Cursed King that render everything they overlap obsolete, I don't have a big problem with Commander's NWO, so to speak.

Blue wasn't my color, and a deck full of counterspells wasn't my thing. Au revoire, Azami. As Card Kingdom prepares to draw 40 or so cards worth selling to fund a new adventure, I put together a few of my favorite things in this mono black deck. I love themes and style - way more form than function....

A lot of casual players, especially straight out of deck construction, would benefit way more from draw than tutors, Demonic included. It can take quite a while to discover all the interactions the deck builder made possible, and tutors inhibit that process. Odds are, a casual deck has way more ways...

I almost never get to play, and, for the last six years or so, I've made, bought, scrapped, sold to repeat more times than I've actually played. It's very hard to get together with anyone, but it's very fun theorycrafting, building and owning a commander deck. "What can this deck do?" piqu...

I included Reverse the Polarity in Azami, but I saw nothing that even gave me a passing thought of a new deck. Considering Ixalan tempted me to switch commanders to Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch // Temple of Cyclical Time , it's not like the thought of scrapping and restarting is out of the question.

I think the life total is fine as is. Players who win "the olde fashioned way" probably like the status quo. Players who don't like the status quo bypass life totals anyway. Would lower life totals pull players from the latter camp? I'm not sure. I do know that lower life totals would be a...

I voted not bothered and money not an issue. I keep a single deck, a single Commander, at a time. If a new card doesn't inspire me to sell my current deck and build something new, and if it's not something my current deck wants, I ignore it. Right now, a card would need to be a wizard that counters...

I voted not bothered and money not an issue. I keep a single deck, a single Commander, at a time. If a new card doesn't inspire me to sell my current deck and build something new, and if it's not something my current deck wants, I ignore it. Right now, a card would need to be a wizard that counters,...

I voted "Seen a few episodes". I discovered the series late in the run with the bald guy just before David Tennant. I watched a fair bit of David Tennant's run. I watched an episode or two of the Matt fellow that followed him. Haven't watched it much after that. Truth is, I like the theme ...

When I build a new deck, I sell my old one to Card Kingdom and buy the new one from TCG. I don't keep a collection. If we want to count that towards total time from brainstorming to shuffling up, add one to three weeks to the total. Building a deck occurs entirely on Archidekt, down to the choice of...

For Azami, I've made a strenuous effort to handpick my printings. I split my basics 20 and 20 between the two displayed below. I think they're as on theme as one can get.


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When I caricature a Commander player in my mind, mass enchantment and artifact removal are anathema to them as much as any other interaction. Discouraging removal promotes degeneracy, so, if you have the luxury of a consistent playgroup, and they have these sorts of house rules, best practice is to ...

I like goad, and have built several decks devoted to it, but I've never had success with it. It seems like a mechanic released ten years too late.

I always want my decks to do the same thing every time. Redundancy, draw and tutors are the only ways I know of to accomplish this. I prioritise the three in that order. My current deck manages just fine off redundancy and draw. I think I like it better that way. You never know when you'll discover ...

Do you really find that a shockland is less protected than a basic? In my experience anyone who's willing to run Ruination is also happy to run Armageddon . Once MLD comes out of Pandora's box, there's not much difference. And the only lands that are likely to draw targeted hate are more along the ...

I've tended towards monocolor decks the majority of my Magic career. In that light, I've never needed strong justification to stick mostly to basics. The best argument towards basics and the ramp that finds them, is that they're sacrosanct and untouchable in the overall Commander culture. Any time y...

When I was building my new Azami deck, I knew I wanted "counter everything" to be the guiding mantra of deck construction. There seemed to me to be two ways to achieve such an end: fill all the slots allocated to counterspell effects with distinct relevant cards, at the cost of card qualit...

My favorite three jujitsu-esque sweepers are Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction and Incite Rebellion.

I'm a big fan of green's search for lands and put them into play style of ramp - the unwashed masses have made lands the only sort of ramp it's not okay to touch, so run it to the exclusion of everything else and watch those other suckers devote deck slots to protecting their ramp while you wield co...

I don't really run artifact-based removal these days, because I think Commander has sped up and left them behind. Nevinyrral's Disk still has a place in the classic lock, but I haven't investigated brewing a stax deck in years so I don't know if the lock still has a place there. Steel Hellkite is an...

Was mulling adding the AAA rocks to the deck, and while Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are maybeboarded for now, Sylvan Library is in. Boreal Druid is out. Not sure why I initially passed it up.

My son is 7 and we play every Saturday with commander decks. He likes when the decks synergize and go crazy over the top. Favorite card is Craterhoof Behemoth. He beat me the other day with Varina by sacrificing enough creatures to Phyrexian Altar to play Twilight's Call . All that to say, kids are...

I do find it weird to hear that your inability to "go easy" turned away your wife and daughter. We didn't know it at the time, but what they wanted from Magic was Commander - a longish creature battlefield centric game with a good amount of give and take. I would cast the first seven ligh...