Achieving next level deckbuilding

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Ertai Planeswalker
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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 3 years ago

Recently I find myself having more and more trouble building new decks. I know about the standard deckbuilding templates from the command zone and the 8 x 8 theory and while they have helped me a lot in the past they are becoming insufficient. After giving this some thought I realized i'm experiencing 2 major problems:

1: I have lost my feeling for ratio's.
2: My decks don't hum anymore, they don't function as more than the sum of their parts.

To adress point 1 first, it feels more and more like 100 cards just isn't enough room. I'm used to running 38 lands, 10 ramp spells, 8 card draw spells, 8 removal spells (of which at least 4 instant speed), 4 boardwipes and 8 resilience cards. Resilience cards are cards that help my deck function despite my opponents interacting with me so this is usually a combination of cards that give hexproof (Lightning Greaves, recur stuff (Sun Titan) or stuff like (Heroic Intervention). The problem is, that's already 76/99 cards. To try and adress this I started to theme these categories out. So for example in a token deck Knight-Captain of Eos counts as resilience and Martial Coup as a boardwipe etc. That helps somewhat, but it turns the whole more into a deckbuilding matrix instead of a template as cards are measured on two axis'.

Point 2 is harder to pin down. A friend in my group builds his decks really well. He's running about the same power level cards as I do, often my deck will even be a little more expensive than his. But nevertheless, he always seems to be able to draw more cards, recur more stuff etc. While one or two well timed boardwipes usually mean i'm dead in the water even though i try to play around that.

Does anyone here recognize these problems? Or maybe found a way to solve them? I hope you guys can give me some advice because I really want to build a Heliod, Sun-Crowned lifegain deck (without infinites) but at this rate it's not going anywhere soon.

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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 3 years ago

I haven't the faintest idea what this 8x8 ratio is, and I don't use any preset ratios like that so I don't have much input on it.
Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
3 years ago
Point 2 is harder to pin down. A friend in my group builds his decks really well. He's running about the same power level cards as I do, often my deck will even be a little more expensive than his. But nevertheless, he always seems to be able to draw more cards, recur more stuff etc. While one or two well timed boardwipes usually mean i'm dead in the water even though i try to play around that.
Without knowing anything about your or his decks my kneejerk response was that he probably has a lower curve than you do. If his spells cost less mana on average, he'll be able to cast more of them and thus his deck will do more stuff. Obviously, games of magic are way more complicated than that 1 sentence paraphrase but it might be something for you to investigate.

Also, your "resilience" cards are obviously not doing their job if your deck folds to a Wrath of God or two.

Have you considered asking your friend for his deckbuilding advice? He might have insights into your deck's weaknesses that you're not aware of.

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Point 1) Try building mono color or dual color decks. In a lot of cases it helps trim down the number of staple cards you are looking at. I like to start with the commander or strategy I am looking for and then looking for cards with synergy for that and then filling with staples at the end then trimming back to 100. I often overbuild a deck up to 130+ cards and then when I feel like I have everything I can find I slowly trim it back to 100 cards. It helps from the standpoint that at that point I can see how man expensive drops I am looking at, how many wraths, what draw, etc I have in the list. Even if you don't try to build with less colors this might help going with this deckbuilding strategy. Start out by adding literally anything you think would be helpful and then start slowly cutting the least useful / needed cards in the list.

Point 2) Having a template is always going to be a rough starting point. For instance, if you run a bunch of cheap 1 mana creatures in a list then the type of ramp you use if you are still ramping is going to be vastly different. I think a better starting point comes with a starting concept and then asking yourself what kind of ramp / draw works with it. I have plenty of decks that have more or less draw based on their strategy. Lowering your curve and bringing up the amount of draw you have in the list often is a good way to see an improvement but its also a very generic thing to say.

Heliod, Sun-Crowned - I pride myself as a mono white mage. I have built at least 15-20 mono white decks and I often have at least 3-5 of them often being half of what I have ready to play on hand. Let me tell you right now that that commander has options to go infinite but its always going to have a weakness that it doesn't draw as well and wraths will be its weakness when you are not going infinite with Walking Ballista / Triskelion. In a nutshell, the cards that have positive synergy build with Heliod tend to be cards that play really poorly into wraths. Its possible that changes in the future but its unlikely. Lots of the cards you will want will have low immediate board presence and force you to go wide on your board which is a strategy that is weak against sweepers. It is still doable, I am just stating that if your fear is having enough card draw and or being weak to wraths it isn't going to be the commander that helps you overcome those issues.
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Post by WizardMN » 3 years ago

As a disclaimer, I have never heard of the 8x8 theory or used any deckbuilding templates so my experiences are likely different than yours.

