Hello Commander fans. This guide is written to assist would-be competitive EDH players. Very little has been written about EDH as a competitive format, and most of what has been written is about a specific deck or strategy. There are a few resources, many on this forum, for people new to the format and looking for advice, but unfortunately very little of it is written from a competitive standpoint.
Before I begin telling you about how to play EDH competitively, I'd like to say a few words about who I am and why you should listen to me. I'd also like to talk about why competitive EDH is attractive and what makes it unique from the rest of Magic.
Introduction
My name is Leo, but on MTG forums I go by razzliox. I've been playing Magic for about eight years, and commander for about four. I've been playing commander seriously for about two years now. I've built much of the community over at /r/CompetitiveEDH, a community of over 4000 members that discusses the format from a competitive standpoint. There, I host weekly deck help threads that serve two purposes. First, obviously, they help users who come to me with problems in their decks. The second effect is that it familiarizes me (and anyone else who cares to flip through the threads) with just about every deck anybody could try to play. I also recently got invited to moderate the general EDH subreddit, /r/EDH, a community of over 20k. I'm also a member of the Primer Committee here on MTGSalvation, meaning I am one of the people who decides which threads we endorse as official primers here in the EDH section of the forum. I maintain one of my own primers, which can be found in my signature - a deck I created and popularized. I've also traveled to a few big tournaments to play in EDH side events for prizes. Needless to say, I know the format pretty well.
EDH is a social format. For many people, this means casual. These terms are not to be conflated. Social means that EDH is organized and structured around the playgroup. Casual means (or, at least in this context, implies) that winning is not prioritized by the players, but rather gameplay is. When asked why casual EDH is preferred to competitive, many people will talk about a "social contract," or say that specific limitations make the way a game plays out more "fun." This will not be argued against here, but do note that playing competitively is not necessarily incompatible with the concept of a social contract, so long as each person playing knows that all hands are off.
Why CEDH?
Let us discuss what it means to play competitively. To compete in any form means to attempt to attain a goal that is the inverse of the goals of other players. Therefore, to play competitively, the game must be zero-sum - for one player to win, his opponents must lose. Furthermore, the actual winning of the game must be the players' goal for him to be playing "competitively." A competitive player aims to make his opponents lose. Why is this an attractive mindset to play games like Magic? Well, personally, I like to make progress in my hobbies, and I like to have an objective way to track that progress. It's fun to sit around a table and play relaxed games, but if you play a lot of games, they start to get boring without a long-term goal. Thankfully, playing competitively gives us one - your win ratio. This way, I can make changes to my decks and have a concrete reason for whether it was a good or bad change. I won that last game because I added more gravehate. I lost the one before that because I didn't include enough answers. If your goal is something vague and arbitrary like "having interactive gameplay" or "having a satisfactory game," it's hard to measure your progress. As David Sirlin says in his great book, Playing to Win
Quote from David Sirlin"s Playing to Win »
The great thing about competitive, zero-sum games is that they offer an objective measure of your progress. When you walk the path of continuous self-improvement that a champion must walk, you have a guide. If you are able to win more (that is, more consistently defeat highly skilled players), then you are improving. If not, then not. Imagine trying to measure your success in other forms of life such as your personal life or career. Are you improving or not? To answer that, you have to know exactly what is included within the scope of the “game” and what is not. What are all the factors that go into your professional life? It’s very hard to answer. Even if you did have an answer and created a measure of your progress, others would not agree on your standards. Not to say that the opinion of others is important in your measure of success, but the opinion of others does “keep you honest.” Left to your own definitions, you could (and perhaps subconsciously would) define the scope of your game in a contrived way so as to appear to be doing well at it (or poorly at it). It would just be an exercise in determining whether you are an optimistic or a pessimistic person.
Games are different. The very nature of a game is that it is a collection of rules agreed upon by all players. If players don’t agree on the rules, then they are not even playing the same game. The rules define exactly what is inside the game and what is outside. The rules define which moves are legal and which moves are not. The rules define what constitutes winning, what constitutes losing, and what constitutes a draw. There’s no weaseling out of defeat by redefining what the game is. The game should need no redefining, and a loss is a loss.
In pursing the path of winning, you are likely to learn that concentrating merely on beating the opponent is not enough. In the long run, you will have to improve yourself always, or you will be surpassed. The actual conflict appears to be between you and the opponents, but the best way to win is to bring to the table a mastery of playing to win and a mastery of the game at hand. These things are developed within you and are revealed to others only during conflict.
Why, the casual will inevitably ask, do you play this format over others competitively? What makes multiplayer Commander more appealing than other formats, especially to a competitive player? Why not leave EDH to those who would rather durdle over hardcasting Eldrazi? Take your Stax lockdown packages and turn two wins to formats where it's appreciated, like French EDH, Vintage, and Legacy!
There are a few things about EDH that makes it attractive from a competitive standpoint. The first reason is that most people who play it don't. While this may seem counterintuitive, having few people who play the game competitively and many who don't means that the format is relatively unsolved. In other words, there may be many strategies that have yet to be discovered, and the existing strategies can be fine-tuned since they are often not polished. This gives significant space for brewers and fine-tuners, unlike a format like Legacy where all the work perfecting the lists is done by a small amount of people, and the winner of a tournament is decided not by who the most creative person was, but who played their deck the best. Granted, there are exceptions where a creative breakthrough can happen in a format like that, but rarely does that occur. On the flip side, in EDH, copying a decklist from the internet is likely to fail, where tuning a list to your own needs and even brewing one yourself is more likely to be successful.
EDH is a multiplayer format. There have been a few other formats that are multiplayer - Planechase, Conspiracy draft, Archenemy - but none have ever been as popular. Many say this is a reason to not look at EDH competitively, but I disagree. Collusion and other bad sportsmanship in politics does tend to complicate the game, and at high-level competition there would be have to be some sort of way to prevent that. However, if you're just playing with your buds and there are no prizes on the line, collusion is not something you will have to worry about. Politics is another thing that many people criticize in competitive games, but when you start playing high-level you will understand that politics rarely plays a role, and when it does it is generally to save the game. For example, a player may say "Give me the Force of Will and the blue card off the Fact or Fiction in one pile so I can counter his Tooth and Nail." Being multiplayer adds an entire level of complexity that many people do not understand the first time they play EDH. More on that later.
Competitive EDH has a wide selection of strategies. No other format in all of magic has the diversity and wide array of different tactics. No other format has as wide a playable card pool. While some EDH staples see lots of play in other eternal formats, like Entomb or High Tide, many are playable only in EDH. This is for a few reasons. First of all, EDH has a larger deck size and no redundancy. In Legacy, if you want to consistently have a reanimate effect, you can play four Reanimate and four Exhume. In EDH, a reanimator deck will be playing several sub-par cards that mimic the same effect, like Corpse Dance, Wake the Dead, and Dance of the Dead. This is also because EDH has more kinds of decks - fast combo, tempo, midrange, stax, and toolbox are all represented at the highest levels of play, as well as other decks that don't fit into any of these strategies. Obviously this means that the card pool will be larger.
EDH is easier to play on a budget than other eternal formats. There are some powerful decks that you can build for less than $100, if you skimp on some of the more expensive things like Mana Crypt and fetchlands. Even if you have all the cards for your deck, you will usually spend less than you will on a Legacy deck - you only need one of each fetch/dual in your colors. A 3-color or 5-color EDH deck that's fully tricked out will be 4 digits, sometimes north of 3k, but a 2-color or mono-color deck can often be completed for 500-800 USD (depending on what's in the deck of course). Personally, I advocate for the use of proxies outside of tournaments, but even without them EDH is generally less expensive than Legacy and of course Vintage. Often the vast majority of the money in a deck will be in relatively unimportant cards, like dual lands, Imperial Seal, Gaea's Cradle, Mishra's Workshop, etc.
Playgroups and Inbreeding
Unfortunately there are few competitive EDH players in the wild. You will stomp 90% of the players at your LGS, and casual players are unlikely to help you progress as a player. This means that it's important to have a playgroup - a group of players at approximately even levels of power that play against each other regularly. This has a few advantages. The first, obviously, is that a playgroup means playtesting. It's hard to find worthy opponents at random, and a playgroup gives you people to play with. They also are relatively static, so it's easier to track your progress as well as theirs. Playgroups have several different phenomena, most of which improve your play. Playgroups also mean you're playing against the same decks again and again, and you are likely to have ideas that will improve your friends' decks. Share them! Not only is it advantageous to both you and your friends in the short run (because you will have better decks if you share ideas), it is in your interest to play against powerful decks that challenge you and pressure you to improve your own deck. If you ever have more than a 50% winrate against your playgroup in four-man games, you're probably not doing enough to help your friends progress (or you're playing with people who don't want to progress, in which case you ought to find a better playgroup). If you don't have a regular playgroup, try Cockatrice.
Playgroups come at a cost, though - inbreeding. In game theory, this is often called donkeyspace. Inbreeding is when a player starts playing specific cards or strategies because they are good against strategies s/he faces often in the playgroup. For example, imagine two or three powerful decks in your playgroup start playing Laboratory Maniac strategies, and protect their Lab Man with an abundance of counterspells. You start playing Sudden Death to put a stop to their shenanigans. Sometimes inbreeding is that specific, and sometimes it is more general. For example, a dearth of fast combo decks will incentivize tempo and midrange decks, where a preponderance of them will incentivize control, stax, and even faster combo decks.
Inbreeding is not a bad thing. It is, by definition, suboptimal play. "Optimal" here is defined as least exploitable. You will sometimes want to play in a way that leaves you open to exploitation when you think that your suboptimal play won't be exploited - or at least that you'll get more out of exploiting others than you will lose from getting exploited. If the only way you find to get a leg up on the more powerful decks in your meta is to play answers that are specific to them, I wouldn't advise you not to. However, it's important to keep in mind that as you tune your deck to meet the demands of your playgroup, it's likely to worsen your deck against matchups you didn't tune against. You'll be kicking yourself for including Sudden Death when you get combo'd out by a creature with toughness five.
Dispelling Common Myths
In this section, I will discuss several common beliefs about Competitive EDH, what specifically is incorrect about them, and why I believe them to be false. I do this in the introduction because I believe it is important that the reader realizes that what CEDH looks like in practice is perhaps very different from what you have been told, or read online.
Every deck is secondary to Hermit Druid combo. For those not in the know, Hermit Druid combo is a five-color deck (sometimes it shows up in BUG) that focuses on putting its namesake card in play and activating it. Since the deck plays no basic lands, it will now combo out with all the pieces conveniently placed in its graveyard. (This is why the card is banned in Legacy.) This myth comes from the fact that Hermit Druid was once a terrifying behemoth, and probably the best deck in the format - back in 2010. Since then, the meta has evolved, and the format is no longer "fastest deck wins." Now, there are several other meaningful factors, and Hermit Druid is no longer the fastest deck. Generally it considered a second-tier deck among competitive players.
CEDH is just a race to see who combos first, with little to no disruption. This is a variant on the first myth, which couldn't be further from the truth. While there are many powerful combo decks that plan to race, the format is filled with different archetypes. Since the fast combo decks are weak to disruption, a meta filled with them will be wrecked by the first stax player who walks in. (Interestingly, the same players who complain about there being no disruption will often complain about how stax stops them from playing how they want to play.)
{X Deck} consistently goes off turn 2. No, it doesn't. To say a deck "consistently" does something means it does it in the majority of games - that when it isn't able to do that thing, it's surprising. There are a few decks that win on turn 2 occasionally, but none of them are good enough to do it consistently. The fastest deck in the format is probably Sidisi, Undead Vizier ANT or some other storm variant, which go off on turn three/four ON AVERAGE, turn 5 consistently (typically). If it were true that a certain deck could consistently go off turn 2, the format would be that deck and decks tailored to beat specifically it, with tonnes of cheap interaction like Swan Song, Mental Misstep, et cetera.
