This section is broken down into what I consider the order of importance for building a balanced Commander deck. It might seem counter-intuitive because you are focusing on the boring cards first and then the flavorful cards that likely are the reason for the deck in the first place. My reasoning for this order is that it doesn't matter how great the synergy is between your cards and what bombs you add if you can't cast spells, you fall behind in mana, or you can't stop your opponents from eliminating you from the game. Therefore, I first think you should figure out what your theme is in order to help guide your card choices, then ensure you reserve adequate deck space for your lands and utility cards, and then figure out what cards you need to make your deck do it's thing. Finally, when you're ready to make cuts because you have a stack of 150 cards, you can start looking at things like synergy and mana cost. By doing this you should end up with a rough deck that can play well enough to give you an idea of what changes you need to make.
a) Power Level of Decks
Decks can generally be broken down into four different tiers:
- Casual - These are your most basic decks of the lowest power level. Typically, they are built with whatever you have laying around, and you just threw cards in without a lot of thought. Not much attention is paid to mana curve, color balance and ratios, or having a focused plan. Often times cards will be added just because they're pet cards, even when they don't have synergy with the deck or help advance it during a game. Precons, either stock or barely modified, also fall into this category
- Focused - At this level you are starting to consider card quality, mana curve, ensuring you have the right color balance so you can cast your spells, and including utility in order to be able to interact with your opponents. Tuned theme decks are usually in this category, because you'll start with restrictions but then build the best deck within those restrictions and your budget.
- Optimized - At this level you have cut most of your pet cards, and trying to increase your win percentage drives most of your cuts and inclusions. Paying close attention to mana curve and your mana base is critical, as well as utility cards to keep you in the game. You should expect to win a fair percentage of your games against other optimized decks, and can still win games of archenemy against casual and focused decks teaming up against you.
- Competitive - A truly competitive deck will only be asking itself one question when selecting cards for a deck: will this card help me win the game more consistently? The mana curve of these decks are often extremely low, and decks often win off of a combo. Higher cmc cards need to have an immediate impact on the game in order to be considered and are usually cheated into play rather than by hardcasting.
b) Deck Design Skeleton
Most people offering advice on a deck building template will have slight variations, but that's ok because the general design is the same. Also, as you build and play more decks you'll find that every deck wants to do something different and will therefore have slight variations. Playgroups also differ and that can create meta changes as well. So take everything with a grain of salt, but if you follow this or any other design skeleton you should have a decent starting point. Please take note that because this guide is aimed towards casual and focused deckbuilding, as your deck becomes more tuned you will find that the generalizations suggested don't necessarily apply to your deck. My goal is to help build a Commander deck that gets to interact in games, achieve its goals, and win a fair share of games in similarly powered groups.
- around 38 mana producing lands - Most decks typically run anywhere from 36-38 lands, depending on the average cmc of the deck. Starting off with a new deck, you should err on the side of a higher land count so that you can consistently hit your land drops while testing the deck. It's easier to cut lands than it is to cut spells.
- around 10 ramp and/or mana-fixing cards - Prioritize cards that put lands directly into play, as well as cheap artifacts or creatures that tap for mana (artifacts are more resilient than creatures and usually tap for mana immediately).
- around 10-15 card draw effects - Assuming you make a land drop every turn and cast at least one spell a turn, you'll empty your hand in no time. Card draw keeps your hand full, helps you make your land drop every turn, and gives you options.
- around 10-15 removal/counterspells - You need to have a way to slow your opponents down or else they will probably beat you.
- around 25-40 support cards - Support cards are the meat and potatoes of your deck that achieve the goal your deck is trying to accomplish.
c) Deck Theme
Your deck theme is whatever inspired you to build the deck in the first place. Did you see a cool effect on a general and want to build a deck around that theme? Do you really like a particular card and want to turn that into a deck? Are you building a tribal deck? Every card is a certain letter? Whatever the reason is, you want to have a very clear idea of that theme. Additionally, if the theme doesn't include how you want to win the game, you should know that as well (I prefer to include multiple different ways to win the game because it doesn't make my deck feel like a one-trick pony that I get bored of after the first time it wins a game). At regular intervals during the deck building process, but most especially when you are trying to make cuts, you should ask yourself if the card in question supports your theme and how you plan on winning the game.