But, no, I haven't really seen the issues you are describing but I also don't go about building decks the way you are describing. At least, I am not cognizant of it. I generally kind of go the opposite I think of you are talking about.

My Xenagos deck might be a good example. And it is likely a good example because RG is typically the color combination I run the least of in EDH so when I built the deck I wasn't really coming from a place of Red/Green decks being built a certain way. Which allowed me a lot of freedom in how I built it. Instead of starting with templates or the 8x8 theory you mentioned, I just started with "I want to do big things" and then included cards that did that. Genesis Wave, Craterhoof, Nyxbloom Ancient, etc. And then worked out ways to make that strat work.

I still included the necessary support, like ramp and card draw, but I didn't really start there and then try to find what else I could fit. I just built the deck I wanted and then cut what was extra.

And the point of saying that is that I am not trying to fit my deck into a certain mold. I just sort of go with what seems right and then tweak from there. Tweaking decks is probably the most fun for me. I just come up with the base list, play some games, make some changes, play some games, make some changes, and so on.

I won't say I have never given up on decks before though. I have tried Wall Tribal with Arcades, Xyris, Chulane, Yarok, etc. But, I generally give up on a deck because they are boring. A lot of them could be made to work but if I get to a certain point in building where I lose interest before even getting to the tweaking.

I do find commanders like Heliod, that don't have a good built around (like you said, you wanted to avoid infinites), are tougher to really come up with a way to make fun because they don't lean one way or the other so you need to try to do something yourself. My Queen Marchesa deck is probably like that. She doesn't really lean into a certain theme so I just went with Aristocrats because I like the style and it worked out.

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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

Following a model / template is fine when you're first designing a deck, but it is very rare for a deck's actual needs to correspond exactly to any template. If you find yourself flooding out, run more card draw and mana sinks. If you find yourself not having enough mana, run more ramp or lower your curve. And if you find yourself not actually doing enough stuff, cut card draw and ramp to add action.

Without knowing the specifics of your deck, the thing I would recommend most would be testing - you're not going to get a representative sample (and fully modelling everything is impossible), but playing a few games and noting how things feel should be enough to at least point you in the right direction.

I'll also call out that some decks are going to naturally run smoother than other decks - mono-white naturally has less access to less card advantage and ramp than other decks, so getting things to run properly is likely to be significantly more difficult than running most Simic decks.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I'd say you're at the point where all that ratio nonsense reveals itself to be what it is: a crutch.

Chuck all the stuff and ask yourself what you want the deck to do.

I am going to talk primarily about white cards since you're talking about building Heliod, and it's also my best color in EDH.

One "secret" to deckbuilding I think is finding cards that fill multiple roles. Think about Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - it's a pseudo-sweeper, it's a wincondition, and it shuts off many combos (by not allowing the creatures that do them to survive).

Then think about a card like Wrath of God - this does one thing, kills creatures. Cut it for Hour of Revelation, instant flexibility upgrade.

The next level is thinking of different ways to achieve what you need to achieve - is destroying everything what your deck really wants to do? Maybe what your deck fears is alpha strikes, so you can play cards like Selfless Squire or Angel of the Dire Hour or Comeuppance.

Is it just big creatures? Elspeth, Sun's Champion brings a board wipe with tokens and a wincondition on it.



I'll also talk about ramp and fixing because it's near and dear to my heart and something I think people let constrain them too much. In a mono white deck, for instance, people rush to jam 8 mana rocks in there and call it a day. Let's talk about what - for instance - a Fellwar Stone actually does for you in Heliod, Sun-Crowned.

Essentially Nothing. (unless you are really overloaded with 5 CMC spells you want to curve Heliod into).

It doesn't get you to casting Heliod earlier. It doesn't fix your mana. If you draw it instead of a land, it doesn't pay off until turn 5 (you spend 2 mana on turn 2, then gain +1 on 3 4 and 5) and you're still behind where you'd be if you just hit your land drop on turn 4 instead.

Another thing to think about is whether you're playing the right number of lands. I would tend to start with closer to 35 and then move up a couple if you don't have enough ways to find lands or draw cards.

In a mono white deck one of the strengths it brings is being able to guarantee land drops. So you can usually get away with 34-36 if you're playing stuff like:
It's also extremely likely you will be playing equipment in Heliod, since cards like Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of War and Peace are so good with him, so toss a Sword of Feast and Famine or Sword of the Animist in your ramp package.

Another thing is Heliod is a deck that rates to be pretty board wipe heavy, because he's indestructible, so think about things like Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale that might survive various sweepers.

Also think about Hour of Revelation and Akroma's Vengeance and Austere Command as anti-ramp spells.



