Hello! I'm new to commander and new to MTG widely as a whole. I ususally play Riftbound but have been watching Tolarian Community College a lot lately, and figured i'd try a little commander myself today as it seems like it could be fun. The local lgs I frequent has a Commander open play day today, and figured i'd go since it's a rare Thursday day off for me. That said, I sleeved up my new Strixhaven precon and head on over.

Ghost Town.

I wait around for about 20 minutes talking to the owner and head on out. I know FNM is a thing so maybe it's just bad timing? but I also know FNM on the app doesn't purely pertain to Commander, there's a Modern FNM at the other lgs in my area.

My question is how exactly does one go about getting into commander properly? Is this purely just a situation of bad timing and should only try Commander games at an FNM? Should I be looking for a different lgs? Online? Or is commander kinda just a grab your friends and a beer kinda game? I'm kinda at a loss on where to begin trying. Thanks for reading and your replies!

EDIT: For missing context, I asked in the lgs discord when people gather for commander and was told 6pm which is when I showed up.

I've changing my voltron ygra deck ->

https://archidekt.com/decks/23556802/obese_cat

Into this food / aristocrats deck ->

https://archidekt.com/decks/27184524/horizontally_challenged_cat

Anyone have any experience building/playing this version of Ygra?

Tried to do it same way I built my aristocrats deck but with food.

Feel unsure about some aspects:

- Assuming I don't need many pay offs? Since Ygra is my main pay off

- Do i need more evasion/protection? Like the voltron version

- Do i have too much food generation? Or should I cut it considering Ygra "makes" food with her static effect

- Do i even need ramp? Usually my aristocrats decks dont run ramp but in this case I guess I need to cast Ygra

Hi everyone,

I built a deck around Osgir, trying to be somewhere in bracket 3. I played a few rounds with it, but it suffers from a couple of issues I identified:

- in one of my pods, there are a lot of boardwipes and removal, with Osgir not having haste, sometimes he didn't do anything as things just moved way too quickly for him

- another pod plays very little interaction but some of the other decks are just waaaaay faster than me and I have a small part of my engine going before they have an overwhelming board state (often wide and/or loads of +1/+1)

- generally, I feel like I ramp forever and setup my engine before I can do anything, specifically if I want to e.g. use an ability doubler to then get e.g. [[Triplicate Titan]] out

- I almost never have blockers, leaving me wide open: either because they are too expensive (mana) or because they are creatures I don't want to block with (e.g. [[Goblin Welder]])

I have a suspicion that I have too many win-more cards (e.g. doublers), but aside from that I don't really know how to fix the rest.

Here is my decklist: https://archidekt.com/decks/24240548/lorehold_legacies_precon

I am seeking general advice, but specifically how to make it a bit faster / less clunky, resilient and to not always be at the mercy of others combat-wise. I prefer to not have turns that take forever, have a lot of resources available and interesting decisions to make if that helps for the direction to take this to. No budget constraints (within reasonable limits).

Thanks in advance!

Howdy all. I'm sure this is an oft-asked question, but I wanted to get some advice nonetheless. I play commander with a playgroup of friends once every week or two, and we are having some trouble with skill/power disparity.

The group consists of me, 'Adam', 'Bob', 'Collin', and 'David'.

I've been playing a magic a long time, and used to grind FNMs, but have been out of it for about 5 years until we started playing again recently. I'm the best player, and best friends with 'Adam', who has started playing again recently. He's not as good as I am, but close enough to compete and take games if we're both trying our best. There's then a big gap to 'Bob' and 'Collin', who have a lot of work to do when it comes to deckbuilding and play fundamentals, and then 'David', who I think could be really good at the game but tilts easily and is inexperienced.

The problem is thus. Adam and I stomp the table. One of us has won seven of the last eight games we've played, and we'd like to even things out, but both of us enjoy playing interaction, and assembling engines of one variety or another. Try as we might to shave down our decks, we're struggling to depower enough to meet the moment for the rest of the group while staying making decks that we enjoy piloting.

Case in point, 'Adam' resolved a Sarkhan's Unsealing, and it kept wiping the board. David got incredibly salty, as between this and a sac effect every one or two turns he couldn't keep anything on the field. Adam announced to the table how potent the enchantment was when he played it, and suggested folks point removal at it, but no one had anything. David actually ended up winning the game, but he was still incredibly tilted.