75% decks can keep up with Competitive EDH decks. For those unaware, the 75% philosophy is one spearheaded by Jason Alt, and the summary can be found here. In a nutshell, a 75% deck is designed to be able to keep up with competitive decks while not being so powerful that it completely steamrolls casual players. The problem is that, frankly, that's impossible. Imagine if I told you I wanted to build a Legacy deck that could play real games with other Legacy decks, while still not being so powerful that it steamrolls kitchen table players. Impossible, right? The power difference is simply too vast - if your deck can consistently play on a similar playing field as mine, it will wreck casual players. The 75% movement has some merit, but attempting to stand between competitive players and the more casual ones will just end up with a deck that can't really play well with either.
CEDH is not and cannot be fun. I get this one a lot. "Razzliox doesn't actually like playing - he just likes proving that he's better than people." The problem with this statement is that people are assuming that you can't have fun competing. People have fun playing competitive Standard, competitive Poker - some people just have a competitive spirit. Obviously, many people won't have fun playing EDH this way, but I certainly do as do my friends.
The Multiplayer nature of the format makes competition impossible. This is an understandable thought process. How can you crack down on collusion in a competitive format? Firstly, collusion isn't incentivized unless there are high prizes, and without them it's barely a problem. In a playgroup, if two players are colluding, that's just silly - we're obviously there to have fun, even if our idea of fun is different from what other EDH players think. Colluding isn't fun for anyone involved, and if it is, that's probably not somebody you want in your playgroup. Secondly, as someone who regularly does play commander for prizes, I can confirm that collusion isn't a serious problem and when it is, you can generally tell and inform a judge.
Breaking into the Format
Step 1: Pick up one of these.
Hopefully by now you either embrace EDH as a competitive game or have stopped reading this thread. However, the intent of this post is not to convince you to play like I do, it's to show you how you can. In this section, I will discuss how to make progress as an EDH player over time. We will begin with deciding on a deck and a decklist, and then move on to how to tune your decklist to your specific playstyle and metagame. Then, I will discuss how to brew a new deck, and how to improve it over time.
Starting Off
The first step to playing Magic is, obviously, picking a deck. If you have no idea what kind of deck you want to play, and you haven't played much EDH competitively before, it can seem impossible to decide. However, once you have a few games under your belt, it will be much easier to decide. Here are the results to a poll about what is a tier one EDH deck (try sorting by "Most Popular" in the top right corner). Honestly anything on there with 1% of the votes is playable, but not all of it is established or great for a newer player, so try to pick something closer to the top. At this point the only way to really get a good feeling of what deck is good for you is based off your intuition. Think about what kind of games you've enjoyed in other formats, and what commanders seem interesting. You're not locking in anything, so don't worry about it too much.
There are a few criteria you should consider when selecting a deck. The first, obviously, is how the deck plays. If you're interested in long, grindy games about resource advantage, Brago stax is likely a better pick than Jeleva storm. The second criterion is your short-term budget - if you're looking to blow $500 on your first deck, and you're OK with eschewing the most expensive cards at first, you can pretty much build anything. On the other hand, if you only have $50, better stick with something cheap and mono-color. The third criterion is your long-term budget, or how much money you're willing to put into the deck once you finalize it. Many of us have unlimited long-term budgets, but if you don't ever want to have more than $500 in an EDH deck, stay away from anything with blue duals or you'll never completely finish the deck. You should also think about what cards you already have, and which cards for the deck can go in another deck you can build later, effectively reducing the cost of that later deck.
Once you've decided what deck you want to play, at least in the beginning, do some research on it. Read some literature on MTGSal and reddit about the deck, and look at lots of decklists wherever you can. Keep in mind that a lot of decklists are bad and untuned - try and stay away from anything that says stuff like "no combo." This is a good time to make sure that this deck is one you can actually pilot at this level - some decks, especially Doomsday or storm variants, require lots of technical play that is probably not good for newer players.
Take a well-respected decklist and proxy it out or put it on Cockatrice. /r/CompetitiveEDH meets on Cockatrice every Monday at 8:30 EST. After you play a few games, you'll have a better understanding of what EDH is like and what strategies will interest you. Repeat this process a few times until you have a good idea of what deck you want to start off with. Keep in mind you can start over at any point - maybe you play one game with Narset and decide it's not for you, or maybe you realize that when you research the deck. Either way, don't feel like you have to do a bunch of research just because you were initially interested in a deck.
Deck Creation
If you continue playing EDH at a competitive level, you will eventually have an idea for a potential deck you've never seen before. Unlike traditional formats, in EDH homebrews can be highly competitive. I currently own two EDH decks, both of which can compete in the highest echelons of play, and both of which I designed. As I've said, EDH is a largely unexplored format, and the majority of the decks that are considered A-Tier nowadays have been discovered within the past two or three years. Here I will describe the process of creating a powerful deck and tuning it to perfection.
Decks can be built one of two ways - top-down or bottom-up. Building a deck top-down means that you have one specific thing that you want the deck to do, generally a win-con. This thing should be powerful and the thing that your opponents will fear and play around. If you select to build your deck top-down, then your first draft of the deck should pose one question to every card you think about playing - "How does this card support my plan A?" That's not to say that every card you play needs to support one specific gameplan, but since that's the focal point of the deck, it is the most important thing to consider. The question "Should I play counterspells" is answered by asking how counterspells help achieve the one thing you want to do. Building a deck bottom-up is the inverse. First, figure out what kind of resource engine the deck will be able to play, what sort of answers, what natural synergies crop up and if there is a theme these synergies make possible. For bottom-up deckbuilding, you first decide whether or not you will play counterspells, then decide what win-condition counterspells support.
If you have an idea for a deck, you've likely already chosen whether you will be building bottom-up or top-down. If your idea is something like "Use Intuition to assemble a certain winning pile in mono-blue," you will be building top-down. If your idea is something like "Use the token-creating spells in Red and White to put lots of permanents on the board, then use stax effects like Tangle Wire to get mana advantage," you'll be building bottom-up. Either way, it's important to keep in mind that these two methods are two ways to achieve the same means - the optimal build of the deck will look the same either way. It's just a matter of getting there.
The first thing I do when brewing is do research on similar decks. If I'm building storm, I'll go take a look at what existing storm decks use as wincons, ramp, counterspells, et cetera. Generally, many of these ideas will translate well into the new deck. Don't be afraid to ask existing experts on a certain style of deck and how the general principles of that deck can be applied to the deck you're creating. Eventually, you'll move on to the tuning stage.
Tuning
Now that you've picked a deck, you'll want to move on to the tuning process. Tuning is finding different packages of cards that work - seeing if a High Tide engine works in your build, for example, or testing a graveyard subtheme. There are lots of resources online for tuning, but unfortunately there is no replacement for gameplay. There are two reasons, only one of which concerns us here - playtesting allows you to see your cards in action and how they interact with other cards. Mental Misstep is a classic example of a card that seems bad in theory, but is much better in practice. You don't realize how many important spells are one mana - High Tide, Reanimate, and even your opponents' counterspells. However, if your playgroup doesn't have many of these cards floating around, Mental Misstep shouldn't be in your deck. Similarly, if all the creature-based decks in your meta are black, Snuff Out will do less work than Murderous Cut.
As you play your first few games, you'll want to notice which strategies work for you and which don't. Even if it is a strategy that is theoretically sound, we don't want you playing it if it doesn't work for you. This is a common mistake that many EDH scrubs make - playing the theoretically good cards when it is safer to play simpler, more manageable cards. Cut the strategies that don't work for you - we can reintroduce them when you're a more experienced pilot. As for now, you need to focus on becoming comfortable with the basic themes of the deck.
At the same time, don't be afraid to try out your own ideas! Maybe hold off a few weeks until you really get the deck, but creativity is a resource - use it. I've been tuning my signature deck for a little bit over two years, and still I regularly make changes. Even if you take a very well-known and explored deck, there are bound to be ideas - good ideas - that haven't been tested yet. It usually doesn't work out, but the few times it does more than makes up for it.
Eventually, you'll move on to fine-tuning. Fine-tuning is different from "tuning" in a few ways. First of all, a deck in the fine-tuning stage can be described as "tuned." This is the final stage of a deck-building process, and as such it has to be pretty far along to get there. The primary difference, though, is that the fine-tuning process doesn't involve major changes in the deck package. You know what the deck is trying to do, and you know the most efficient ways to do that. Fine-tuning is simply testing the best cards to do certain things - mana rocks vs mana dorks vs ramp spells, Mystical Tutor vs Merchant Scroll, that kind of thing.
Your deck shouldn't ever be finished. Decklists are living documents. The format is unexplored enough that there's always more tech to test, and the meta is always shifting. I recommend always having a "flex slot" - a card in testing that will be cut. Always keep your eyes open for cards that are underperforming, whether it's because your standards have gone up or due to a meta shift. If you ever feel like your deck is stagnating, try a new card that requires a bit of a build-around package. For example, I recently put Natural Order in one of my decks, which forced me to switch over to a dorks-based ramp package. This kind of forced creativity will keep you moving forward.
Gameplay
On Piloting
Piloting a deck is a significantly different skill from deckbuilding. Deckbuilding rewards creativity, comprehensive knowledge of the format, card evaluation, the ability to think of corner-cases, and the ability to discern how often those corner-cases will occur. Deckbuilding is also a skill that is not necessary to play competitive EDH, though you will need it if you are ever to reach the highest echelons of play. While these abilities will not hurt your piloting skills, you will have to develop a different skillset to be able to use the tool you have crafted accurately. Piloting rewards threat evaluation, mathematical skill, attention to detail, mind games, pattern recognition, and many other skills.
Intuition creates three potential lines of play, but a good
player will likely know which card their opponent will give them.
One important skill to hone is seeing lines of play. A line of play is a particular sequence of actions that accomplishes a specific goal. An action in this context is any decision that you make, whether or not you're actually doing something. A line of play has no randomness - as soon as there is randomness, or as soon as you discover information, a new line must begin. The information can be the cards that you draw, the counterspell your opponent plays, or the result of a random action (like what card is selected by Deadbridge Chant). A line of play may be as simple as "Entomb Jin-Gitaxias, reanimate Jin-Gitaxias" or as complicated as chaining 40-50 spells in your hand to win with Tendrils of Agony. Something like "Enlightened Tutor for Sol Ring, cast Wheel of Fortune, cast Sol Ring" is one line of play despite the reveal of new information (the six cards you drew below the Sol Ring) because none of the discovered information is part of that line. On the other hand, "Cast Ad Nauseam and then win with whatever I draw" isn't a single line, since you don't know what you will be using, even if you're relatively certain that you will get whatever cards you need to win off Ad Naus. To evaluate lines of play, you need to isolate a few variables in your mind. There is a formula I use to determine which line is best, but it's not something you can really quantify. I generally make plays on my intuition, which works well for me, but for a newer player this will be harder. There are many questions you need to ask yourself when determining which line to take. Which line better advances my long-term prospects? In other words, if the game doesn't end any time soon, which line will put me in a position to grind value out of the long game? Which line gives me more resources and more potential future lines? Which line is better against disruption? Which line presents pressure to my opponents and threatens to win the game? Which line stops my opponents from killing me before I have a chance to kill them?
There are a few general guidelines. First of all, if you have a win in your hand and you're thinking about playing conservatively to skirt disruption, generally don't. There are three situations where it's correct to hold on to a win. The first is when you are relatively certain that you will be able to force through the combo in the next two turns. Maybe you need to wait for your Boseiju to untap, maybe you need to cast some ramp spells this turn so you can win next turn with counterspell backup... In this situation, it is generally better to save the win in your hand for when you can go off more safely. (Even in this situation, you should still try to win if you're afraid of another player winning before your next untap.) The second situation is when you are pretty certain someone can stop your win, and that your chances of getting that win through are increasing. The third situation is when your second line is also very powerful, but doesn't actually win the game there. You should play your second-most-threatening line, forcing your opponents to burn their disruption on that. Hopefully, either your opponents will burn their disruption on that and clear the way for your win the next turn, or they'll hold it, and you've resolved your threat.