When I start building a deck I usually start with the synergy pile - what are all the things I want to play that interact with the commander, the theme, and each other? That pile is usually ~30-40 cards at first and winnows itself down to ~20-30 depending on the deck. Then I look at the curve and function/types of that stuff that I really want to play and that tells me what I need to do with the rest of the deck.

For you, the things that jump out at me that I would just stop assuming on:

1) 10 ramp spells - yuck! Maybe 10 ramp + fixing. The rest of your ramp should come from cards that align with your gameplan. Sometimes ramp *is* most of your gameplan in which case load up. Don't feel constrained to any number.

2) 8 removal spells? That is quite a lot to have by default; I usually start with a handful of universal removal spells and then add more that synergize or if I think the gameplan requires it.

3) On the flipside, 8 card draw effects feels low to me. I usually like to see a lot more if your commander isn't drawing cards. But they're usually synergistic with the general somehow. I'd expect to see your synergy pile have a ton of things like Dawn of Hope and Skullclamp that work with your strategy, and probably a lot of ways to turn lifegain into virtual cards (e.g. by making tokens with stuff like Resplendent Angel.)

4) 8 "resilience" cards feels like a pointless addition, cut these and play synergy cards in their place. Treat these like either removal or card draw, that's inevitably what they are replacing. But don't force it.

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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

I have a different approach - I start with the idea that about 50% of my deck should be dedicated to "keeping the engine running"

- At least 10 draw-smoothing/hand-refilling spells (so recursion, esp. recursion to hand, counts here)
- At least 10 ramp spells
- At least 10 "interaction" cards, at least 3 of which should be boardwipes of some sort.

As I am selecting the cards for this, I adjust as needed and monitor based on the needs of my commander too. As much as is possible, I try to find synergy. But I build that half of the deck - the "engine" - first before adding win-cons, fun stuff, or strict "synergy cards".

For instance, I'm currently starting work on Arcades, the Strategist for my wife, so let's take a tour of the process for that deck.

RAMP: My commander is 4 CMC, three colors, and my deck folds like a cheap suit without him. We want him on the battlefield as quickly as possible to ensure we can start our draw engine or start pressuring slow opponents. This means I will be eschewing ramp that costs 4+; we want to be jamming the commander, not casting Circuitous Route on turn 3 or 4. Are there any cards that synergize with Arcades (i.e. are defenders and/or have big butts) and also ramp our mana? Yes, of course - I will definitely be running Vine Trellis, Overgrown Battlement. Sunscape Familiar, Axebane Guardian, and Wall of Roots (and would run Sylvan Caryatid if budget wasn't an issue). That's five cards, all CMC 3 or less, that can ramp me into an early Arcades AND also cantrip or attack well if I already have him, making them good at all stages of the game. To supplement these, I will be adding Birds of Paradise and Search for Tomorrow as ways to fix and ramp on turn one, and then good ol' Farseek as some awesome turn two fixing. Cultivate and Chromatic Lantern will round out my core ramp to ensure I can hit my colors. That's 10, but as mentioned Arcades is necessary to live (meaning I may need to pay 12 to replay him in the endgame to win). He's also good at "chaining off" thanks to turning every creature into a cantrip, so having some explosive mid and late-game mana engines is nice. For those reasons, I also want to add Kiora's Follower as a pseudo-ramp card that combos with Guardian and Battlement, and Mirari's Wake as a big doubling effect. That's 12 cards, but I may skimp a bit in my "draw" since Arcades provides so much draw himself.

DRAW: Arcades sort of is draw, turning all defenders into cantrips as soon as he's on the table, so I need less draw. We still want to make sure we can develop a strong defensive board that can pivot into an offensive board early (and mid-game, after we are blown out by a boardwipe). For that reason, we'll start with Wall of Omens, Wall of Blossoms, Jungle Barrier, and Carven Caryatid - these are cantrip creatures but "draw two" with Arcades out to help us really dig. Wall of Mulch and Portcullis Vine serve a different purpose, letting us cash in walls for cards later as more draw engine. Mentor of the Meek is another great draw engine, as almost every creature we play ought to trigger it. That's seven cards - I would be okay being under 10, but do want to make sure we add at least one "burst draw" effect (probably Fact or Fiction but I haven't ruled out Treasure Cruise, Compulsive Research, Ancestral Vision, Stroke of Genius, or even some vanilla effect like Harmonize); a card that can let us reload if we're blown out by wipe after wipe. Notably, we don't want Distant Melody or Shamanic Revelation. We're already good at turning creatures played into cards. What we want draw that can let us reload if we are in danger. I'd also love some cheap hand-smoother effects and am sort of digging Preordain and Ponder as ways to smooth out an awkward opener and dig deep late-game for the right answers. I'll be seeing if I still have spare Rhystic Study as that's also in contention; either way that's 9 or 10 draw cards. I also want Gatecreeper Vine and its sort of awkwardly between being a ramp and a fixing spell.

