making multiple monocolor decks

[folding_music]

How many single color decks in a repeat color do you think you could keep together without them getting too similar? for your personal taste in power level, customization, budget, types of strategy, and such?

I've been trying to use more of the idle cards in my collection and decided I'd build a big roster of one color decks, using mostly basic lands or utility lands which truly resonate with the commander instead of being good stuff - Cabal Coffers and Deserted Temple go into Demonlord Belzenlok, who guzzles mana, even though another black deck (Haakon? Sivriss? picking from cards I already have in my collection) might enjoy its presence too. so no proxies, no repeats apart from Sol Ring (if a card fits really strongly into two decks it might indicate that those two decks are too close together in strategy? or that I'm including too many high powered utility spells, or that I have a type, which is unavoidable I guess)

thinking right now about my blue options:
Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea - high devotion, theft/evasion auras and big attacks, any countermagic geared towards countering board wipes? (I'm not above running Envelop, my decks are probably 3-6 power level out of ten most of the time)
Goldberry, River-Daughter - trinkets, arcbound boys, proliferation (sounds low power without access to white for Dance of the Manse and/or various mass resurrection spells but that's fine. also trying to limit myself to one deck in each colour which floods the board with tokens and counters, this is the one)
Alora, Merry Thief + Candlekeep Sage - low CMC saboteurs, throw in Cloak and Dagger and some boots and skimping on other permanents, some silly Plagiarize moments and as many ways to confound people winning just by sitting back and tutoring for stuff as I can find in the boxes. also recurring guys like Barrin, Tolarian Archmage and Venser, Shaper Savant sounds great/annoying, and I see those two and throw in Gadwick, the Wizened more or less automatically
Emry, Lurker of the Loch - more trinkets but this time letting them enter and leave play instead of covering them all with charge counters. wanted a more powerful leader for one of my decks and this is she. also having this deck and Goldberry makes me assess cards better, like... Ratchet Bomb goes in this one, not in Goldberry. lol

next:
I have a Zellix, Sanity Flayer and think he rules but none of the blue backgrounds really suit him unless I'm overlooking something. Zellix, Sanity Flayer + Faceless One might be a fun way of using some hybrid cards without having to care about dual lands etc. also I have 1x Thassa's Oracle, 1x WAR Jace and could only justify running them if they were in a mill deck. From playing Korlessa I know that just running the oracle as if it was Index makes you the archenemy even if you can't get any type of combo win out of it =P should may as well try and let the card be powerful
Charix, the Raging Isle seems so great but I'm worried the deck might just be a stack of instants?
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor - blue has enough morph/disguise/manifest to derive a little fun and it'd certainly be a gimmick that'd prevent the deck feeling like any of the others
was building Uyo, Silent Prophet intending to play and fork a single powerful spell each turn, but a lot of those powerful spells are either board wipes or theft spells which a) makes the deck fairly modal and b) all the theft makes it feel too reminiscent of the Callaphe deck, even if I'm using nonpermanent spells this time. I still like Uyo and think there's potential to make a fun splashy deck but not with the cards I have. also getting the lifted lands back into play is seriously hard if you don't draw Patron of the Moon and that's hard to search for

that's just me, though. anyone else doing this type of thing?

[pokken]

I don't ever maintain more than one mono color of each color. Just too samey for me, even if the gameplan is different. I'll make whatever two color decks as much as I feel though, they can be quite distinct

[darrenhabib]

I make VERY Commander centric decks, so it will depend on what the Commander does, but in general I will be making them because I get to make a unique 99.

But in general I find Green to have the most commonly shared cards and themes between decks.

[yeti1069]

was building Uyo, Silent Prophet intending to play and fork a single powerful spell each turn, but a lot of those powerful spells are either board wipes or theft spells which a) makes the deck fairly modal and b) all the theft makes it feel too reminiscent of the Callaphe deck, even if I'm using nonpermanent spells this time. I still like Uyo and think there's potential to make a fun splashy deck but not with the cards I have. also getting the lifted lands back into play is seriously hard if you don't draw Patron of the Moon and that's hard to search for

I built an Uyo deck a while back designed to cast Eternal Dominion then copy it while it's on the stack a few times (if you copy the epic spell when it's cast, you will get those additional copies each upkeep, while copying the ones you get in the upkeep will not generate more). I set it up using on-board interaction (wizards, mostly), that could bounce creatures/permanents, copy spells, counter spells, steal stuff, etc... A couple staxy pieces to slow people down a bit, some tutors for Eternal Dominion, and some ways to cast it more cheaply/ramp into it (Omnispell Adept or High Tide. It was silly, but did its thing, which depended very heavily on what others were playing.

[Ruiner]

I have quite a few monoblack decks that all feel rather different from each other:

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief - First commander deck I ever made, still together. It's a mix of big mana, voltron, and some other random cards.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Infect and a bit of Aristocrats

Kiku, Night's Flower - It's an assassin/rogue/sneaky things deck. It's not a great deck, full of cards just for theme.

Braids, Arisen Nightmare - Very low to the ground, generally goes for a win with Pox type effects if possible.

Phage the Untouchable - Similar to Drana in the big mana aspect, but it plays dramatically differently using a lot of weird cards.

I've also got two mono white, two mono red, and two mono blue decks. Only one mono green deck, that I rarely use (I just don't get drawn to many legends that are mono green). Totally open to adding more of any of those if the feeling strikes me.

I have no problem with having multiple decks in the same color Identity, whether mono or multicolor, as long as they end up feeling different.

[PrimevalCommander]

I don't think I could have more than 2 mono-color decks in the same color. Even 2 is a stretch because I don't play enough magic to get enough enjoyment out of 2 decks in the same color identity. And I like multi-color too much to have any mono decks in the same color. Right now I have almost the complete suite of mono colors, Green, Red, White, Blue, and even my blue deck is getting stale. I'm more likely to have 2 Naya decks than I am to have 2 green decks since I get more colors to diversify the deck and get different strategies. Though to be fair there are legends in single color that offer very different themes, so no mistake there.

[NZB2323]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I've never made a mono colored deck in commander.

[materpillar]

I used to have Jaya Ballard, Task Mage and Lovisa Coldeyes decks that were completely different. Off the top of my head I could have easily had goblins and artifacts decks with minimal overlap.