Another thing you'll want to do that a lot of people don't realize is to do everything as late as possible. Nothing screams "tutor for your gravehate" like a main phase Entomb - do that stuff end of turn. Do all your instant-speed stuff right before your turn starts - instant-speed tutors, cracking fetchlands, Sensei's Divining Top activations... The reasons are twofold. Firstly, saving up extra mana bluffs disruption and generally denies your opponents information, which is good. Secondly, waiting until the last possible moment gives you more information about what your opponents did on their turns when you make your choice.
On Resource Parity
Intellectual Offering breaks resource parity in four-player.
The distribution of resources in EDH is a different beast than in the rest of Magic. In 1v1 Magic, Card Advantage is a useful tool for measuring resoures. Not so in EDH. This is primarily due to the multiplayer nature of the format. Every in-game decision you make should ultimately be based on how that decision effects your likelihood of winning and losing that game. It shouldn't matter how the remaining likelihood is distributed - whether a particular player is likely to win or not. Therefore, for you to trade your one card for your opponent's one card, your opponent's card must decrease your chances of winning by more than the card in your hand increases them. In 1v1, we can ask a simple question - "does that card do more for my opponent than this card does for me?" That Stoneforge Mystic resolving helps my opponent exactly the same amount it hurts me - this is the nature of every two-player zero-sum game.
In two-player games, having a resource is generally identical to denying your opponent the same resource. Similarly, allowing your opponent a resource and receiving the same resource is generally a net-0 action - in other words, it doesn't effect who is likely to win. Of course, there are exceptions - letting ANT and Jund both draw fifteen cards is likely to work out well for the storm player, and many decks frequently want to trade one of their own lands (often Wasteland) for one of their opponents' lands, even when it only produces one mana. Notice, though, that these one-for-one trades are based on the idea of resource efficacy - ANT is able to do more with fifteen cards than Jund, and the Wasteland player is able to do more with fewer lands than the player getting Wasted.
In four-player games, this is not so. Me drawing a card and you drawing a card does not maintain card parity or generate resources equally, since now there are two players that have drawn a card and two players that haven't. To maintain parity, all players must draw a card. Similarly, if I use my Strip Mine on you, I'm now down a land and so are you, but the other two players are fine. In these examples, there must be a really good reason to Strip you, like you have a Gaea's Cradle. The general principle is that giving me more resources at the cost of one of my opponents having just as many additional resources is a good thing. In fact, sometimes I'll be satisfied even if my opponent has more resources, and their likelihood of winning increases even more than mine - as long as mine does in fact increase.
A good representation for that is the card Trade Secrets. This card is infamous in commander for being absolutely broken, and for good reason. It is rarely correct to not just draw your entire deck and allow your opponent to do the same thing. Your likelihood of winning is (on average) 25% - if you're the target of a TS, you're likely in a bad position, so probably less. However, if you draw your whole deck, that win percentage skyrockets! You're very unlikely to lose to any player other than the one drawing their deck, and even if they have, say, a 70% chance of winning that turn through all the disruption you just drew, you have a 30% chance of winning! That's more than you had before, so naturally you accept the trade and draw your library. (And likely lose.) Thankfully, Trade Secrets is now banned, though similar situations still arise when there are two Consecrated Sphinxs on the table.
Another good, and more currently applicable, illustration of this principal can be done with Tempt With Discovery. Since, as we said before, it is generally good to get resources, even if one of your opponents is getting the same resource. But if everyone takes the offer, I ramp four, where everyone else ramps one. If you start doing super scary stuff with your ramps, like finding Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers or Bazaar of Baghdad or whatever, your opponents might not take the offer - but this is only because you are receiving so many additional resources that their likelihood of winning decreases.
This is often why you hear the claim that spot removal isn't good in Commander. This claim is untrue for two reasons. Spot removal is actually really good, and I think every deck should play at least one piece of spot removal. Why?
First of all, whenever your opponent tries to do something, it tends to fall into one of four categories - Priority 1, "must answer," Priority 2, "answer if convenient," Priority 3, "that's fine," and Priority 4, which is beneficial to you. Under Priority 1 falls cards that will win the game immediately (Tooth and Nail entwined, Doomsday) or threaten to take over the game if given enough time (Zur the Enchanter, Consecrated Sphinx). If you can picture the game progressing without the threat being removed but still its controller loses, it is not Priority 1. Unfortunately, Priority 1 objects come along often enough that you will want to get rid of one of the cards in your hand to disrupt it.
Second of all, so far we've only been looking at this from a resource parity perspective. My card (let's say Swords to Plowshares) costs me a card out of my hand, but only removes your one card (lets say Void Winnower) from one out of three opponents - effectively gets me only 1/3 of a card. This is effectively card disadvantage - I lose card parity. We can also look at this from a resource-efficiency perspective. Your card costed you 9 mana, assuming you casted it. Mine cost one. That means on my turn, I might have had ten extra mana that I spent developing my board, or ten mana I kept open to do other things. This is why some cards which provide card disadvantage are still powerful. For example, Force of Will. Not only is this negative resource parity - it's actually card disadvantage! You 1-for-2 yourself, but you get to tap out and develop your board while still keeping up disruption. (Also, few people expect a counterspell when you tap out.)
Politics, Empathy, and Collusion
Fact or Fiction is a card that requires a lot of empathy.
Make sure to choose the opponent that will give you the best split!
This is one of the aspects of EDH that many players from other formats don't immediately understand. Politics has two aspects - the first is when one player uses another as a resource to take down a common threat, only in the context of the game. It's usually a one-time deal, a short alliance to overcome a threat. For example: "Untap my land with your Voyaging Satyr so I can kill his creature" or "Give me the Counterspell off my Tasigur activation so I can save us." The second is when a player purposefully makes plays that keep him off her opponents' radars. Since politics only shows up in EDH (and other multiplayer formats like Conspiracy draft), it's a relatively unexplored aspect of Magic. As such, there are a lot of things people think are "good politics" that really aren't. For example, I've seen people play decks that give all of their opponents resources (often called a Group Hug deck) to try and keep a low profile. What actually happens is that we'll use those resources to kill you (and each other) faster, without a second thought as to whether or not we should kill the player giving us resources. After all, you're giving our opponents resources too. What people don't really get is that politics is really a small part of EDH. Rarely if ever do people worry about making "enemies" at a competitive level. When you blow up my land, I understand that you did it because it was the right play, at least from your perspective. I'm not going to waste my resources trying to "get back at you," especially not when it impedes my chances of winning. Not even Wizards really understands politics.
A much larger aspect of multiplayer games is empathy. I don't mean feeling sorry for your opponents or commiserating with them. In game theory, empathy is the ability to put yourself in your opponents' shoes and making the correct play. If you know what your opponents will do in advance, it gives you a little bit of future-vision. For example, suppose you have a Wrath of God in your hand, as well as a Path to Exile. There's a Simic mage to your right with open mana and a Scavenging Ooze in play, a card that severely neuters your strategy. There are also many creatures on the battlefield that are shutting down our Simic friend and are low-impact on you. Even though it might be tempting to hold on to the Wrath so your opponents' creatures survive (since they aren't hurting you), the question you have to ask is - which is the Simic player less likely to counter? If they do have a counterspell, they're less likely to use it on a spell that actually gives them card advantage and only removes one of their resources, a card that barely builds their own boardstate and only shuts down one of their opponents. The Will of the Council mechanic from Conspiracy makes you think about empathy a little more explicitly - as stated in the article I linked to in the above paragraph, if you don't have a clue how your opponents will vote, you're doing it wrong.
Collusion is when two players have an understanding outside of the game that they will make plays that don't optimize their own chance of winning in order to help each other. Collusion is an entirely different beast from politics and empathy - collusion is cheating. Not in the technical sense, since you're not violating the rules of the game. However, colluding players are effectively playing a different game than their opponents, starting with an unfair advantage. This is the reason I don't think EDH will ever be a "serious tournament" format, or more accurately, the reason it can't and shouldn't be. (There are, after all, a myriad of reasons outside of collusion that stop EDH from being a tournament format in the real world.) The best way to deal with colluding players? Have a conversation about it, and if you're sure that they are in fact colluding yet they refuse to admit to it or stop... collude right back at them. In fact, collude at a specific one of them, and punish that player for colluding. After you and the other (non-colluding) player point all of their disruption at him for a game or two, he'll get that it is not in his best interest to collude, and that partnership will hopefully fall apart. If this doesn't work, stop playing with those players.
Metagame
Until now, I've tried to imbue you with basic principles. In this section, I will talk specifically about high-level decks and how they function. This section will likely give you a good idea of what kind of deck you would like to build. It's important to note that because EDH is so unsolved, this part of the document is likely to become outdated, though I plan on updating it every once in awhile. You should also note that each local metagame looks very different, and each person who plays EDH has biases towards some decks and thinks they are better or worse than they really are. I am not immune to these biases, and I bet this section will be debated by high-level players more than any other. Let's start by discussing the different archetypes and how they interact. Keep in mind throughout this discussion that no deck is purely one kind or another - they are blends.
Control and Stax
Control and Stax decks try to stop you from doing your thing before eventually pulling out a win. Control does this primarily with removal, counterspells, gravehate, and other forms of traditional disruption. Stax decks do this primarily by attacking your resources - denying you mana, discarding your hand, and increasing the cost of your spells. Both archetypes use a little of each others' tactics, and stax-control hybrids are common. Stax decks are generally a little better, and are more common at high-level play. These decks don't want to be playing lots of dead combo pieces, so their wins take a long time to piece together. Sometimes, they don't play any true win-conditions at all, and rely on beating in with whatever utility creatures they have. These archetypes are typically very good against spellslinger and fast combo, but have poor matchups against slow combo and midrange. Some common decks that fall under these categories include Tasigur, the Golden Fang{thread}, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician{deck}, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage{deck}.
Spellslinger and Fast Combo
These decks try and go off before their opponents can stabilize. Spellslinger decks chain a bunch of spells together in the same turn, and typically the only interaction they play is to protect their combo - counterspells and targeted discard are both good in these decks. They often win via storm or with Doomsday. Fast Combo decks have one specific combo that they can play pretty quickly because it costs so little mana. On the other hand, often having such a fast combo comes at the price of late-game consistency. Both builds are jam-packed with tutors, rituals, and combo pieces. A fast deck will aim to win on turn 3-4, though in a real game with disruption, it's often a few turns slower than that. These decks are pretty good against slower decks that wait to take over the game, but often fold to disruption-heavy decks. Some examples include Prossh{deck}, Jeleva{deck}, and Zur the Enchanter{deck}.
Midrange
In classical Magic, a midrange deck is right between control and aggro, and often ramps into fatties, or at least medium-sized creatures like Siege Rhino. I use the word here to mean a deck that focuses on consistency, but many refer to these decks as "(slow) combo decks." These decks often have a graveyard subtheme, since that gives additional consistency. Midrange decks play whatever sort of game the situation asks for - they can fill the role of fast combo, control, or really anything the deck is built to do. Often, a midrange deck will play many combos and many ways to assemble them, so they can threaten to go off at any point, forcing the other players to always leave disruption up. Since disruption is often up, no other players can go off, and so the game continues to go long. Eventually, either there will be an opening to go off, or you have redundancy/protection for your combo. Midrange decks often play a lot of disruption themselves. Most midrange decks can go off in the first five turns, but that's not their primary gameplan. Midrange decks thrive against stax and control, but often have little to no stack control so lose to spellslinger and some fast combo decks, depending on how disruptable the combo is. Some common midrange decks include my own Jarad{deck}, Sharuum{deck}, and Animar{deck}.