d) Lands
Generally speaking, don't skimp on your land count, because if you don't draw lands you can't cast your spells. Also, with a new deck you should run more lands rather than less. you can't properly test a deck if you can't cast the spells, and it's always easier to cut a land for a spell than to cut a spell for a land. I emphasized mana producing lands, because I always count cards like
Maze of Ith as a spell, not a land (not even if I also am running
Chromatic Lantern). There are some very good enter the battlefield tapped lands that you'll probably run, but do not run very many of them if you can help it. You want to avoid a tempo loss by not being able to cast a critical spell because of your land drop, and if your opening hand includes all ETBT lands you will be at a severe disadvantage. Additionally, be mindful of the number of colorless lands you play. I try to avoid playing more than five or six in a deck, and the heavier your color requirements are, the less you want to get an opening hand that has two or three colorless lands. I also try to run around one-third basic lands, upwards of one-half, depending on the rest of my deck. This is more dependent on your deck (do you run lots of basic land tutors?), and it is also meta-dependent, such as if
Ruination or
Back to Basics are cards which get played. Lastly, you'll want to run fetches if you can afford them. Deck thinning is a negligible benefit, but even a card like
Terramorphic Expanse will help ensure you get the colors you need. With fetches, you can look for additional synergies that take advantage of shuffling your library (most notably
Sensei's Divining Top or
Brainstorm effects.
e) Ramp and Mana-fixing
Bluntly put, if you only make your one land drop for turn you'll quickly be outpaced at the table by someone ramping. So you'll want to make sure you have a way to ramp as well. After all, even if you get unlucky draws and miss land drops you can effectively keep pace of "one mana drop per turn" with some ramp. There are three categories: land ramp, other ramp, and mana fixing. Land ramp like
Rampant Growth and
Cultivate are the most preferable, because lands are the safest type of permanent to play. Other ramp includes mana rocks like
Sol Ring,
Signets, and enchantments such as
Carpet of Flowers. Mana fixing includes cards such as
Land Tax and
Farseek which put lands into your hand, since they will help you get the particular land you need, but not help you play more than one land per turn. With all of these, you should strive to play the lowest cmc card possible, meaning play Signets before
Commander's Sphere, and
Rampant Growth before
Cultivate. The reason for this is that you can potentially keep a two land hand that includes Rampant Growth, but not if it contained a Cultivate. The higher the cmc of the card the less it should be considered ramp, and you'll also want to look for any synergies or overlap that make it a better card, for example running
Map the Wastes in a deck that cares about creatures having +1/+1 counters.
f) Card Draw vs. Tutors
In Commander you are playing against multiple opponents, and the ones who make the best use of their mana by casting spells are the ones who usually win. So without a way to draw cards, you should quickly run out of cards and be in top-deck mode. If you're not, that means you're not casting spells or you're missing land drops. So you'll want to include ways to draw additional cards. Many spells have been printed with cantrips attached (such as
Dismiss), so even when you cast a spell you're not down a card. There are a number of playable draw spells in every color, so you shouldn't have a difficult time adding some card draw to your deck. Scry effects are also good additions, since they can filter potentially bad draws. I don't like to count them as a full draw, but they are excellent additions, particularly the Theros block
Temple lands.
Tutors are even better than card draw, for the obvious reason that they will get you a specific card that you need, rather than requiring a lucky draw. The downside to tutors is that they usually are more specialized in what they can search for, they can draw undue attention to you during the game, and they also increase the overall power of your deck. So if you are trying to make your deck less powerful without actually watering it down, consider replacing your tutors with card draw.
g) Removal and Disruption
If you don't have a way to meaningfully interact with your opponents then you will be at the mercy of them and the game will just be a race to see who can play their cards first (hint: it's probably the player who runs ramp and card draw). There are considerations when selecting your removal:
- Spot removal - Your one-for-one removal. Think Doom Blade or Counterspell. These are controversial card choices because in a multiplayer game if I cast a spell and you respond with a Counterspell then we are both down one card and the two other players have lost nothing. So effectively you are now down three cards. However, spot removal (especially instant speed removal) has some things going for it. Most importantly, it's usually cheap so you can do what you want during your turn while still holding up a small amount of mana for reacting to your opponents. Secondly, card quality has improved and spot removal can often times have incidental value attached, such as Disallow or Deathsprout.