REMOVAL: In a way, walls are sort of removal too - having a big ol' Wall of Denial "removes" a 7/X from the equation of whether or not they can kill you. Because we're going to be tapping out regularly, we want removal that is extremely efficient in terms of CMC to help snipe utility dorks that our walls can't stop. So we obviously want Swords to Plowshares and/or Path to Exile and/or Rapid Hybridization. I think I only have two of those three to spare, but that's a start. I also love the idea of Aura Shards to double down on our "spam cheap walls" plan. Generous Gift and Beast Within are a bit expensive at 3 CMC, but answers any permanent and a 3/3 Elephant is irrelephant to us. For boardwipes, Wrath of God is the gold standard, but after that I want to get tricky with Wave of Reckoning, Dusk // Dawn, Meekstone, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion all of which can make life very hard while being asymmetrical for us. I'd probably run Cyclonic Rift over one of those if all my copies weren't currently in use elsewhere. That's 10, and again I feel no need to go higher due to how my deck tends to work, but I will be counting Soulsworn Jury as a "removal" card as well since we can use it as a Remove Soul in a pinch. Note this is my most flexible spot and depending on availability and how my mana color ratios shake out, I'll try other stuff - Devastation Tide, Return to Nature, Reality Shift, Bant Charm, Counterspell, Slaughter the Strong are all on my radar as are any number of other spells. It's more a feel and ratio thing. I really want two very cheap (like 1 or 2 CMC) pinpoint kill spells for creatures, I really want two or three more 2-3 CMC instants that can hit a broad range of card types, and I really want five boardwipes - one 4 CMC, and four that are asymmetrical in some way even if it's just that I don't mind Evacuationing my cards into my hand. Only Aura Shards is set in stone.

That'll shake out to roughly 34 cards. Add in 37 lands and a commander, and I have room for 28 more things which doesn't feel like a lot to exploit Defenders tribal...but, I already have 13 defenders in my deck so I have a great start. As I select the rest, I can keep my core in mind and follow a few more rules and guidelines:

- I only have 14 or 15 "proactive" cards that are playable on turn 1 or 2. I like my decks to hum a bit better and have at least 20 such cards; probably closer to 25 if my commander itself is more than 3 CMC. So, I will need to make sure to emphasize defenders of one or two CMC, or other proactive supporting cards.

- So far my deck badly wants to emphasize green and de-emphasize white early on, so I should be mindful of including too many 1-CMC White cards that may end up awkward for my manabase especially as I know most if not all my fetches + shocks are in use (i.e. I should be favoring Wall of Tanglecord and Wall of Runes and Riptide Turtle over Angelic Wall and Resolute Watchdog).

The thing is (as the long post posted while I was writing says), there's no one size fits all. You have to slow down and think about the gameplan of any given Commander, using ratios as a guideline and not a straightjacket.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

I've been there before, and probably will be again. It's a tough thing to manage, especially when there's no obvious build path for your given commander.

Generally, I prefer not to follow any theories like 8x8 or whatever, they're just too vague to apply to specific builds and optimising. What I like to do is start with a wider approach to building and hone down. Let's look at my Bruna deck as a thought experiment:
  • Bruna has angel and human tribal synergy, and a reanimation trigger that can't be easily stopped. It therefore stands to reason that leaning into reanimating these two tribes would be of benefit.
  • This means that I'm going to need to be careful with my curve; angels are expensive and I'm in mono white.
  • I will need to include whatever I can to make sure I hit land drops and [card=Tome of Legends]what draw I can get.
  • I can help shape my curve by playing low cost humans - this will give me early board presence, and potentially a way to control the way the game shapes out, as a lot of humans are also hate bears.
  • Given that we're looking at a primarily creature based strategy in mono white, our primary win condition will likely be combat. Let's make that as impactful as we can. Equipment make sense, so we can add these to make combat happen quicker and give our team some protection, as well as ham up attack and combat damage triggers.
  • Given that we're combat based, our creatures will potentially face destruction, and in fact it's commonly known that wipes are a strength in white. Let's make sure our board is always favourable.
  • With all of these wipes (which we were always going to add, let's be honest) we could look at options for bouncing back from destruction and wipes more quickly. The fact that a lot of these are either passive or ETB triggers means we can abuse them with persistence or with reanimation chains to help make a board state quickly, and This makes us really, really hard to kill.
Those are the main issues I built with for this deck, and it pertains to any future considerations too. You'll notice that some of these considerations layer a bit too - the hatebears can carry equipment early for Mask of Memory triggers or Sword of the Animist triggers, and if I'm lucky enough to have Emeria Shepherd in play I can get things like Fabled Passage or Mind Stone back, or even better Solemn Simulacrum to get a second landfall trigger. A lot of our angels have combat keywords, as that's our favoured win condition. The lifegain helps keep Serra Ascendant relevant, and all of them grow our team with Archangel of Thune. That more or less comprises the frame of the deck, and from there you can sort of add what needs to be added to cater to your meta.