Tempo
Tempo is one of the underplayed archetypes, but it's still represented at all levels of play. Tempo decks work towards keeping their opponents down on resources while slowly building their own, and focus on mana-efficiency and positive card parity. Tempo decks play lots of cards that in other decks might look like a "wasted slot" - a card that replaces itself but does little else - but that deck uses it very efficiently. Time Warp is a great example of this. Tempo decks also use counterspells to interact with other decks and to protect their own combos, but use them conservatively, only countering cards that put them in a losing position. Tempo decks have to pay more attention to things like mana curve, average mana cost, card advantage, etc. Some common tempo decks are Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind{deck} and Azami{deck}.
Toolbox
Toolbox decks in other formats are rare, but we've seen them from time to time. The Birthing Pod deck that was played in Modern (and Standard, before that) is the best example I can think of. These decks want to play lots of one-ofs, so their tutors have lots of possible targets. Toolbox decks in commander take advantage of the fact that it's a singleton format, and so any tutor has lots of targets. These decks play lots of niche creatures that are only good in specific situations, like Scavenging Ooze and Phyrexian Revoker. These decks are built to consistently be able to tutor creatures, either with their commander or with one of the many, many creature tutors they play. This way, they'll always have the answer they need in any situation. Toolbox decks use a variety of win-conditions, but usually combo out using creatures in their toolbox. High-tier toolbox decks include Yisan{deck}.
Outside of the Archetype Paradigm
Due to the unique nature of the format - that there's one card that every game will be in your "hand" - there are several decks that don't fit into any specific archetype. These decks are built around whatever relatively unique effect the Commander offers. There are commander-centric decks that are part of a specific archetype, but many of them are not. These decks play lots of terrible, terrible cards that are really good with their commander. Edric{deck} and Azusa{deck} are good examples.
Top Decks
In this section I will go over some common powerful decks. This is by no means a comprehensive list of high-tier decks. There are plenty of powerful decks that I haven't played very much against, which I won't cover. I am writing this November 2015, so this is a meta-snapshot. This section will become outdated quickly, but I plan on keeping this thread as a living document, so it will get updated every once in awhile. I will separate them by archetype, but as I said before, remember that no deck fits into exactly one archetype.
This deck comes from MCR. Last I heard, he was working on a Stax iteration of Prossh, but this is a fast combo version. The goal of the deck is to go infinite with Prossh and Food Chain, making infinite mana for creatures and infinite kobolds, and then winning with something like Purphoros for infinite damage. The deck is filled with mana-acceleration in the form of creatures so that you can cast Prossh as soon as Food Chain resolves. Prossh and his tokens gives you a valuable resource You can make huge amounts of mana with Gaea's Cradle or Earthcraft, draw lots of cards with Skullclamp, et cetera. Further Reading
This is Skuloth's Zur list. Zur is a spellslinger deck. The only win-condition is Laboratory Maniac. This deck uses Ad Nauseam to draw the majority of the deck, then chains spells together until they can resolve Laboratory Maniac and draw their deck, or assemble Doomsday piles and winning that way. High Tide is a very powerful engine that produces lots of mana with untappers like Candelabra of Tawnos and Time Spiral. The deck uses Zur primarily for tutoring Necropotence, which is a plan B.
Jeleva is pretty similar to Zur, trading White for Red. Zur does more for the deck than Jeleva, but red is a better color for storm, giving tricks like Red Elemental Blast and Past in Flames. This deck also has more ways to win than just Laboratory Maniac - Tendrils of Agony and Grapeshot being the main ones. This deck uses its commander primarily for reach once their initial resources are depleted.
This is my list. The idea behind this list is to cast Ad Nauseam as quickly as possible, then chain spells together and win with either Exsanguinate or Tendrils of Agony. The Reanimates are for reanimating your commander, so you can have a bunch of tutors, either to find Duress-type effects before Ad Naus, or to find whatever you need after it. You use Krark-Clan Ironworks to produce lots (20+) mana, and Yawgmoth's Will to do it again. This sets you in a position to win with either Exsanguinate or Tendrils of Agony. This is, in my experience, the fastest deck in the format when you're talking goldfishing. On the other hand, it's not resilient at all. If somehow Ad Nauseam is removed, the only way to win is to use Sidisi to tutor up Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth and an infinite-mana outlet (usually Exsanguinate or Sensei's Divining Top).
This is DigitalFire's Nekusar, AKA Wheels Combo. The main goal is to chain wheel after wheel, generating mana with Waste Not (since wheels make your opponents discard). You can also use Notion Thief or Consecrated Sphinx + a wheel to generate tremendous advantage. Nekusar isn't really important, but he is a potential win-condition. Your main win-conditions are Laboratory Maniac and Tendrils of Agony.
This list comes from /u/Zrifts from reddit. Teferi is a powerful stax deck that aims to neuter your opponent's mana early with a stax piece like Tangle Wire, Stasis, et cetera. From there, the deck will ramp into its commander and use its -1 ability to function through the stax effects, or its +1 to get gas after its resources are depleted. Finally, you will want to tutor up The Chain Veil and use it to draw your entire deck with your commander. Further Reading
This list comes from Madhatter00o. GAA4 is a pretty classical stax deck, based around "taxing" your opponent by making them pay extra mana for their spells. The commander is a perfect example of a tax effect, and also is functionally mana-ramp. Tax effects are extremely effective against spellslinger decks that try to chain together many, many spells in a single turn. You'll want to drop Grand Arbiter as early as possible and assemble a small prison. Keep up counterspells to keep your prison alive, and slowly assemble a combo. You'll eventually win by beating in with your bigger creatures like Sun Titan, Elesh Norn, et cetera, or by comboing with Enchanted Evening.
This is my signature deck. The deck's main gameplan is to consistently assemble a winning combination of cards as soon as there's an opportunity to do so. You can grind advantage slowly or combo out on turn three. The main combo is to put Necrotic Ooze in play with Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion in your graveyard, which can be assembled via Buried Alive + a Reanimate. The second wincon is to fling Phyrexian Devourer to Jarad while it's ability makes it (very shortly) really big. There are lots of other ways to win too. The deck uses fatties to get value of take control of the board until it can win. The redundancy of tutors and Entomb effects means that I can tutor for these pieces at just about any stage of the game.
This is cobblepott_mtgs's list. This deck functions very similarly to Jarad, though it has different win-conditions. The easiest way to combo out is to get any sac outlet and Pattern of Rebirth in play, then using Boonweaver Giant to get every creature in your deck into play. (The link below explains how this is done.) This can be done very quickly, but the commander and the recursive nature of the deck makes for a good grindy game too. Further Reading
This is Jostin123's build. Many people will object to me including Sharuum in the midrange section, but keep in mind that I am not using the word the same way that it's used in other formats. This deck has many, many ways to win, as is the nature of artifact combo - it's hard to not go infinite. The classical Sharuum combo is to use her plus a clone, often Phyrexian Metamorph or Sculpting Steel, to generate infinite leaves-the-battlefield triggers. This fuels one of many outlets, including Salvaging Station and Bitter Ordeal. As before, lots of tutors allow for redundancy, and the graveyard theme allows for a lot of redundancy.
Further Reading (That whole thread is full of great resources.)
This is TheTrueNub's deck. Arcum or artifact tutors assemble one of many combos, and you have lots of play outside of that. The deck can stax out its opponents by tutoring an early Possessed Portal, since as long as you have enough creatures, you only need enough mana to cast your counterspells and you can sacrifice the majority of your permanents.
This deck uses Yisan as a powerful engine to answer your opponents' and combo out with your own creatures. There are several ways to get infinite mana and infinite Yisan untaps - Umbral Mantle and any creature tapping for more than three mana, Concordant Crossroads + Temur Sabertooth + any dork that taps for 3 more than it's cost, and Argothian Elder are three ways to win. You can also assemble a combo that is ONLY creatures with Yisan - Wirewood Symbiote + Temur Sabertooth + Priest of Titania. Unfortunately you have to have five or more elves to make this combo work, but Yisan can find those easily. Further Reading
Well, thanks for reading my eight billion words about my favorite format. As I mentioned before, I highly suggest you check out /r/CompetitiveEDH, a community with all the best EDH players I know. MTGS is great, but unfortunately it's hard to get good advice on a decklist since many of the members here play more casually. As you progress with your deck, definitely share your progress somewhere - there's no satisfaction like seeing other people replicate your decklist with success.
As you introduce the concepts of playing competitively with your playgroup, consider trying to teach your friends. There was a long period of time where I would help my playgroup tune their decks, since they weren't as in touch with the principles of the format. (That's still true for newer members.) Being the go-to guy for deck help will also help you better understand their decks, which will in turn help when you play against them.
I welcome comments and critique on this guide, including on grammar and presentation. I intend to keep this a living document so that it never becomes obsolete. I also intend to keep the thread attached to this live, and will be replying to comments or questions posted below. Again, thanks for reading.
I'd like to say this is a fantastic write up and I appreciate the time you have put into this.
However I disagree with the entire premise. Specifically the "If you don't like X then stop playing with them". I'd argue that is possibly the least competitive mindset you can bring to a table.
In addition competition requires balance which I do not believe you have covered. The only banlist multiplayer has for "competitive" play is one specifically designed to not be competitive.
And thirdly, why play competitively when by your own admission it is not, can not, and should not be a tournament viable format. Where will you get data? How can metagames exist beyond individual playgroups. This style of play does not foster either the type of competitive spirit that exist with a large scale consistency nor does it create a feeling of relaxed 'whatever' enjoyment of traditional commander. It exists for individuals and due to that niche audience I ask this. Why?
However I disagree with the entire premise. Specifically the "If you don't like X then stop playing with them". I'd argue that is possibly the least competitive mindset you can bring to a table.
Which part are you refering to here? All I saw was that you might not want to play with colluders because they are playing a different game and you might not want to play with players who are too easy to beat because you will not learn much. Both of those seem reasonable, so I must have missed the part you were thinking of.
Commander is designed to promote social games of magic.
It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman's agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of a CEDH league @ channelfireball in San Jose. Often, new players would come in expecting a casual game of silly magic only to find out the table is full of cutthroat EDH veterans. A system was put in place to let players know before they started the game that competitive nature is the expectation of the game and it led to far less misunderstandings. It also fostered the best magic playgroup I have been in to date.
Great article. I'm happy to see voices from more competitive groups make themselves heard lately. I love trying to optimize my decks and lately my local FNM has grown up quite a bit in its deck building, but I do think there is quite a bit of misunderstanding out there... even hostility, towards being a spike in EDH, and thus the desire to built watered down decks to fit in in more casual groups.
Great write-up. I don't consider myself to be a "competitive" EDH player, but I enjoyed reading this. I'm a competitive person, but my EDH lists are not designed that way. While reading through, I think that my group very much falls into the 75% EDH style of play. We want to have memorable games without all the feel-bads, but are constantly on a quest to "optimize" our lists by lowering CMC, streamlining answers/lines of play, and overall becoming more efficient. The goal is to become better Magic players both through our deckbuilding and play, but we don't want to make the most cutthroat decks or combo off as fast as possible so we mostly end up in this slow-combo/control/midrange meta (with a few aggro lists as of late) and we enjoy that. The prospect of needing an answer on turn 3 or lose the game in this format is not something that we find enticing or worth our time when we could get that elsewhere, and that is probably the biggest issue you would face in being as "competitive" as possible.
Overall, I like the potential that this format and its restrictions would place on being competitive, but a competitive multiplayer will always be limited in scope, as you addressed. Personally, I'd play Modern if I chose to play competitively, and its really just a budget concern that I currently don't(law school loans are expensive and not to be spent on a Modern deck, but once I'm a lawyer, I'm getting foil Tarmogoyfs).