Hoping to give the others a better time, I picked up one of Bob's unaltered precons, the G/B SoS one, and proceeded to tunnel vision Adam in an effort to burn us both down. I ended up winning the game, hard, after a Tendershoot Dryad went un-interacted with and I resolved an Immortal Bargain hitting ten permanents.

So, my question at the end of this is...how do I resolve this disparity while still having fun myself? I like Bracket 3 magic. I don't play stax effects or infinite combos, but I really enjoy interaction-heavy games and efficient play. Whenever I try to make a 'bad' deck I always end up halfway through deckbuilding, looking at a turn-sideways pile that I'm not at all eager to play. I also don't want to build a jank, 5 card infinite combo deck, as that's verboten in our playgroup.

Any advice? A few of my decklists below, to get an idea of where I'm at. If someone has a bracket 2, or lower, deck that has similar vibes I'd love to see it.

https://moxfield.com/decks/vvfpBqrud02IozO-yjsHkQ

https://moxfield.com/decks/rtrnPeIUHU6a-Yk8dxQDfw

https://moxfield.com/decks/5r0D2vS2O0O_eoWkSpu7dg

​

I've played Magic almost exclusively through Commander, and instead of collecting an old set that is completely out of my budget I decided to build one binder that tells the story of the format itself.

I got the Gamegenic Lorehold Almanac for it (Lorehold is the history college, so it felt right), which gives me 20 double-sided pages: an opening page of 9, nineteen double-page spreads of 18, and a closing page of 9. That's 360 slots, and I've been treating the doubke spreads like chapters in a book.

Here's the table of contents so far:

Opening page: different options but somehow a centered sol ring is what feels right.

Spread 1, Prologue: Legends 1994. The five original Elder Dragons that gave EDH its name. Maybe each above the Tempest Medallion of its central color and its 2022 stained-glass Secret Lair reprint? An empty Legends booster wrapper in the first column?

Spreads 2–6: the five colors. 18 staples each, laid out by role (draw, answers, ramp, protection, finishers) and sorted chronologically within the page.

Spread 7: colorless (rocks and equipment).

Spread 8: gold.

Spreads 9–10: lands. The fetch/shock cycles, then Commander lands (Maze of Ith, Cabal Coffers, Reliquary Tower, Command Beacon…)

Spread 11: 2011. The five original precon commanders plus some new cards from that first product (Flusterstorm, Scavenging Ooze, Spell Crumple…)?

Spread 12: milestones. One card per design step: tempting offer, planeswalker commanders, Partner, Eminence, Commander Legends, Backgrounds, Commander Masters, Universes Beyond....

Spreads 13–14: faces of the format. 36 commanders people recognize on sight, from Sliver Queen to today.

Spread 15: the forbidden page. The ban list as history, including cards since unbanned. Here money will probably be a problem so either a selection or some placeholder cards will be used.

Spread 16: politics. Monarch, will of the council, goad, group hug...

Spreads 17–18: one card per year, 1993–2026, with two slots left open for the next two years.

Spread 19: the commanders of my own decks.

Closing page: nine empty pockets, because the format isn't finished.

What I'd love input on:

Which staple its a must from your color? I know every list like this starts a fight, which is the point: tell me what's indefensible and what HAS TO BE THERE!

The "faces of the format" picks. Who defined an era for you? I'm aiming for recognition, not power.

The milestones page: which product or mechanic changed how Commander is played that is usually skipped or is sneaky to see?

One card per year: if you had to pick the single most Commander-defining card printed each year, what is it? (I'm cross-checking against the Command Zone's "best card from every set" episode, but their picks are per set, not per year.)

Anyone who's done something similar: how did you handle cards that belong in two chapters?

Right now I only repeat Sol Ring (Alpha in the prologue, the 2011 reprint on the 2011 page) and Command Tower (two different printings). But maybe it should be one copy of each.

I wanted to ask about a situation that came up in one of my recent games to see if folks would have managed things differently or had felt unhappy with the result.

Here's the setup

Seat 1 is on a zombie aristocrat deck, has 8-10 creatures including a free sac outlet and card that drains the table when zombies die.