I guess ultimately it comes down to making sure your inclusions are relevant to your overarching intentions, but also making them work together to achieve layers of easy synergy. All that being said, it's easy to go too far down the rabbit hole here, so it's important to keep in mind the main tenets of your build and keeping them as your primary goals. It's easy to get distracted by second level synergies that don't really help your main goals, I've done that a lot with Nissa.

So the above thought experiment is kind of a running thing, too - other players can help you with this, where sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees yourself. My Bruna thread is officially a primer, but it's far from a place where I tell people what to add. I use it as a think tank, and that has made it a really invaluable resource purely for keeping focus on the build and what it should do. I guess what I'm saying is if you think a second set of eyes would help by all means post your list. You have the greatest minds in EDH available at your fingertips in places here on Nexus, and they're usually very happy to help.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Phew..what they said..lol.

This 8X8 is going to trip you up when it comes to truly making your deck a well tuned machine.

Defining what your deck major goals are and then building around those concept is really what you want to be doing.
Synergy X Synergy is more how I focus on deck building. That is you want your deck to be a matrix of synergy.
Does Card A have synergy with Card B?
Does Card A have synergy with Card C?
Does Card B have synergy with Card C?
Now it doesn't have to be that all the spells in your deck have to synergies with every other spell in your deck, but the closer and closer you get to this, the more your deck will consistently work together as a whole.

I often play with my friends decks and there are cases when I can tell the deck lacks function. If you look at the cards individually, they are all good and powerful cards. But casting one "strong" card a turn doesn't actually win games. You need to be casting multiple spells a turn, where the first one makes the second one better, and conversely hopefully a third spell in your turn make the first spell and second spell more effective.
So the sum of the 3 spells add up to more than their individual parts.

An example of poor deck building might be that your deck has lots of permanents and looks to go wide, but you are running your 4 boardwipes. So drawing even one of these in a game where the rest of your deck has functioned well by committing lots of permanents (becuase your deck is designed that way) means that its a dead draw. Then any more of those that you draw puts you into an even worse position.
Don't just play boardwipes because you are used to doing that. If your deck commits a lot of permanents to the board then look elsewhere for disruption.
That might be that Heliod's Intervention is one of your few "sweepers". But only if your deck can generate enough mana and/or take a turn off.

Obviously this is a complicated topic, we are talking about sciences that couldn't be replicated with Artificial Intelligence algorithms for decades to come (imo) so we are not going to be able to touch on even a fraction of what goes into a process of good deck building in a single thread.

However you have specifically said that you want to make a Heliod, Sun-Crowned with a life gain theme. Great!
Now you want to define what exactly the goal of gaining life achieves? Gaining life itself is one of the least powerful goals in commander without a specific way to use/abuse that life gain.
Often a goal might be to use that life to draw cards, like Necropotence. But in mono-white you do not have access to a card like that.

I actually theory-crafted a Heliod, Sun-Crowned life-gain deck back when it was spoiled.
Now I never actually made the deck, it remains pure theory-crafting. I want you to check it out, not for the content of the cards itself, but the fact that I have physically written down the concepts and goals of the deck.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=22554&p=54685#p54685
One of the main reasons I post relatively detailed threads on decks, is that I find writing down the ideas extremely useful. It guides me in a direction and it forces me to justify inclusions after that.
You should be able to mentally conceptualize (or write down) major goals for your deck without actually selecting a single card for the deck itself.
Then this will steer most of your deck. Once this is done I'll find slots for ramp, draw, disruption, etc that mold around the original goals of the deck.
My Heliod is a good example where I've determined that I want to commit to the board early and go wide as possible. So running boardwipes are specifically going against the game plan. In this regard targeted removal is the only choice, and use hate-bears to negate many cards opponents might have as well.
Anyway check out my thread here and remember I'm not saying "this is the deck you should build", I want you to focus on the fact that a deck should tell a story of what its trying to do, and then ALL the cards in that deck what to be part of that story. Hopefully by reading through the few paragraphs you'll see that its concept driven first, and then the cards I selected are because of my goals.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
3 years ago
4 boardwipes
Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
At least 10 "interaction" cards, at least 3 of which should be boardwipes of some sort.
(Please don't feel like I'm calling you out as I know you almost surely meant it more nuanced than this :)

The sweeper mantra is something that is the most misunderstood idea in commander deckbuilding. I realize you're probably not intending it as "play 3 copies of wrath of god" but people seem to have interpreted the general advice to play sweepers like that.