As Sheldon says, "Build casually, play competitively." While you can certainly improve your deck over time, you don't have to push the relatively non-existent limits of the banlist in order to become a better Magic player by playing EDH.
Great writeup. However, it seems regrettable that the "Playgroups" section is buried deep down past the strategy and deckbuilding section of the article, when I feel it belongs up front and center (mismatched power levels/expectations probably being the biggest originator of whine-threads on this forum) next to Sirlin's "Playing to Win" section. In particular, Sirlin had a lot of good things to say about when/why you should not play to win, and in what manners you might choose to interact with people who aren't playing to win and who you know never will.
I have a couple friends who play competitive EDH, and while I like watching their games sometimes, I find them boring to actually play, so I choose not to build a competitive deck to play against them. No hurt feelings.
While you say that the decks are by no means solved, I could see someone seeing your Decklist section and thinking that those are the only way to build those commander lists. My own Zur list, for instance, is more Control/Stax, and looks nothing like that list; as it uses Zur to pull out answers (in the form of O-Ring and similar) and stax elements (Contamination/Bitterblossom) while digging for combo pieces.
Fully understand that the combo list may be "better" (May not, I dunno; never tried Combo Zur, which means I hate this thread for giving me something else I need to do...), but I feel like the section may be unintentionally pigeon holing certain commanders into certain decks for becoming-more competitive players.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I used to play exactly like this. Except we didn't bother following the French banlist. It was absolutely nuts. I eventually got hit hard by burnout. All the cut-throat battles between friends and the wallet was suffering too. I'm back to "casual." *cough*maindeckworth$500*cough
What stood out to me was your post saying to be part of a playgroup to get better. But not just any playgroup, one to expressly get better and avoid certain decks or players. The best way I have learned was to play against many opponents from all skill levels. Believe me, i have a personal playgroup I prefer to play with. But sometimes I just like heading over to my LGS and seeing what people bring to the table. It is a very valuable thing.
I have had extract in my maindeck for a long time now. But I know when I get into a group like this. The other AN player I didn't hit with it is just going to go off and win.
Awesome write up and a fun read. Now, can we get a CEDH banlist please?
Awesome write up enjoyed the read though I can't agree with hermit Druid being tier 2 it still has the lowest mana barrier to win built into a single card and a wide open adaptable shell in my experbce it's simply boring to play I could agree with it not being the stand alone best deck but tier 2 "come on man" that to me smells like some bad people piloting the deck.
Wow I am not done reading this but INCREDIBLE job!! I love it and I share so many of the same sentiments as you!! When the board gets blown the eff up on T5 with that player having a Jace and Keranos on the board, I'm not mad! That's a great play! I will NEVER be mad at plays like that. I will strive to make my deck better as a result which has gotten me to a semi-competitive point in my deck-building skills! I dislike that sometimes I can't just "play for fun" against jank decks but I will hold back certain broken plays (e.g. play Prime Titan instead of Kiki when I have mana open for VBR or Conscripts) if the other player(s) is having a good time and we're having an interactive game. I am by nature very competitive and I LOVE the fact that I can feel good, or even GREAT, about LOSING games because my opponent played well!
I haven't had time to read through all of this yet, but you seem to cover a lot of points that are misunderstood elsewhere. It's nice to see this level of conciseness on the topic. Looking forward to reading the rest!
Thanks for the great read! I especially liked the parts where you dispelled common myths and discussed the meta game. I didn't know how to classify Azami, Lady of Scrolls (before I would has said something like control/combo), but tempo makes a lot of sense.
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Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My playgroup acknowledges the speed, but we unanimously agree that it is a glass cannon deck (Terribly built). If a player/playgroup is knowledgeable of the deck strategy, the deck is generally a non-factor.
I'd like to say this is a fantastic write up and I appreciate the time you have put into this.
However I disagree with the entire premise. Specifically the "If you don't like X then stop playing with them". I'd argue that is possibly the least competitive mindset you can bring to a table.
In addition competition requires balance which I do not believe you have covered. The only banlist multiplayer has for "competitive" play is one specifically designed to not be competitive.
The way I think about it is "why play a different game than the people around you?" People who are colluding, or casuals who place restrictions on themselves that the rules of the game don't - like "no infinites" - are effectively playing a different game. Since the point of competition is self-improvement at a specific goal, it doesn't really make sense to play with these players. This also implies that this philosophy is only effective against things like casual players or cheaters (colluders) but doesn't include things like "I don't like playing against stax decks so I won't play with him."
In regards to balance, there is a related point. It is the job of the game designer to create a good game, and the job of the competitive player to find the best strategies in that game. I am not a member of the Rules Committee, so it is not my job to ensure that the game is "balanced." That said, while the RC does not pay much attention to the competitive scene, I think the format is rather balanced by its nature, and I think the post reflects that. If you look at the "metagame" section, there are four archetypes, each of which plays differently, and in reality there are more archetypes - this is an oversimplification. If by "balance" you mean that the format is owned by one particular kind of deck, I certainly don't think that's so.
Took me a while to read, but it was well worth it.
Any advice for finding said playgroup would be appreciated...
I sort of created my playgroup, or at least turned them into competitive players as the same thing happened to me. You can try and introduce competitive strategies to a local group and see if they find it interesting. I recommend playing games on Cockatrice until then (but make sure your room is tagged Competitive).
I'd say politics is a useful, even necessary skill that must be honed like any other for this format, but its bearing on your success is ultimately less than other skills like deckbuilding, threat assessment, and tight play.
I'd agree with this. Empathy is a bigger part of the game, and even that's not very much.
i guess a section dividing commanders in groups of abilities can be helpfull to get an overview of edh's potential.
example:
1)regrowth
-xiahou dun
-sedris
-sharuum
everything that grabs from the grave
2)mana cheat
-Sedris
&
-sharuum (will also be here but not xhd)
-wanderer
-arcum
you get the picture. conclusion will be some commanders feature multiple categories - that can be attached with numbers
example
-Zur 3(tutortoolbox/manacheat/staying advantage)
I think dividing up how the abilities of the actual commanders mechanically work gives the wrong impression. You need to look at how the deck functions and plays at a table, not specifically how their commander accentuates the deck. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is a "tutor" commander, but what's more important is that 5c Hermit Druid is a combo deck.
Great writeup. However, it seems regrettable that the "Playgroups" section is buried deep down past the strategy and deckbuilding section of the article, when I feel it belongs up front and center (mismatched power levels/expectations probably being the biggest originator of whine-threads on this forum) next to Sirlin's "Playing to Win" section. In particular, Sirlin had a lot of good things to say about when/why you should not play to win, and in what manners you might choose to interact with people who aren't playing to win and who you know never will.
I agree and will edit my post directly after this.
While you say that the decks are by no means solved, I could see someone seeing your Decklist section and thinking that those are the only way to build those commander lists. My own Zur list, for instance, is more Control/Stax, and looks nothing like that list; as it uses Zur to pull out answers (in the form of O-Ring and similar) and stax elements (Contamination/Bitterblossom) while digging for combo pieces.
Fully understand that the combo list may be "better" (May not, I dunno; never tried Combo Zur, which means I hate this thread for giving me something else I need to do...), but I feel like the section may be unintentionally pigeon holing certain commanders into certain decks for becoming-more competitive players.
While of course there are many ways to build a commander, I was referring more to the deck than the actual commander. This is related to what I was saying in reply to elfric. What you call Zur Combo, many players call Esper Storm, since the commander is not as important as the strategy. I'm not nearly as familiar with control Zur, so I didn't want to write too much about it.
Awesome write up enjoyed the read though I can't agree with hermit Druid being tier 2 it still has the lowest mana barrier to win built into a single card and a wide open adaptable shell in my experbce it's simply boring to play I could agree with it not being the stand alone best deck but tier 2 "come on man" that to me smells like some bad people piloting the deck.
I'm actually really happy to have a Druid player in my meta now. Beast all the midrange decks and loses to control and Sidisi (who usually wins the race), and is just about on par with the other fast decks. Still, doesn't strike me as the strongest.
How do you feel about Ad Nauseam and Doomsday decks? My playgroup acknowledges the speed, but we unanimously agree that it is a glass cannon deck (Terribly built). If a player/playgroup is knowledgeable of the deck strategy, the deck is generally a non-factor.
They definitely have their place. I play a pretty glass canon Ad Naus myself, and it can prey upon a weaker meta. It's the deck I play at side events in big tournaments, since my opponents don't know as much what I'm going to do. At my LGS tournaments (and with friends) I usually play a midrange deck, since it's more resilient.
I didn't know how to classify Azami, Lady of Scrolls (before I would has said something like control/combo), but tempo makes a lot of sense.
This is literally the first time I have ever seen anyone describe Azami as something other than control or combo.
As razzliox said below, though, who the commander is is less important than what the strategy of the deck is. E.g. two different decks may have Sharuum as the commander, but the combo Sharuum will probably play more similarly to mono-black Storm and the control Sharuum will probably play more similarly to GAAIV than the two will play to each other.
I signed in at work to say thank you for this. This is an awesome write-up and I look forward to reading it in depth. This should probably be stickied as well. Thanks razzliox!
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Just wanted to say thanks for the shoutout on the Prossh list. I don't play Prossh anymore, but I will still say that it is a competent glass cannon combo deck Maybe I should update it anyways...
I do feel like you're missing a few lists here, but I also understand that it's impossible to have a comprehensive list of commanders.
I'm afraid, I still don't understand why Azami should be considered anything other than combo/control, or what an archetype "tempo" should be.
I used to have a deck with her (nothing great, but by far the most "competitive" deck I had) - similar to this http://deckstats.net/decks/4485/45153-azami-wizard-edh/de
The game play was basically: ramp into 1+2 Wizards, play Azami (protect her!) and generate so much CA that you will find a combo and win in the next few turns (while using Counterspells and Bounce effects to avoid loosing).
I would call that combo/control...
Combo/control hybrid is pretty much tempo. Tempo aims to win at a medium speed using disruption, typically counterspells, as a backup. They differ from control in that they don't plan on playing a long game and eeking out card advantage, and they differ from combo in that they don't plan on trying to go off very quickly.
Where does Narset fall in here? (Not my list, obviously, but it isn't meant to be the most ruthless)
At a competitive level, Narset is typically built to put their commander onto the board as quickly as possible, and win on the first combat (or at least, without passing turn - extra turns and combats may be involved). Narset is one of those "Outside the Archetype Paradigm" decks that are fueled almost entirely by their commander. Narset plays like a combo deck if it involves attacking with Narset on turn 2 or 3, and like a tempo deck if it takes a bit longer than that.
Azami can fit in Tempo, as a description. A tempo deck seeks to efficiently gain resources and options, while efficiently denying resources and options as the game continues. Azami herself is very powerful at efficiently gaining resources, so she can be a good tempo card.
Azami can be considered a control deck, in that a lot of the 'denial' of resources may come from counterspells and bounce, which is generally bad at efficiency. An Azami deck that focuses primarily on such removal, and doesn't build a board state, would be control.
An Azami deck that focuses on building board presence (with more and more wizards) in order to gain further resources, and build an overwhelming board state (via Wizard synergy) could be a Tempo deck.
Since a lot of cards that generate good resource advantage (Mind over matter, to turn those cards into mana), in fact end up comboing with Azami, some tempo decks may have both control and combo elements. While a Control Combo deck is different than a Tempo deck (primarily in the acquisition of resources), they can be closely related, especially in blue, where a number of cards will be common to both sets.
