Challenge and Self Limiting builds

[duducrash]

So, a friend of mine came back to the game after a while and he built like 8 decks from cards he owned. we are playing and he whips out some awful born of the gods card and tbh it's great fun. So I decided to join him and did build one similar deck, but I played more and deeper than him so it's not not the same, so I've been toying with self imposing limits. I've done budget and theme limits before.

I decided to build General Ferrous Rokiric , the only cards I can put in are cards that I either trade for or open from packs and it has been so much fun, upgrading it will also be fun I guess, since it's all lucky encounters

I know @DirkGently does set commander decks. What else are fun ways you guys found of enjoying the game?

[RxPhantom]

First, General Ferrous Rokiric has become one of my favorite decks. I don't have any decks with special building restrictions, though I am slowly trying to fully Boros-ify Ferrous. I really like playing with my Horde deck, which can be a fun alternative use for a commander deck, especially if you don't have a full pod.

[Dragonlover]

Some kind of self imposed limit/starting from a point that has a lot of inertia to overcome. I also don't deliberately go infinite in terms of mana generation. So, looking at my decks from that perspective:

Abaddon the Despoiler: All the cards in the deck apart from the colourless artifacts have to be black or gold, the colours of the Black Legion, the 40K faction that he heads up. Means there's a bunch of stuff that would be really good that I just cannot run.

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim: Spawned from a desire to answer the question 'How many alternate wincons can a single deck support?'. Turns out that right now the answer is 22. Definitely the deck that's given me the most headaches in terms of what to run. I don't run Thassa's Oracle type stuff, but otherwise every alt wincon that works in commander is in here and I have to at least attempt to fit any new ones that come out in. If your group won't Rule 0 Golos, swap him for Kenrith, the Returned King.

Lathliss, Dragon Queen: Could I make a better dragon tribal deck by going Gruul or even Jund? Almost certainly. Is Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm just this but a billion times better? Absolutely. However, I wanted to make a deck that gave me maximum dragon for minimum effort and my god does Lathliss deliver. Also when I built her I'd just made wincons and didn't want to do anything complicated with a manabase at the time.

Mono-white mono-legends: take 50 or so legendary white creatures, add some removal, lands and planeswalkers, then deal off the top till you hit a creature to see what the commander is today. Permanents have to be legendary, spells have to feel like something a legend would cast (mainly wraths). My second favourite 'stupid deck idea that shouldn't have worked' after wincons. My playgroup have tried the other four colours and they all work to greater or lesser degrees. Black was rough back in the day but I imagine it now actually has a curve.

Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer: No limits in terms of what cards I'll put in, so long as I can get them in foil. Definitely my 'free-est' deck in terms of restrictions, but there's definitely places I could push it higher in terms of power such as swapping the general for Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar and cutting the morph package.

Virtus the Veiled & Gorm the Great: Everything that I possibly can, I do with a combat damage trigger. Uses morph and manifest to obfuscate what I'm doing, has some planeswalkers for back up, also ended up with a top card of deck focus that I didn't see coming. Would absolutely be better as a Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer deck, but I refuse to use the 'here build this deck!' commanders if I can avoid it.

Hope this helps you come up with something cool.

Dragonlover

[folding_music]

I try to keep a handful of decks which don't play any effects which shuffle the deck, which eliminates all the fetch, tutor and feldon's cane fx as well as cutting out shuffle time after the initial. lower power level as a result but the games are snappier! another thing I like to do is remove all the other legendary creatures from a deck... obviously you wouldn't do that with sisay or the m21 elf guy, but a lot of the time, it's fun to feel like your actual commander is the one who's in charge and not being upstaged by random other celebs off the top of the deck.

[Jemolk]

To one degree or another, all my decks are self-limiting, in that I choose a theme and then stick to that theme religiously. Sure, Eternal Witness would be good in dinosaurs, but it's not a dinosaur, and it doesn't reference dinosaurs specifically, so it's out. Aminatou topdeck manipulation excludes Counterspell in favor of Hinder, Memory Lapse, and Lapse of Certainty. Meanwhile, Petra Sphinx and Vexing Arcanix|ICE probably aren't very good cards, but I couldn't imagine not running them because they're so perfectly on theme. I also deliberately cut infinite combos from my decks when I realize they exist. There is, for example, one on-color Miracle card that I do not run in Aminatou anymore; it's Temporal Mastery, and it got cut because any extra turn spell goes infinite with God-Eternal Kefnet and my commander. The game where I realized what I had done, I miracled it and also cast it with Kefnet to get 2 extra turns in a row, and let it get exiled. Then, before I played the deck again, I cut it.

Then there's Phage, which is actually one of my stronger decks in many ways precisely because it's less self-limited. Yes, the commander that cannot be cast from the command zone without help or else it kills you is probably among the least self-limited decks I play. I focus a lot less on flavor with that one. Even so, I run Swat|ONS and Syphon Soul|ONS exclusively because they have Phage in the art and flavor text.