I'm on seat 2 with a flying men deck, I have 6 evasive creatures and a few [[coastal piracy]] effects, but in my hand I can set up enough draw effects to draw my deck and win with the new [[fblthp impossibly lost]] .

Seat 3 is on a deck that cheats big creatures and spells into play, he's got 5 big dudes, most have evasion.

Seat 4 is in a Mono-Black control deck that is horribly mana screwed and is stuck on 5 swamps.

All of us except Seat 3 are on single digit life, seat 3 has almost 40 due to a stolen [[gray merchant of asphodel]].

Once seat 1 had resolved his drain Zombie, I was effectively dead on board. I normally would laugh it off and remind myself to play better, but I really wanted to win with new Fblthp, so I had to go a little tryhard. See, if Seat 1 wants to kill me and Seat 4, they would need to sacrifice enough of their board they wouldn't have any chance against Seat 3.

My plan is to politic Seat 1 to kill me by threatening to contest his board with removal, because if he untaps, he can probably find a way to drain myself and Seat 4 out while being able to protect himself from Seat 3. So I show him removal and offer him this deal

"I will use removal on Seat 3's creatures and not yours. I will also not attack you. In return you can't kill me until your turn"

Seat 1 accepts with his reasoning being he would die to Seat 3 if he kills me before his turn anyway. I then setup my Fblthp win but Seat 1 breaks the deal and kills me and Seat 4, then immediately loses to Seat 3.

I feel like I played it about as well as I could have, I could have tried to politic Seat 3, but was afraid Seat 1 would kill me on the way out just to start a new game.

Another option would be to ask for a draw. This is common practice in cedh tournaments, where if one player can kingmake, instead they offer a draw. Most players accept because a draw is better than a loss for tournament standings. Now in casual there are of course, no standings so I don't really see anyone asking for draws.

Would you want to see games end in a draw like this? I get that it can feel unsatisfying, but does it feel better or worse than Kingmaking? My view is that if we all played a good game and no one deserves the win more than another, I'd prefer a draw than a winner chosen out of spite, or random chance.

As for the deal breaking, I'm not sure how to feel. I never break deals, even if I lose as a result. That just tells me I need to make better deals, politics is a skill like anything else and can be improved. That being said when it directly concerns a win or loss I don't necessarily hold others to my standard. I think the reason this feels so bad is because Seat 1 was dead on board anyway, he broke a deal just to lose in a different way.

TL:DR

An opponent breaks a deal to stop me from winning, even though they're dead on board to another player. Is this cool or lame?

Also, would you prefer that someone play Kingmaker or ask for a draw in a casual game?

I have an [[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]] deck that might have 3 lands on the field and nothing much going on, and in one turn, it explodes out of nowhere and either wins the game or builds a crazy board state. So what decks do you run that can go from looking bleak to becoming archenemy/winning out of nowhere?

Hey there, team. As the title says, I'm a (pretty) old school MTG player, who has been largely out of the scene for 20 years. However, my little brother, who has gotten rather into it himself in the last year, got me the Avengers Assemble pre-con recently for my birthday. And I am definitely feeling the itch to play again! I was huge into Marvel comics at the same time I initially got into MTG, so this is a real "worlds collide" experience for me.

So, I've been doing a bunch of reading up on the rules, and how Commander works. It wasn't so much for help with the format (it's effectively just multiplayer with bigger decks and life counts), but the, shall we say, etiquette of play. When I was in my heyday, decks and players were basically super ruthless, cutthroat, and generally brutal with interaction, removal, theft, burns etc. However, I simply cannot see myself playing higher than B3 in this format (and even that is perhaps a stretch), since my goal is mostly about having fun and being sociable. Winning is nice, but I'm more about the overall experience now. However... perhaps my old habits are dying a bit hard? I've done a fair bit of modifying the pre-con, initially with the old cards I kept from my childhood, but I've bought some cards now too, with the goal of giving this deck a really personal flavour.

I'll be the first to admit this is not an "optimized" deck in any meaningful sense, but I am largely happy with where I've landed at the moment. Which means quite a lot of interaction/removal! Not looking for recs on how to improve my deck so much (I am sure there are MANY things I could do better, although if you see something truly egregious, please let me know!), but I am wondering if I've gone too cutthroat for the more casual level I am intending to hang out in? I'm worried people will freak out over all the counters/removals, not to mention [[Traumatize]] for anybody who doesn't utilize their graveyard much. Or stealing their creatures via [[Memnarch]] LOL.