A quick vague idea is: Aggro - seeks to capitalize on initiative Midrange - seeks to capitalize on value (will typically run out after Aggro, but still seeks to end the game in a set time, and will run out if pushed passed it) Tempo - seeks to capitalize on resource differential Control - seeks to capitalize on denial, pacing and control Combo - seeks to capitalize on a moment of weakness
Most of the archetypes typically fit based on their pacing in the game, with the exception of combo. Combo can apply to fast combo decks, that seek to exploit a weakness in hitting before an opponent manages to set up sufficient defenses (dedicated combo), or it could be a combo deck that seeks to control the board and apply the combo in such a time as the opponents options are more limited compared to their own (control combo)(midrange decks may also have combos within them, in order to take advantage of that moment in time they are at the top of their bellcurve in power, when an opposing deck cannot answer the combo and the value board presence simultaneously), or it could even be a combo deck that seeks to exploit a moment of weakness at any point of the game, such as by causing an opponent to tap out, and using that window to activate the combo.
Due to the large and varied nature of Magic, decks do not typically form as 'pure' to one archetype or another. HearthStone currently shows a lot more division in the different archetypes.
Freeze Mage is a control deck that seeks highly efficient trades, but does not generate value in itself, and does not put pressure on the opponent until they have dominant control (or ever, really). It has a combo-type finish in Archmage Antonidas, with a fallback of a control finish in Fatigue. Tempo Mage is a faster deck that uses cards like Flamewaker, to generate extra value from the spell casting and overwhelm the opponent on a mana-per-effectiveness early in the game. Token Druid can also be a Tempo deck, since it also tries to increase the value of each mana crystal spent, though it is also aggro in that it is trying to force initiative and close the game quickly, before it runs out of options. Tempo Mage has several cards to keep those options flowing. Ramp Druid can also be a Tempo deck, but one that focuses on a later timeframe in the game, since it tries to gain the resources in order to consistently drop threats on turn that exceed the value of the threats that you are able to drop (though it first has to make up the inefficiency of its ramp spell). This differential (in HS) allows the druid to build up a better board, since it forces you to trade inefficiently, until they win. It also has a combo win in case the generated value does not win the game on its own by the time you catch back up to the turn differential that they created. Secrets Paladin is more of a midrange/tempo deck. It tries to get tempo by using cards that benefit each other in order to get higher value, especially with Mysterious Challenger himself; as well as using highly efficient cards like minibot, coghammer, and muster to gain tempo early in high-value trade. It's midrange in that some cards are net lower efficiency, but only made acceptable by the rest of the deck; the deck also has no long term game plan in maintaining consistency, and seeks to end in the midgame.
HS in general is a more tempo oriented game, since the rate at which you gain resources is more closely regulated. You are always trying to maximize your card-per-cards trade in HS.
I don't think tempo should be an archtype. Rather, I look at it as an integral part of a well-built, competitive deck.
While all decks should strive to gain and maintain Tempo, to various degrees, Tempo can describe an archetype as well, in the decks that strive to continuously gain and maintain tempo throughout the game.
An example would be that while an aggro deck would seek to gain some Tempo, their main goal is simply to kill the opponent by the time they exhaust their cards and options; while an Aggro deck would use some forms of tempo (efficient removal, for example), they are primarily interested in capitalizing on initiative - actions that force the opponent to react. A tempo player on the other hand would seek to efficiently build their board state, such that even as the game goes longer, they will maintain a full hand of options, as well as a board state to be able to use them.
That last sentence sounds like it share a lot with control, and to an extent it does - However, control typically seeks to deny the opponents actions, and focuses primarily on efficient answers and prevention rather than directly pressuring the opponent; Tempo seeks more balance and efficiency - it's still running efficient denial, but it seeks to pressure the opponent, and set them on a clock, if able. Control is willing to make less efficient plays, if the net result is a greater efficiency, especially in stall. Control will kill you with a Shadowmage infiltrator, one turn at a time, or with psyhatog (faster clock once it's out, but they still need to find their few win conditions, which might take time). Tempo will kill you with Siege Rhino and Murder (so might midrange, but there are other differences there).
Tempo shares a lot of similarities with both midrange (except it tries to maintain more options) in its efficiency, and Control (although it tries to maintain more efficiency and boardstate) in that it aspires to constantly have to options to handle any issue that arises in the best possible way.
Before I begin telling you about how to play EDH competitively, I'd like to say a few words about who I am and why you should listen to me. I'd also like to talk about why competitive EDH is attractive and what makes it unique from the rest of Magic.
EDH is a social format. For many people, this means casual. These terms are not to be conflated. Social means that EDH is organized and structured around the playgroup. Casual means (or, at least in this context, implies) that winning is not prioritized by the players, but rather gameplay is. When asked why casual EDH is preferred to competitive, many people will talk about a "social contract," or say that specific limitations make the way a game plays out more "fun." This will not be argued against here, but do note that playing competitively is not necessarily incompatible with the concept of a social contract, so long as each person playing knows that all hands are off.
Why CEDH?
Let us discuss what it means to play competitively. To compete in any form means to attempt to attain a goal that is the inverse of the goals of other players. Therefore, to play competitively, the game must be zero-sum - for one player to win, his opponents must lose. Furthermore, the actual winning of the game must be the players' goal for him to be playing "competitively." A competitive player aims to make his opponents lose. Why is this an attractive mindset to play games like Magic? Well, personally, I like to make progress in my hobbies, and I like to have an objective way to track that progress. It's fun to sit around a table and play relaxed games, but if you play a lot of games, they start to get boring without a long-term goal. Thankfully, playing competitively gives us one - your win ratio. This way, I can make changes to my decks and have a concrete reason for whether it was a good or bad change. I won that last game because I added more gravehate. I lost the one before that because I didn't include enough answers. If your goal is something vague and arbitrary like "having interactive gameplay" or "having a satisfactory game," it's hard to measure your progress. As David Sirlin says in his great book, Playing to Win
Why, the casual will inevitably ask, do you play this format over others competitively? What makes multiplayer Commander more appealing than other formats, especially to a competitive player? Why not leave EDH to those who would rather durdle over hardcasting Eldrazi? Take your Stax lockdown packages and turn two wins to formats where it's appreciated, like French EDH, Vintage, and Legacy!
There are a few things about EDH that makes it attractive from a competitive standpoint. The first reason is that most people who play it don't. While this may seem counterintuitive, having few people who play the game competitively and many who don't means that the format is relatively unsolved. In other words, there may be many strategies that have yet to be discovered, and the existing strategies can be fine-tuned since they are often not polished. This gives significant space for brewers and fine-tuners, unlike a format like Legacy where all the work perfecting the lists is done by a small amount of people, and the winner of a tournament is decided not by who the most creative person was, but who played their deck the best. Granted, there are exceptions where a creative breakthrough can happen in a format like that, but rarely does that occur. On the flip side, in EDH, copying a decklist from the internet is likely to fail, where tuning a list to your own needs and even brewing one yourself is more likely to be successful.
EDH is a multiplayer format. There have been a few other formats that are multiplayer - Planechase, Conspiracy draft, Archenemy - but none have ever been as popular. Many say this is a reason to not look at EDH competitively, but I disagree. Collusion and other bad sportsmanship in politics does tend to complicate the game, and at high-level competition there would be have to be some sort of way to prevent that. However, if you're just playing with your buds and there are no prizes on the line, collusion is not something you will have to worry about. Politics is another thing that many people criticize in competitive games, but when you start playing high-level you will understand that politics rarely plays a role, and when it does it is generally to save the game. For example, a player may say "Give me the Force of Will and the blue card off the Fact or Fiction in one pile so I can counter his Tooth and Nail." Being multiplayer adds an entire level of complexity that many people do not understand the first time they play EDH. More on that later.
Competitive EDH has a wide selection of strategies. No other format in all of magic has the diversity and wide array of different tactics. No other format has as wide a playable card pool. While some EDH staples see lots of play in other eternal formats, like Entomb or High Tide, many are playable only in EDH. This is for a few reasons. First of all, EDH has a larger deck size and no redundancy. In Legacy, if you want to consistently have a reanimate effect, you can play four Reanimate and four Exhume. In EDH, a reanimator deck will be playing several sub-par cards that mimic the same effect, like Corpse Dance, Wake the Dead, and Dance of the Dead. This is also because EDH has more kinds of decks - fast combo, tempo, midrange, stax, and toolbox are all represented at the highest levels of play, as well as other decks that don't fit into any of these strategies. Obviously this means that the card pool will be larger.
EDH is easier to play on a budget than other eternal formats. There are some powerful decks that you can build for less than $100, if you skimp on some of the more expensive things like Mana Crypt and fetchlands. Even if you have all the cards for your deck, you will usually spend less than you will on a Legacy deck - you only need one of each fetch/dual in your colors. A 3-color or 5-color EDH deck that's fully tricked out will be 4 digits, sometimes north of 3k, but a 2-color or mono-color deck can often be completed for 500-800 USD (depending on what's in the deck of course). Personally, I advocate for the use of proxies outside of tournaments, but even without them EDH is generally less expensive than Legacy and of course Vintage. Often the vast majority of the money in a deck will be in relatively unimportant cards, like dual lands, Imperial Seal, Gaea's Cradle, Mishra's Workshop, etc.
Playgroups and Inbreeding
Unfortunately there are few competitive EDH players in the wild. You will stomp 90% of the players at your LGS, and casual players are unlikely to help you progress as a player. This means that it's important to have a playgroup - a group of players at approximately even levels of power that play against each other regularly. This has a few advantages. The first, obviously, is that a playgroup means playtesting. It's hard to find worthy opponents at random, and a playgroup gives you people to play with. They also are relatively static, so it's easier to track your progress as well as theirs. Playgroups have several different phenomena, most of which improve your play. Playgroups also mean you're playing against the same decks again and again, and you are likely to have ideas that will improve your friends' decks. Share them! Not only is it advantageous to both you and your friends in the short run (because you will have better decks if you share ideas), it is in your interest to play against powerful decks that challenge you and pressure you to improve your own deck. If you ever have more than a 50% winrate against your playgroup in four-man games, you're probably not doing enough to help your friends progress (or you're playing with people who don't want to progress, in which case you ought to find a better playgroup). If you don't have a regular playgroup, try Cockatrice.
Playgroups come at a cost, though - inbreeding. In game theory, this is often called donkeyspace. Inbreeding is when a player starts playing specific cards or strategies because they are good against strategies s/he faces often in the playgroup. For example, imagine two or three powerful decks in your playgroup start playing Laboratory Maniac strategies, and protect their Lab Man with an abundance of counterspells. You start playing Sudden Death to put a stop to their shenanigans. Sometimes inbreeding is that specific, and sometimes it is more general. For example, a dearth of fast combo decks will incentivize tempo and midrange decks, where a preponderance of them will incentivize control, stax, and even faster combo decks.
Inbreeding is not a bad thing. It is, by definition, suboptimal play. "Optimal" here is defined as least exploitable. You will sometimes want to play in a way that leaves you open to exploitation when you think that your suboptimal play won't be exploited - or at least that you'll get more out of exploiting others than you will lose from getting exploited. If the only way you find to get a leg up on the more powerful decks in your meta is to play answers that are specific to them, I wouldn't advise you not to. However, it's important to keep in mind that as you tune your deck to meet the demands of your playgroup, it's likely to worsen your deck against matchups you didn't tune against. You'll be kicking yourself for including Sudden Death when you get combo'd out by a creature with toughness five.
Dispelling Common Myths
In this section, I will discuss several common beliefs about Competitive EDH, what specifically is incorrect about them, and why I believe them to be false. I do this in the introduction because I believe it is important that the reader realizes that what CEDH looks like in practice is perhaps very different from what you have been told, or read online.
Every deck is secondary to Hermit Druid combo. For those not in the know, Hermit Druid combo is a five-color deck (sometimes it shows up in BUG) that focuses on putting its namesake card in play and activating it. Since the deck plays no basic lands, it will now combo out with all the pieces conveniently placed in its graveyard. (This is why the card is banned in Legacy.) This myth comes from the fact that Hermit Druid was once a terrifying behemoth, and probably the best deck in the format - back in 2010. Since then, the meta has evolved, and the format is no longer "fastest deck wins." Now, there are several other meaningful factors, and Hermit Druid is no longer the fastest deck. Generally it considered a second-tier deck among competitive players.