Scion of the Ur-Dragon is also crazy powerful, but I make sure to play it as a toolbox, where the proper choice of dragons depends on the rest of the gamestate, so as not to have it get stale. That means excluding anything that would always or almost always be the correct choice, like Old Gnawbone. The closest I have to an always-amazing goodstuff dragon like that is Ancient Silver Dragon, and that can sometimes backfire by putting dragons that I want in my deck into my hand instead (for example, Mist Dragon, which is there to give me a way to completely protect Scion, or Tyrant's Familiar, which is absolutely at its best when it is your commander), as well as interfering with my ability to answer things via dragon at instant speed by the same mechanism, so it's often not the correct choice.

[PrimevalCommander]

I haven't done many self-limiting builds. And those that I have done are pretty watered down.

48 creature Adun Oakenshield and Primal Surge not very restrictive since Primal surge decks are a known quantity.

0 creature Talrand, Sky Summoner drake beat down. Again, nothing noteworthy, but does make surviving in a combat meta more interesting. Makes room for some spells that are lower powered, but fun to cast. This is 75% meta, not cEDH.

I toyed with a budget deck at the request of my best friend, but his budget deck was so much better than mine as to make the budget restriction irrelevant to actual game play. It didn't reduce power level enough to make the budget deck different from my $500-$1000 decks. He said build to "Budget" not build to "Low Power", but my question was "If your deck is a '7/10' but $100 and my deck is a '7/10' but $800, I don't see much point in the budget restriction". Higher variance and reduced card pool is something, but the miscommunication left a sour taste in my mouth after being steamrolled 2 games and getting more than a little salty. After some significant reworks, and reprints of the pain lands, my "budget" Sefris of the Hidden Ways is back under $100 and actually does well, which feels good. He took the easy way out and build +1/+1 counters, of which there is metric tons of support for low prices.

I like building to a theme more than a restriction, so I don't have much to offer other than plain budget restrictions turn me off. I'd rather build to a power level, than build to a price point.

[Hawk]

I had a lot of fun brewing "Gumball decks" where every card including the commander needs to come in for $0.25 USD. Definitely forces a lot of creativity as even staples that have been printed into the dirt tend to be over that budget (for instance - there are no Shroud/Hexproof/Indestructible equipment within budget as even Mask of Avacyn and Whispersilk Cloak and Neurok Stealthsuit cross the line). I think the restriction is best if everyone plays gumball, but my as-yet-untested Sarevok, Deathbringer + Master Chef "Can you Smeeellllll what Sarevok is cookin?" gumball deck looks shockingly competitive.

[darrenhabib]

Pretty much all I build these days is stipulation/restriction decks as I've done everything else and your card pool gets mighty same-same if you are just building good/best decks even around "unique" commanders.

I've done some Companion builds (that obviously have in built restrictions) that have born some of my most played and loved decks.

I've built 2 Pauper decks (commons only with uncommon commander) and also an Artesian deck (uncommons/commons) which is great deck building exercise and good fun to play if you can get a group together.

I also have a budget build with a set upper limit. If you can find a group of people and just make a stipulation on maximum budget and then build a best deck under that criteria that is also a good deck building exercise.

[Treamayne]

Like @Jemolk I stick to my theme fairly strictly (e.g. Hoof is only allowed in Gahiji Beast Tribal) - where I have fairly specific definition of Tribal (see link). When a tribe is too big, I also try to theme one aspect of the tribe - for example, my mono-brown Karn deck relies on massive golems (usually with untap or other requirements - a la Phyrexian Colossus, Colossus of Sardia) with a proliferate subtheme (enabling mana like City of Shadows, and support like Titan Forge)

But I also enjoy mixing (trying to mix) other "lost" formats with EDH. Such as Rainbow Stairwell, Star (if you have an amenable playgroup) and even CI Emperor EDH (for 6 player games - The Emperor seat must be a three color deck and the two Lieutenants are two color decks with different CI derived from those three - such as an Emperor leading with 1 Lt as either or and the other as either or )

Also, I enjoy trying to use a general "known" for X in a different configuration. For example - before Gahiji was printed, I used Uril to lead my Beast deck but only had 1 aura in the deck (Spawning Grounds). More recently, I have Sydri, leading my Vehicle deck, since she is more known for other artifact (combo) builds.

[duducrash]

First, General Ferrous Rokiric has become one of my favorite decks. I don't have any decks with special building restrictions, though I am slowly trying to fully Boros-ify Ferrous. I really like playing with my Horde deck, which can be a fun alternative use for a commander deck, especially if you don't have a full pod.