A pretty significant portion of the time (as @darrenhabib says) a sweeper is going to be a dead card because you're ahead, or it will hurt you more than others.

Creature sweepers in general are *much* worse than they used to be. More and more decks are heavy on enchantments and artifacts for their card advantage pieces, and more and more decks are running anti-sweeper blowout cards like Teferi's Protection and Eerie Interlude and Heroic Intervention.

(On this front, I have almost given up casting a sweeper without counterspell backup in Ephara, God of the Polis - I often will not be able to recover if someone TP's or whatever and then alpha strikes me)

I am looking more and more to stall and tempo people out or go over them rather than sweep the board up and grind out victories - leaning hard on sweepers like Blasphemous Act and Hour of Revelation that are going to be so absurdly tempo positive that I can drop something right after and be significantly ahead. Or even on combat tricky cards like Comeuppance or Reins of Power.

Don't get me wrong I still play traditional sweepers, just a lot less and never automatically.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
3 years ago
4 boardwipes
Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
At least 10 "interaction" cards, at least 3 of which should be boardwipes of some sort.
(Please don't feel like I'm calling you out as I know you almost surely meant it more nuanced than this :)

The sweeper mantra is something that is the most misunderstood idea in commander deckbuilding. I realize you're probably not intending it as "play 3 copies of wrath of god" but people seem to have interpreted the general advice to play sweepers like that.

A pretty significant portion of the time (as @darrenhabib says) a sweeper is going to be a dead card because you're ahead, or it will hurt you more than others.

Creature sweepers in general are *much* worse than they used to be. More and more decks are heavy on enchantments and artifacts for their card advantage pieces, and more and more decks are running anti-sweeper blowout cards like Teferi's Protection and Eerie Interlude and Heroic Intervention.

(On this front, I have almost given up casting a sweeper without counterspell backup in Ephara, God of the Polis - I often will not be able to recover if someone TP's or whatever and then alpha strikes me)

I am looking more and more to stall and tempo people out or go over them rather than sweep the board up and grind out victories - leaning hard on sweepers like Blasphemous Act and Hour of Revelation that are going to be so absurdly tempo positive that I can drop something right after and be significantly ahead. Or even on combat tricky cards like Comeuppance or Reins of Power.

Don't get me wrong I still play traditional sweepers, just a lot less and never automatically.
To add to this, I personally find it depends on the deck. The one I've used above for example can bounce back really quite well, so I don't mind going 'scorched earth' and just flattening the board if the case fits. That being said, I've found spot removal to be just as valuable, if not more so than wipes in a lot of cases. In the above deck I use all of Return to Dust, True Love's Kiss, Crush Contraband, Swords to Plowshares, Unexpectedly Absent and Generous Gift. All of them are low to the ground, instant speed and either deal with a problem with permanence or can hit anything. There's a good reason I run more spot removal than wipes; they're very rarely dead cards.

I'd also like to mention that often a wipe is like using a sledgehammer to kill ants. You're way overdoing it. Spot removal can very often take someone's plan apart either completely, or long enough to steal the game. You just need to find the right piece to remove and take it out surgically rather than along with everything else in play.
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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
3 years ago
4 boardwipes
Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
At least 10 "interaction" cards, at least 3 of which should be boardwipes of some sort.
(Please don't feel like I'm calling you out as I know you almost surely meant it more nuanced than this :)

The sweeper mantra is something that is the most misunderstood idea in commander deckbuilding. I realize you're probably not intending it as "play 3 copies of wrath of god" but people seem to have interpreted the general advice to play sweepers like that.

A pretty significant portion of the time (as @darrenhabib says) a sweeper is going to be a dead card because you're ahead, or it will hurt you more than others.

Creature sweepers in general are *much* worse than they used to be. More and more decks are heavy on enchantments and artifacts for their card advantage pieces, and more and more decks are running anti-sweeper blowout cards like Teferi's Protection and Eerie Interlude and Heroic Intervention.

(On this front, I have almost given up casting a sweeper without counterspell backup in Ephara, God of the Polis - I often will not be able to recover if someone TP's or whatever and then alpha strikes me)

I am looking more and more to stall and tempo people out or go over them rather than sweep the board up and grind out victories - leaning hard on sweepers like Blasphemous Act and Hour of Revelation that are going to be so absurdly tempo positive that I can drop something right after and be significantly ahead. Or even on combat tricky cards like Comeuppance or Reins of Power.

Don't get me wrong I still play traditional sweepers, just a lot less and never automatically.
This is a good point, and I don't feel called out at all. I was hedging since most "primers" I've read aim for closer to 5-6 boardwipes but I think you are right and it depends on the deck and gameplan.