CEDH is just a race to see who combos first, with little to no disruption. This is a variant on the first myth, which couldn't be further from the truth. While there are many powerful combo decks that plan to race, the format is filled with different archetypes. Since the fast combo decks are weak to disruption, a meta filled with them will be wrecked by the first stax player who walks in. (Interestingly, the same players who complain about there being no disruption will often complain about how stax stops them from playing how they want to play.)
{X Deck} consistently goes off turn 2. No, it doesn't. To say a deck "consistently" does something means it does it in the majority of games - that when it isn't able to do that thing, it's surprising. There are a few decks that win on turn 2 occasionally, but none of them are good enough to do it consistently. The fastest deck in the format is probably Sidisi, Undead Vizier ANT or some other storm variant, which go off on turn three/four ON AVERAGE, turn 5 consistently (typically). If it were true that a certain deck could consistently go off turn 2, the format would be that deck and decks tailored to beat specifically it, with tonnes of cheap interaction like Swan Song, Mental Misstep, et cetera.
75% decks can keep up with Competitive EDH decks. For those unaware, the 75% philosophy is one spearheaded by Jason Alt, and the summary can be found here. In a nutshell, a 75% deck is designed to be able to keep up with competitive decks while not being so powerful that it completely steamrolls casual players. The problem is that, frankly, that's impossible. Imagine if I told you I wanted to build a Legacy deck that could play real games with other Legacy decks, while still not being so powerful that it steamrolls kitchen table players. Impossible, right? The power difference is simply too vast - if your deck can consistently play on a similar playing field as mine, it will wreck casual players. The 75% movement has some merit, but attempting to stand between competitive players and the more casual ones will just end up with a deck that can't really play well with either.
CEDH is not and cannot be fun. I get this one a lot. "Razzliox doesn't actually like playing - he just likes proving that he's better than people." The problem with this statement is that people are assuming that you can't have fun competing. People have fun playing competitive Standard, competitive Poker - some people just have a competitive spirit. Obviously, many people won't have fun playing EDH this way, but I certainly do as do my friends.
The Multiplayer nature of the format makes competition impossible. This is an understandable thought process. How can you crack down on collusion in a competitive format? Firstly, collusion isn't incentivized unless there are high prizes, and without them it's barely a problem. In a playgroup, if two players are colluding, that's just silly - we're obviously there to have fun, even if our idea of fun is different from what other EDH players think. Colluding isn't fun for anyone involved, and if it is, that's probably not somebody you want in your playgroup. Secondly, as someone who regularly does play commander for prizes, I can confirm that collusion isn't a serious problem and when it is, you can generally tell and inform a judge.
Starting Off
The first step to playing Magic is, obviously, picking a deck. If you have no idea what kind of deck you want to play, and you haven't played much EDH competitively before, it can seem impossible to decide. However, once you have a few games under your belt, it will be much easier to decide. Here are the results to a poll about what is a tier one EDH deck (try sorting by "Most Popular" in the top right corner). Honestly anything on there with 1% of the votes is playable, but not all of it is established or great for a newer player, so try to pick something closer to the top. At this point the only way to really get a good feeling of what deck is good for you is based off your intuition. Think about what kind of games you've enjoyed in other formats, and what commanders seem interesting. You're not locking in anything, so don't worry about it too much.
There are a few criteria you should consider when selecting a deck. The first, obviously, is how the deck plays. If you're interested in long, grindy games about resource advantage, Brago stax is likely a better pick than Jeleva storm. The second criterion is your short-term budget - if you're looking to blow $500 on your first deck, and you're OK with eschewing the most expensive cards at first, you can pretty much build anything. On the other hand, if you only have $50, better stick with something cheap and mono-color. The third criterion is your long-term budget, or how much money you're willing to put into the deck once you finalize it. Many of us have unlimited long-term budgets, but if you don't ever want to have more than $500 in an EDH deck, stay away from anything with blue duals or you'll never completely finish the deck. You should also think about what cards you already have, and which cards for the deck can go in another deck you can build later, effectively reducing the cost of that later deck.
Once you've decided what deck you want to play, at least in the beginning, do some research on it. Read some literature on MTGSal and reddit about the deck, and look at lots of decklists wherever you can. Keep in mind that a lot of decklists are bad and untuned - try and stay away from anything that says stuff like "no combo." This is a good time to make sure that this deck is one you can actually pilot at this level - some decks, especially Doomsday or storm variants, require lots of technical play that is probably not good for newer players.
Take a well-respected decklist and proxy it out or put it on Cockatrice. /r/CompetitiveEDH meets on Cockatrice every Monday at 8:30 EST. After you play a few games, you'll have a better understanding of what EDH is like and what strategies will interest you. Repeat this process a few times until you have a good idea of what deck you want to start off with. Keep in mind you can start over at any point - maybe you play one game with Narset and decide it's not for you, or maybe you realize that when you research the deck. Either way, don't feel like you have to do a bunch of research just because you were initially interested in a deck.
Deck Creation
If you continue playing EDH at a competitive level, you will eventually have an idea for a potential deck you've never seen before. Unlike traditional formats, in EDH homebrews can be highly competitive. I currently own two EDH decks, both of which can compete in the highest echelons of play, and both of which I designed. As I've said, EDH is a largely unexplored format, and the majority of the decks that are considered A-Tier nowadays have been discovered within the past two or three years. Here I will describe the process of creating a powerful deck and tuning it to perfection.
Decks can be built one of two ways - top-down or bottom-up. Building a deck top-down means that you have one specific thing that you want the deck to do, generally a win-con. This thing should be powerful and the thing that your opponents will fear and play around. If you select to build your deck top-down, then your first draft of the deck should pose one question to every card you think about playing - "How does this card support my plan A?" That's not to say that every card you play needs to support one specific gameplan, but since that's the focal point of the deck, it is the most important thing to consider. The question "Should I play counterspells" is answered by asking how counterspells help achieve the one thing you want to do. Building a deck bottom-up is the inverse. First, figure out what kind of resource engine the deck will be able to play, what sort of answers, what natural synergies crop up and if there is a theme these synergies make possible. For bottom-up deckbuilding, you first decide whether or not you will play counterspells, then decide what win-condition counterspells support.
If you have an idea for a deck, you've likely already chosen whether you will be building bottom-up or top-down. If your idea is something like "Use Intuition to assemble a certain winning pile in mono-blue," you will be building top-down. If your idea is something like "Use the token-creating spells in Red and White to put lots of permanents on the board, then use stax effects like Tangle Wire to get mana advantage," you'll be building bottom-up. Either way, it's important to keep in mind that these two methods are two ways to achieve the same means - the optimal build of the deck will look the same either way. It's just a matter of getting there.
The first thing I do when brewing is do research on similar decks. If I'm building storm, I'll go take a look at what existing storm decks use as wincons, ramp, counterspells, et cetera. Generally, many of these ideas will translate well into the new deck. Don't be afraid to ask existing experts on a certain style of deck and how the general principles of that deck can be applied to the deck you're creating. Eventually, you'll move on to the tuning stage.
Tuning
Now that you've picked a deck, you'll want to move on to the tuning process. Tuning is finding different packages of cards that work - seeing if a High Tide engine works in your build, for example, or testing a graveyard subtheme. There are lots of resources online for tuning, but unfortunately there is no replacement for gameplay. There are two reasons, only one of which concerns us here - playtesting allows you to see your cards in action and how they interact with other cards. Mental Misstep is a classic example of a card that seems bad in theory, but is much better in practice. You don't realize how many important spells are one mana - High Tide, Reanimate, and even your opponents' counterspells. However, if your playgroup doesn't have many of these cards floating around, Mental Misstep shouldn't be in your deck. Similarly, if all the creature-based decks in your meta are black, Snuff Out will do less work than Murderous Cut.
As you play your first few games, you'll want to notice which strategies work for you and which don't. Even if it is a strategy that is theoretically sound, we don't want you playing it if it doesn't work for you. This is a common mistake that many EDH scrubs make - playing the theoretically good cards when it is safer to play simpler, more manageable cards. Cut the strategies that don't work for you - we can reintroduce them when you're a more experienced pilot. As for now, you need to focus on becoming comfortable with the basic themes of the deck.
At the same time, don't be afraid to try out your own ideas! Maybe hold off a few weeks until you really get the deck, but creativity is a resource - use it. I've been tuning my signature deck for a little bit over two years, and still I regularly make changes. Even if you take a very well-known and explored deck, there are bound to be ideas - good ideas - that haven't been tested yet. It usually doesn't work out, but the few times it does more than makes up for it.
Eventually, you'll move on to fine-tuning. Fine-tuning is different from "tuning" in a few ways. First of all, a deck in the fine-tuning stage can be described as "tuned." This is the final stage of a deck-building process, and as such it has to be pretty far along to get there. The primary difference, though, is that the fine-tuning process doesn't involve major changes in the deck package. You know what the deck is trying to do, and you know the most efficient ways to do that. Fine-tuning is simply testing the best cards to do certain things - mana rocks vs mana dorks vs ramp spells, Mystical Tutor vs Merchant Scroll, that kind of thing.
Your deck shouldn't ever be finished. Decklists are living documents. The format is unexplored enough that there's always more tech to test, and the meta is always shifting. I recommend always having a "flex slot" - a card in testing that will be cut. Always keep your eyes open for cards that are underperforming, whether it's because your standards have gone up or due to a meta shift. If you ever feel like your deck is stagnating, try a new card that requires a bit of a build-around package. For example, I recently put Natural Order in one of my decks, which forced me to switch over to a dorks-based ramp package. This kind of forced creativity will keep you moving forward.
On Piloting
Piloting a deck is a significantly different skill from deckbuilding. Deckbuilding rewards creativity, comprehensive knowledge of the format, card evaluation, the ability to think of corner-cases, and the ability to discern how often those corner-cases will occur. Deckbuilding is also a skill that is not necessary to play competitive EDH, though you will need it if you are ever to reach the highest echelons of play. While these abilities will not hurt your piloting skills, you will have to develop a different skillset to be able to use the tool you have crafted accurately. Piloting rewards threat evaluation, mathematical skill, attention to detail, mind games, pattern recognition, and many other skills.
player will likely know which card their opponent will give them.
There are a few general guidelines. First of all, if you have a win in your hand and you're thinking about playing conservatively to skirt disruption, generally don't. There are three situations where it's correct to hold on to a win. The first is when you are relatively certain that you will be able to force through the combo in the next two turns. Maybe you need to wait for your Boseiju to untap, maybe you need to cast some ramp spells this turn so you can win next turn with counterspell backup... In this situation, it is generally better to save the win in your hand for when you can go off more safely. (Even in this situation, you should still try to win if you're afraid of another player winning before your next untap.) The second situation is when you are pretty certain someone can stop your win, and that your chances of getting that win through are increasing. The third situation is when your second line is also very powerful, but doesn't actually win the game there. You should play your second-most-threatening line, forcing your opponents to burn their disruption on that. Hopefully, either your opponents will burn their disruption on that and clear the way for your win the next turn, or they'll hold it, and you've resolved your threat.
Another thing you'll want to do that a lot of people don't realize is to do everything as late as possible. Nothing screams "tutor for your gravehate" like a main phase Entomb - do that stuff end of turn. Do all your instant-speed stuff right before your turn starts - instant-speed tutors, cracking fetchlands, Sensei's Divining Top activations... The reasons are twofold. Firstly, saving up extra mana bluffs disruption and generally denies your opponents information, which is good. Secondly, waiting until the last possible moment gives you more information about what your opponents did on their turns when you make your choice.