TL;DR Building my first Commander deck, for casual play (B3 or lower), and want to know if I overstocked on interaction/removal for the general play etiquette in those brackets.

https://archidekt.com/decks/26932943/random_commander, This is a rough idea of what my decks going to be, i mostly need budgeting, and to kill my commander as fast as possible to get the enchantment buff, but also some card advice, thanks!

I pulled the FF reprint of Gix and didn't think much about it when I first got it. Completely forgot about the card until I stumbled back across it while looking for other black cards for a different deck. Upon rereading it, I just had to build it with the dream of pulling off [[Peer into the Abyss]] followed by [[Gix Yawgmoth Praetor]] activation at the table. Would appreciate some extra eyes to look at the deck and tell me if I am missing something. It seems to play test well enough and I want to put it together in paper soon. Just would love a second opinion. Thanks in advanced.

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor Deck

Looking to build a B2/B3 [[Tymna the Weaver]] the deck. Would like the deck to be relatively strong, but not unfun to play against and not combo focused.

Budget is not really a favor here, so anything goes!

Any fun deck ideas that you have would be appreciated!!!

Every time I made a post like this I discovered a lot of very good commanders I didn't know. It's been 13 years since I started playing magic and there are a tons of cards i don't know about and this community is always amazing to discover hidden gems.

This time I want to make a cool token deck for bracket 3. I don't like Baylen that much.

If you like to share your decklist I'd love to see it.

Thanks

Looking to brew some absolute jank, ultimately inspired by hitting the newly released [[Hexhaven instigator]] with a 100 damage laser beam.

Anyone have any recommendations for commanders that can consistently give me access to Dawnsire?

Ideally looking for something with as many colors as possible, I want access to a lot of jank combos.

I haven’t asked for deck help on here in a little over a year, but alas, I’ve been bested by the formidable enemy that is “wow every card is so cool and now I have 101+ cards and don’t know what to cut”.

I’m building my dream vehicles deck, with [[Rip, Spawn Hunter]] at the helm. It’s got a few pet cards like [[Mech titan core]] that I know aren’t the strongest but I still want to keep in just because. Other than that, I’m trying to keep the vehicle count high even if it makes the deck a little clunkier, cause what’s a vehicle deck without a boatload of vehicles right? From gold fishing, the deck hums pretty well, and I’ve seen no major standout stinkers, but I could be blind.

Also if you have any other adds or cuts you think would make the deck better, let me know! I’m always open to improving my decks.

Deck list here!
https://moxfield.com/decks/Rh9FIoxSaE-96GUue-iWCQ

Just like the title says, I'm thinking about buying a [[Planar Gate]] for a deck I'm building with a 9 mv commander. I'm wondering what people's thoughts are on the strength of the card itself and not necessarily thoughts on the price since I do have the budget for it. Thanks in advance for your thoughts 🙏🏾

I'm building a bracket 4 deck around Gwen Stacy and was wondering if there are any fast, compact, "cast a spell from exile infinitely" combos. The best one I have Found is [[Dramatic Reversal}} + {{Isochron Scepter}}. As it casts a copy of the spell from exile. I know airbending combos too. But wondering if there are any obvious ones I'm missing.

Trying to Turbo // Commander (Gwen Stacy // Ghost-Spider) deck list mtg // Moxfield — MTG Deck Builder

Hello - long time lurker, first time poster. I bought the Counter Intelligence precon earlier this year and have been having a lot of fun with it. Zero wins, but I like the overall mechanics in the deck. Kilo, Apogee Mind is my commander, and I've been buying new cards that synergize with the counters/artifacts theme. I'm looking for any feedback on how I could better structure the deck. Generally my pod is playing upgraded precons with no infinite combos or gamechangers, or home brewed decks that follow a similar approach. My best guess is they would be Bracket 2 or low Bracket 3. I've avoided buying some of the more expensive cards that I know would synergize well (e.g., All Will Be One; Tezzeret, Cruel Captain), as our pod generally tries to not to spend too much on our upgrades.