- Sweepers - These spells usually cost more than spot removal, but can hit more than one card at once. Doing this all at instant speed costs even more on top (Rout is a perfect example). But in a multiplayer game sweepers have much more value and card advantage than spot removal, which is why they are advocated more often.
- Variety - Threats come in all shapes and sizes. Don't focus solely on creature removal, because there are many threatening artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and even lands in Commander. Threats can also come from graveyards or hands, so removing cards from those zones will preemptively keep a threat away or keep it from coming back. If you have access to broad removal spells such as Vindicate then the extra mana investment is often worth it, since one flexible card can be worth two narrow cards.
h) Support Cards
Support cards are ones which directly support your overall goal of achieving whatever it is you want your deck to do (as opposed to the cards previously mentioned which help your deck to function or slow down opponents). There are two types of support cards: active support cards and passive support cards.
Active support cards are cards which do whatever it is they're supposed to do without needing other cards in play. For example, if you were building a
Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck and your goal was to make people draw a lot of cards and deal them damage for doing that, then a card like
Fate Unraveler or
Psychosis Crawler would be an active card, because even without assistance from other cards it will still deal damage to your opponents.
On the other hand, passive support cards do something, but they do something even better with assistance from other cards. Continuing with our Nekusar deck,
Wheel of Fortune and
Windfall are very strong cards and usually considerations in any deck that can run them, but when your general and/or the two active support cards mentioned are in play then these cards also deal damage to your opponents while refilling your hand.
i) Synergy and Overlap
Synergy between cards is the concept that two individual cards which do each do something can have a stronger effect when used in conjunction. Take
fetchlands, for example. These are very good lands which act as a tutor to help smooth out your mana by getting whatever color mana you need right at that moment. Running these will greatly improve your deck's consistency over just playing basic lands or even the dual lands that you could search for. Now, look at
Sensei's Diving Top. On its own, it can help set up your next draw by rearranging the top three cards of your library. But after you do this once, you only get to effectively see one extra card. But when you use a fetchland and shuffle your library, you now get to see three fresh cards, making Top even more useful. If you then add
Crucible of Worlds to the mix, you can not only continue to replay fetchlands from your graveyard and get the mana smoothing benefit, but you also get to see a much higher number of cards from Top than you would with just the fetchlands you drew naturally. Whenever you are evaluating a card or building a deck, you should be constantly asking yourself what the theme of the deck is and if a particular card synergizes with that theme. If you have a deck that wants to make +1/+1 counters, you should prioritize cards that use or manipulate counters, for example.
Overlap is including redundant effects to increase the chances of drawing one of them. Running
Swords to Plowshares and
Path to Exile, or
Cultivate and
Kodama's Reach, for example. Tutors can loosely qualify as overlap as well, because in a pinch you can use a
Demonic Tutor to search for a
Naturalize.
j) Mana Curve
The mana curve is a deckbuilding fundamental which can make the difference between winning and losing the game in competitive Magic. In casual formats this isn't as much of a concern, but you should still strive to adhere to this principle. The idea of a mana curve is that your deck is built such that if you make your land drop each turn you have something to cast using all your mana. To do this, you prioritize lower cmc cards and not higher cmc ones. When you lay out your cards in piles by cmc, they should generally form the shape of a bell curve.
Looking at the sample above, when you draw your opening hand you should mostly be drawing lower cmc cards and maybe one or two cards with 5+ cmc. Therefore, in the first few turns of the game you are keeping pace with the rest of the table and not just playing a land and passing the turn.
When evaluating your mana curve, you should not simply look to see that you have a rough bell curve, you should also look at the average cmc of the deck. Many deck sites will calculate this information for you, but you can do it as well by adding up the cmc of all nonland cards in the deck and dividing by the total number of cards you added together. A good rule of thumb is that the faster your deck wants to be the lower your average cmc should be (below 3). Even with slower decks, you'll want to stay at or below 3.5, and definitely below 4.