I will say I've found having one straight wipe in most decks to be a good panic button to keep around, but I think as much as possible that creature-heavy decks should be aiming to run fewer boardwipes with a goal of breaking their symmetry (or as you said gaining massive tempo), and more controlling decks should be running way more than 3 or 4. As a for instance...

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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 3 years ago

Whoah that's a lot of responses in one night! I won't respond to each of you individually because it will cost me all day but I really appreciate the effort put in all these posts and will try a different approach. I think you guys gave me enough food for thought.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 3 years ago

There's a ton of good stuff here from some really good players and deckbuilders. @darrenhabib and @ISBPathfinder build 5 high quality decks for every 1 mediocre one I build, and @pokken and @toctheyounger understand the nuts and bolts of their decks and the various interactions within to an astounding degree. Listen to them.

I'll simply add that synergy is so critical. Consider card draw for example: you don't want to just jam Blue Sun's Zenith, Harmonize, and Phyrexian Arena in every deck they can go in. One deck may want Skullclamp and Grim Haruspex, but another wants Rhystic Study and Argothian Enchantress instead, and still another would be better off with Erebos, God of the Dead and Necropotence. It's best to begin with your overall goals, strategy, theme, synergies, etc. and add support cards that fit rather than staples just because they are generically good. This helps with the inevitable cuts since you can ask yourself, "Ok, which of these cards have more synergy with the rest of my deck?"
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Post by Ertai Planeswalker » 3 years ago

Ok so I got to brewing Heliod, Sun-Crowned immediately and started with defining what the deck wants to do as @darrenhabib said. Then I just gathered a synergy pile as mentioned by @pokken. After i got the synergy pile together I reordered them according to function like a traditional template. I could still use some help to make some final cuts but it's closer to 100 then it's ever been and I still feel happy about it. If you would be so kind as to check it out: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29697

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Post by not-a-cube » 3 years ago

This has been a great thread, all the responses are very informative. I've been having the same feeling Ertai had, with sticking to much to the same template i've always used. Decks that play loose with that template and focus more on synergy end up being more fun. This makes me realise that the strongest card (in a vacuum) isn't always the best card for my deck.
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Ertai Planeswalker wrote:
3 years ago
Ok so I got to brewing Heliod, Sun-Crowned immediately and started with defining what the deck wants to do as @darrenhabib said. Then I just gathered a synergy pile as mentioned by @pokken. After i got the synergy pile together I reordered them according to function like a traditional template. I could still use some help to make some final cuts but it's closer to 100 then it's ever been and I still feel happy about it. If you would be so kind as to check it out: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29697
I like a Ranger of Eos package a LOT in mono white. There're so many really powerful effects there, like Serra Ascendant Planar Guide Nova Cleric Mother of Runes Children of Korlis etc.

I would probably play Weathered Wayfarer with or without a ranger package.

Recruit the Worthy is typically the nuts in these decks as well. lots of important things it fines.

There're a few cards that jump out at me as not quite good enough:

You're super enchantment heavy, enough I would consider Academy Rector as an option given that you have two sac outlet lands and ways to make it huge and threatening (which is hilarious).

Otherwise looks real good to me :)