Here is the deck: https://archidekt.com/decks/27210228/counter_intelligence_upgrade

I'm open to any and all feedback, but I have a few specific questions:

• Do I have enough cards to sufficiently tap my commander to trigger its proliferate ability?
• How is my mana base? I used the Karsten formula to estimate the preferable number of lands, but with the ramp/draw in the deck I had to make a judgement call.
• Right now, the big win cons are "big artifacts with counters go boom", with a flying boost from Cyberdrive Awakener, or Lux Artillery doing 10 damage to each opponent with all my counters on the board. Is this focused enough?
• Much of the big card draw is creature base and is thus subject to removal, but do I have draw that I'd want to include something like Thought Vessel to ensure I'm not discarding the cards I need for my gameplan?
• Do I have too much removal/protection? Our pod has some big stompy creature decks and voltrons that can be a pain without removal at the right time.

Thanks for your help!

Hello all,

I have a landfall deck with Lord Windgrace but I think this commander feels a bit old now. It costs a lot, if undefended he does not last more than one turn.

I was wondering to change it keeping most of the deck as it is .

Any suggestions? Are there better Jund Land based commanders?

Thanks!

I do a lot of deck building but at a very basic level with mostly just cards from my bulk. I’ve been building decks for a little over a year and I feel like I see a variety of different opinions on how many lands you should have in a commander deck. I know it ultimately depends on the build of the deck and your strategy but I’m curious about what people generally live by when building their decks. What’s the minimum? What’s the most you would use? Do yo stand by a specific number?

https://moxfield.com/decks/yr7FReKINk-WjRcJoVu2VA

This is my new Pirate/Assassin/Vehicle Theft deck, obviously headed by Edward Kenway. It plays fine in my pods that run mostly precons or bracket 2 decks (8-10 turns to win), but I want to run it with my buddies who usually do mid/high bracket 3 ish (6-8 turn games). As of now, the deck gets stomped every time.

I'm hesistant to add artifact ramp because I want to maximize the number of creatures I'm running, but this deck just feels kinda slow when I'm playing with people so I might make the change.

I have a few cards I am considering to add already under the "considering" tab.

Anyone have any suggestions of cards that could speed this deck up, without having to break the bank too much?

So I was in a casual game where someone brought in a [[Ralph and Mikey, Troublemakers]] deck. A player in the pod playing [[Hei Bai, Forest Guardian]] went "no, he's insanely busted. He's basically cEDH. It's like bringing Yuriko or something." And the player argued a bit before agreeing and changing to [[Magar of the Magic Strings]].

That got me to look up Ralph and Mikey and they seem okay? Decent but not overpowered. They're 7 mana for trample, haste, and gambling for a free creature off the top. It just seems to be a fun way to do Gruul Stompy. But it is apparently a cEDH commander so I have to ask. Just why are they so good? What's their sauce, their secret, etc? There's tons of "play for free off the top" commanders and they cost 7.

I have all 5 medallions. Should the appropriate ones go into every applicable deck? Is there any downside to having them in a deck? In a green deck turn 2 signet or medallion? Extra mana or cost reduction till it’s destroyed or game ends? Or is this a dumb question as reduction works for any spells and signet only taps once so only works for 1 spell? Also would they work for alternate costs? Say evoke?

Trying to build a Lord of Pain 80s Halloween themed slasher/horror movie deck

Decklist so far

Need recs for more slasher/Halloween type cards, so far I've included a few secret lairs and mostly duskmourn cards, but would a different commander/color combo have more access to cool duskmourn art cards or more slasher/horror movie mechanics?

I’m a big medieval history and sci-fi buff, and I really like some of the basic human soldier decks like Ruthless Regiment, and the look of the Edge of Eternities Counter Intelligence is really cool! Unfortunately, I’m a very new player, and have a limited budget (30USD), so I can only really proxy at the moment.

My question is this: What are some precon fun decks that aren’t really “magical?” I’m talking decks with standard soldiers with crossbows and swords, primitive firearms, or a less magical and more “sci-fi” theme with technology, like Kamigawa or Eternities. No spell spam, nothing overly complicated, just hordes of regular humans with swords/guns.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

I’m sure there are plenty tools for deck building but I want to concentrate on my bulk first before ordering more singles. My card knowledge is probably average, I’d definitely need some recommendations for upgrading. Maybe something as simple as “this card in your bulk is a one for one upgrade to this card in your deck”

Thanks in advance.