It is fun! any deck Boros Recruit is plable is a sweet deck imho

[materpillar]

I decided to build General Ferrous Rokiric , the only cards I can put in are cards that I either trade for or open from packs and it has been so much fun, upgrading it will also be fun I guess, since it's all lucky encounters

I know @DirkGently does set commander decks. What else are fun ways you guys found of enjoying the game?

Oh, I live for dumpstering people with insanely self-restricted decks. Anyone can win a game of magic. Not everyone can win with style.

I have Tivadar of Thorn, the only creature spot removal in the deck is using him to destroy enemy goblins (also, Crib Swap but he frequently kills the goblin token that it makes).

I have Progenitus self-mill to win with Laboratory Maniac. Before you groan. I built it when original in innistrad was released and Thassa's Oracle ruined the cool factor of milling yourself out for the win. It was based around the Spider Spawning limited deck and functions similarly.

I have my Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge deck that has the worst mana curve possible while still being a functioning deck. Its mana curve is a thing of beauty. Pyromancy. Read that beautiful card.

I have my Changeling tribal that can't have more than 3 cards of each tribe and the goal is to say as many different tribes as possible every time I cast a Changeling. Gotta love resolving a dragon, sliver, demon, elf, rat, wizard.

There's Lazav, the Multifarious bad card tribal where the entire goal is to blow people out with extremely random cards I've not seen other people cast before. There's about 5-6 exceptions but the vast majority of the cards see almost zero play. Shout out to Oath of Scholars for being the best card in the deck, so good I added Recall primarily just to nab it out of my graveyard. The goal is to hard cast hot fire like Treacherous Pit-Dweller so people ignore you as not a threat, get to late game and win the 1v1 with your sticky voltron commander.


One of my favorite memories was when I forgot all my magic cards. I threw together a Lu Xun, Scholar General EDH deck out of my friends modern masters (I believe) bulk that he just opened and proceed to dumpster the table with that unsleeved pile of commons, uncommons and quarter rares.

[3drinks]

I used to build full white border decks but the recent power creep has made even the tightest of white border building just infeasible. Now the closest to self-restrictive is my use of the companion mechanic, it's amazing how much less analysis paralysis you get when you cut half the playables from the pool. But fun because I always wanted a deck with three commanders so Agent Gut will always have a permanent home with me.

Now I'm challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone of deckbuilding with this True Heir deck.

[Avacyn Believer]

I don't limit myself often these days because more often than not I ended up in a situation where the deck was too slow, or just had no impact in games for another reason. For example, I've built an Abomination of Llanowar deck and at first all creatures had to be elves. I was enjoying the deck but it just wasn't performing well. So I added in some non-elves that synergize better with the strategy, and I have lot more fun now.

That said, for Christmas one of my playgroups did a budget challenge, build a 25 Euros deck. This was actually a lot of fun and we came up with some cool decks. But I think the reason we had fun was because we all played budget decks so the games were balanced. When I played the same deck against non-precons/starter decks, the limit showed a lot. So I am bit reluctant to use decks with limits for games where I don't know who I'll be playing with.

My point is that I like the idea of limits, but only if my whole playgroup does it too

[cheonice]

We tried Tiny Leaders (all cards must be MV 3 or less, 25 life, 50 cards) for a while, but unfortunately it was very shortlived.
Oh and we did some deckbuilding challenges via some online client. We would agree on certain conditions: a theme like tribal or lifgain, a budget, to not use a commander we built before. That was a lot of fun and did not require any monetary investments.

[Avacyn Believer]

We tried Tiny Leaders (all cards must be MV 3 or less, 25 life, 50 cards) for a while,

Reminded me of 'pauper Commander' I've came up against in an LGS once. It was surprisingly fun to play against.

[cheonice]

Reminded me of 'pauper Commander' I've came up against in an LGS once. It was surprisingly fun to play against.

We tried this once, but the lack of mass removal made it a very exhausting experience, because the board was gummed up beyond recognition... though this was many years ago.

[3drinks]

Reminded me of 'pauper Commander' I've came up against in an LGS once. It was surprisingly fun to play against.

We tried this once, but the lack of mass removal made it a very exhausting experience, because the board was gummed up beyond recognition... though this was many years ago.

That's why you do SilverBlack - commons and uncommons. Pauper is just gonna be dominated by Evincar's Justice and Pestilence|usg.

[Avacyn Believer]

Reminded me of 'pauper Commander' I've came up against in an LGS once. It was surprisingly fun to play against.

We tried this once, but the lack of mass removal made it a very exhausting experience, because the board was gummed up beyond recognition... though this was many years ago.

That's why you do SilverBlack - commons and uncommons. Pauper is just gonna be dominated by Evincar's Justice and Pestilence|usg.

Didn't even think that would happen, slow games yeah, but makes sense there is no common boardwipe. SilverBack sounds like a better idea.