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Another one of those great threads, with a lot of fantastic insight. I'm going to amplify some of the signal that's already come up, while mixing in some bits of my own. I'll use my Daxos deck to illustrate the points.
  • Every deck needs a mission statement. A quick little elevator pitch, if you will - I'll do this, this and this, resulting in this, this and this. Be acutely aware of how you're going to win games, and build this into the design and enforce it. I start with such a little condensed capsule for each commander and build outwards, retaining my overall goals in mind. It's fine to adjust this as you go along and are wooed by different angles.
    Daxos started out with a very simple one - play cool enchantments, and eventually there will be enough experience to drown the board in dudes. With time, the exact flavouring of the enchantments drifted around, and a big mana component became more and more prominent.
  • Synergy is king, but keep it focused. Pursue cards that work well with your chosen strategy, as they are what make the deck feel cool and unique. Going for secondary synergies is also cool and all, but those should occur between pieces that are already good in the deck. Try to keep a lid on the number of "what if" layers you go for so you don't end up with a hand full of disjoint, hyper specialised pieces that don't work together.
    In Daxos, there's an overlap between my recursion suite and ramp/card selection. Brought Back and Crucible of Worlds work great with fetchlands, but can also act as shielding for important big hitter pieces. Doom Whisperer may primarily help ensure meaningful topdecks, but combine him with a Replenish and things get silly. As for cards that are back-breaking in the build and rarely seen outside it, Skybind is a classic.
  • Ramp and draw grease the deck's wheels. MLD and draw throttling are uncommon in the casual realm, so by going deep on ramp and draw you'll always have stuff to do and the resources to do it with (plus also hit consistent land drops!). There was a massive gameplay study by the Command Zone in 2018, and in 40+% of the cases the player with the most lands won the game, so all the more power to you for executing this correctly. There's a guy in my group who lives by this principle, and the amount of resilience he has by always having a full grip and quickly getting to double digit land totals is astounding. Some of the ramp/draw pieces are free to lean into synergy, as not only is it more unique but often stronger too. Being aware of the game plan helps here too, as there's often some target mana total where the deck needs to get (often related to the commander's cost, as a first stepping stone) and the ramp suite can be tailored to help get it there reliably. It's good to keep some standalone good ramp/draw though, just in case.
    Daxos knows he's a big mana deck but is also aware of the fragility of rocks, so what little land ramp white has that curves well with the deck's game is in there, along with ways to find big mana lands. It's not afraid to run overkill rocks like Chromatic Orrery as it can use the mana and is not done ramping at 7. Draw-wise, it gets to sport the classic synergy draw engine of Mesa Enchantress - I hear tacking on a cantrip to nearly half the non-lands in the deck is good, and going ballistic with Flickering Ward or Cloudstone Curio a great perk. However, the deck's not afraid to bust out known goodstuff Necropotence, especially as it also comes with an experience counter.
  • Tutors are only as degenerate as the deck. Jamming a few in to search stuff up is great for consistency, and can't pull off an infinite you don't have. When outside the main tutoring colours of black and green (creatures are not a huge restriction, fight me), you sometimes have to get a bit creative and toolbox'y, which can make the deck quite interesting. I fondly recall an old 2014/2015 budget Tromokratis build, which made active use of various transmutes and a wizard toolbox, and in some ways I view it as the coolest deck I ever built.
    Daxos doesn't have many cute tutoring solutions due to being Bx, maybe apart from Big Ole Raz who's happy to repeatedly chew up 1WB-costed bodies.
  • Run less removal; spot removal needs to be universal, wipes should be asymmetric. I've downsized my removal suite as time went on, coming to the realisation that this is a social format and it's fine to not interact out everything of note that happens. I enjoy snappier, 0.5-1h games rather than infinite wrath crawls where the board goes boom again before you even properly rebuilt from the last one. That said, the bits of removal I do run are instant speed, and as far-reaching as possible. This is the one aspect of deckbuilding where I advocate for a full-on embrace of goodstuff, and I'm likely to rock a super overlapping set of removal whenever busting out a particular colour. Wipes are different though - there's usually little benefit to a traditional Wrath of God when you can use one of a plethora of conditional options to skew the outcome in your favour.
    The only form-over-function spot removal Daxos jams is Grasp of Fate, as experience counters need to come from somewhere and getting to O-Ring a thing per opponent is pretty decent. The wipes are all designed to break symmetry one way or another, either by keeping Daxos (Slaughter the Strong) or the spirit horde (Extinguish All Hope) alive at the end of it.
  • Tweaking the deck is a never-ending process. No list is ever truly complete; even if you think you've achieved perfection a card could hop out of the next set that will have you reevaluating your whole game plan. Plus, frankly, most decks have room for improvement, mine included. This is where the lack of a templating and playing it by ear really shines. Just put games on the thing and take note of things that work and things that don't. Try to reinforce the good and weed out the bad by juggling constituents however needed. Rinse, repeat. I'm still fiddling with decks I've put together in 2014/2015.
    Daxos has had 44 documented instances of swaps. The current problem I'm trying to diagnose are games where I plummet super low on life thanks to aggressive usage of stuff like Bolas Rock or Necropotence and struggle to heal back up. Seeing how I'm sporting two massive lifelink options and eight tutoring variants capable of reaching at least one of them, this might be a case of variance or ditzy piloting more so than actual faulty construction. Need to figure it out one way or another and amend any mistakes, be they in piloting or elsewhere.
  • Know your meta, play your meta. It's not uncommon for groups to have particular gameplay patterns, which you can pick up and work around for another performance boost avenue. Do particular plays cause a disproportionate response? Do other, more impactful ones somehow slide under the radar? Try to pick up on this stuff and work it into your deck, but don't go overboard to retain general performance.
    Games in my group often have big board stalls, as people make swarms of creatures that lead to a balance of terror and keep folks from swinging. Daxos cuts right through that by amassing a big fat army too, and then ripping an asymmetric wipe and cleaning up shop. Another meta aspect is that folks have comprehended the scope of the big mana, realised shooting out the commander is not super impactful, and have started going for my high-end haymaker pieces instead. As such, I've upped the various lightning rod and protection constituents to help defend them. The rod/protection stuff either brings experience with it or offers additional synergy elsewhere though.
 
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