On Resource Parity
In two-player games, having a resource is generally identical to denying your opponent the same resource. Similarly, allowing your opponent a resource and receiving the same resource is generally a net-0 action - in other words, it doesn't effect who is likely to win. Of course, there are exceptions - letting ANT and Jund both draw fifteen cards is likely to work out well for the storm player, and many decks frequently want to trade one of their own lands (often Wasteland) for one of their opponents' lands, even when it only produces one mana. Notice, though, that these one-for-one trades are based on the idea of resource efficacy - ANT is able to do more with fifteen cards than Jund, and the Wasteland player is able to do more with fewer lands than the player getting Wasted.
In four-player games, this is not so. Me drawing a card and you drawing a card does not maintain card parity or generate resources equally, since now there are two players that have drawn a card and two players that haven't. To maintain parity, all players must draw a card. Similarly, if I use my Strip Mine on you, I'm now down a land and so are you, but the other two players are fine. In these examples, there must be a really good reason to Strip you, like you have a Gaea's Cradle. The general principle is that giving me more resources at the cost of one of my opponents having just as many additional resources is a good thing. In fact, sometimes I'll be satisfied even if my opponent has more resources, and their likelihood of winning increases even more than mine - as long as mine does in fact increase.
A good representation for that is the card Trade Secrets. This card is infamous in commander for being absolutely broken, and for good reason. It is rarely correct to not just draw your entire deck and allow your opponent to do the same thing. Your likelihood of winning is (on average) 25% - if you're the target of a TS, you're likely in a bad position, so probably less. However, if you draw your whole deck, that win percentage skyrockets! You're very unlikely to lose to any player other than the one drawing their deck, and even if they have, say, a 70% chance of winning that turn through all the disruption you just drew, you have a 30% chance of winning! That's more than you had before, so naturally you accept the trade and draw your library. (And likely lose.) Thankfully, Trade Secrets is now banned, though similar situations still arise when there are two Consecrated Sphinxs on the table.
Another good, and more currently applicable, illustration of this principal can be done with Tempt With Discovery. Since, as we said before, it is generally good to get resources, even if one of your opponents is getting the same resource. But if everyone takes the offer, I ramp four, where everyone else ramps one. If you start doing super scary stuff with your ramps, like finding Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers or Bazaar of Baghdad or whatever, your opponents might not take the offer - but this is only because you are receiving so many additional resources that their likelihood of winning decreases.
This is often why you hear the claim that spot removal isn't good in Commander. This claim is untrue for two reasons. Spot removal is actually really good, and I think every deck should play at least one piece of spot removal. Why?
First of all, whenever your opponent tries to do something, it tends to fall into one of four categories - Priority 1, "must answer," Priority 2, "answer if convenient," Priority 3, "that's fine," and Priority 4, which is beneficial to you. Under Priority 1 falls cards that will win the game immediately (Tooth and Nail entwined, Doomsday) or threaten to take over the game if given enough time (Zur the Enchanter, Consecrated Sphinx). If you can picture the game progressing without the threat being removed but still its controller loses, it is not Priority 1. Unfortunately, Priority 1 objects come along often enough that you will want to get rid of one of the cards in your hand to disrupt it.
Second of all, so far we've only been looking at this from a resource parity perspective. My card (let's say Swords to Plowshares) costs me a card out of my hand, but only removes your one card (lets say Void Winnower) from one out of three opponents - effectively gets me only 1/3 of a card. This is effectively card disadvantage - I lose card parity. We can also look at this from a resource-efficiency perspective. Your card costed you 9 mana, assuming you casted it. Mine cost one. That means on my turn, I might have had ten extra mana that I spent developing my board, or ten mana I kept open to do other things. This is why some cards which provide card disadvantage are still powerful. For example, Force of Will. Not only is this negative resource parity - it's actually card disadvantage! You 1-for-2 yourself, but you get to tap out and develop your board while still keeping up disruption. (Also, few people expect a counterspell when you tap out.)
Politics, Empathy, and Collusion
Make sure to choose the opponent that will give you the best split!
A much larger aspect of multiplayer games is empathy. I don't mean feeling sorry for your opponents or commiserating with them. In game theory, empathy is the ability to put yourself in your opponents' shoes and making the correct play. If you know what your opponents will do in advance, it gives you a little bit of future-vision. For example, suppose you have a Wrath of God in your hand, as well as a Path to Exile. There's a Simic mage to your right with open mana and a Scavenging Ooze in play, a card that severely neuters your strategy. There are also many creatures on the battlefield that are shutting down our Simic friend and are low-impact on you. Even though it might be tempting to hold on to the Wrath so your opponents' creatures survive (since they aren't hurting you), the question you have to ask is - which is the Simic player less likely to counter? If they do have a counterspell, they're less likely to use it on a spell that actually gives them card advantage and only removes one of their resources, a card that barely builds their own boardstate and only shuts down one of their opponents. The Will of the Council mechanic from Conspiracy makes you think about empathy a little more explicitly - as stated in the article I linked to in the above paragraph, if you don't have a clue how your opponents will vote, you're doing it wrong.
Collusion is when two players have an understanding outside of the game that they will make plays that don't optimize their own chance of winning in order to help each other. Collusion is an entirely different beast from politics and empathy - collusion is cheating. Not in the technical sense, since you're not violating the rules of the game. However, colluding players are effectively playing a different game than their opponents, starting with an unfair advantage. This is the reason I don't think EDH will ever be a "serious tournament" format, or more accurately, the reason it can't and shouldn't be. (There are, after all, a myriad of reasons outside of collusion that stop EDH from being a tournament format in the real world.) The best way to deal with colluding players? Have a conversation about it, and if you're sure that they are in fact colluding yet they refuse to admit to it or stop... collude right back at them. In fact, collude at a specific one of them, and punish that player for colluding. After you and the other (non-colluding) player point all of their disruption at him for a game or two, he'll get that it is not in his best interest to collude, and that partnership will hopefully fall apart. If this doesn't work, stop playing with those players.
Control and Stax
Control and Stax decks try to stop you from doing your thing before eventually pulling out a win. Control does this primarily with removal, counterspells, gravehate, and other forms of traditional disruption. Stax decks do this primarily by attacking your resources - denying you mana, discarding your hand, and increasing the cost of your spells. Both archetypes use a little of each others' tactics, and stax-control hybrids are common. Stax decks are generally a little better, and are more common at high-level play. These decks don't want to be playing lots of dead combo pieces, so their wins take a long time to piece together. Sometimes, they don't play any true win-conditions at all, and rely on beating in with whatever utility creatures they have. These archetypes are typically very good against spellslinger and fast combo, but have poor matchups against slow combo and midrange. Some common decks that fall under these categories include Tasigur, the Golden Fang {thread}, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician {deck}, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage {deck}.
Spellslinger and Fast Combo
These decks try and go off before their opponents can stabilize. Spellslinger decks chain a bunch of spells together in the same turn, and typically the only interaction they play is to protect their combo - counterspells and targeted discard are both good in these decks. They often win via storm or with Doomsday. Fast Combo decks have one specific combo that they can play pretty quickly because it costs so little mana. On the other hand, often having such a fast combo comes at the price of late-game consistency. Both builds are jam-packed with tutors, rituals, and combo pieces. A fast deck will aim to win on turn 3-4, though in a real game with disruption, it's often a few turns slower than that. These decks are pretty good against slower decks that wait to take over the game, but often fold to disruption-heavy decks. Some examples include Prossh {deck}, Jeleva {deck}, and Zur the Enchanter {deck}.
Midrange
In classical Magic, a midrange deck is right between control and aggro, and often ramps into fatties, or at least medium-sized creatures like Siege Rhino. I use the word here to mean a deck that focuses on consistency, but many refer to these decks as "(slow) combo decks." These decks often have a graveyard subtheme, since that gives additional consistency. Midrange decks play whatever sort of game the situation asks for - they can fill the role of fast combo, control, or really anything the deck is built to do. Often, a midrange deck will play many combos and many ways to assemble them, so they can threaten to go off at any point, forcing the other players to always leave disruption up. Since disruption is often up, no other players can go off, and so the game continues to go long. Eventually, either there will be an opening to go off, or you have redundancy/protection for your combo. Midrange decks often play a lot of disruption themselves. Most midrange decks can go off in the first five turns, but that's not their primary gameplan. Midrange decks thrive against stax and control, but often have little to no stack control so lose to spellslinger and some fast combo decks, depending on how disruptable the combo is. Some common midrange decks include my own Jarad {deck}, Sharuum {deck}, and Animar {deck}.
Tempo
Tempo is one of the underplayed archetypes, but it's still represented at all levels of play. Tempo decks work towards keeping their opponents down on resources while slowly building their own, and focus on mana-efficiency and positive card parity. Tempo decks play lots of cards that in other decks might look like a "wasted slot" - a card that replaces itself but does little else - but that deck uses it very efficiently. Time Warp is a great example of this. Tempo decks also use counterspells to interact with other decks and to protect their own combos, but use them conservatively, only countering cards that put them in a losing position. Tempo decks have to pay more attention to things like mana curve, average mana cost, card advantage, etc. Some common tempo decks are Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind {deck} and Azami {deck}.
Toolbox
Toolbox decks in other formats are rare, but we've seen them from time to time. The Birthing Pod deck that was played in Modern (and Standard, before that) is the best example I can think of. These decks want to play lots of one-ofs, so their tutors have lots of possible targets. Toolbox decks in commander take advantage of the fact that it's a singleton format, and so any tutor has lots of targets. These decks play lots of niche creatures that are only good in specific situations, like Scavenging Ooze and Phyrexian Revoker. These decks are built to consistently be able to tutor creatures, either with their commander or with one of the many, many creature tutors they play. This way, they'll always have the answer they need in any situation. Toolbox decks use a variety of win-conditions, but usually combo out using creatures in their toolbox. High-tier toolbox decks include Yisan {deck}.
Outside of the Archetype Paradigm
Due to the unique nature of the format - that there's one card that every game will be in your "hand" - there are several decks that don't fit into any specific archetype. These decks are built around whatever relatively unique effect the Commander offers. There are commander-centric decks that are part of a specific archetype, but many of them are not. These decks play lots of terrible, terrible cards that are really good with their commander. Edric {deck} and Azusa {deck} are good examples.
Top Decks
In this section I will go over some common powerful decks. This is by no means a comprehensive list of high-tier decks. There are plenty of powerful decks that I haven't played very much against, which I won't cover. I am writing this November 2015, so this is a meta-snapshot. This section will become outdated quickly, but I plan on keeping this thread as a living document, so it will get updated every once in awhile. I will separate them by archetype, but as I said before, remember that no deck fits into exactly one archetype.
Spellslinger and Fast Combo
1x Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
//Land (33)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Bayou
1x Blackcleave Cliffs
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Copperline Gorge
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Forest
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Karplusan Forest
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Stomping Ground
1x Sulfurous Springs
1x Taiga
1x Tarnished Citadel
1x Twilight Mire
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Akki Rockspeaker
1x Arbor Elf
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Boreal Druid
1x Burning-Tree Emissary
1x Chancellor of the Forge
1x Dark Confidant
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Divining Witch
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Elvish Visionary
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fauna Shaman
1x Fierce Empath
1x Flamekin Harbinger
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Goblin Bushwhacker
1x Goblin Matron
1x Imperial Recruiter
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Orcish Lumberjack
1x Priest of Gix
1x Priest of Urabrask
1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
1x Quirion Sentinel
1x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Skullmulcher
1x Wall of Blossoms
1x Wall of Roots
1x Wood Elves
//Enchantment (2)
1x Food Chain
1x Sylvan Library
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Autumn's Veil
1x Crop Rotation
1x Dark Ritual
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Guttural Response
1x Nature's Claim
1x Plunge into Darkness
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Ricochet Trap
1x Shred Memory
1x Snuff Out
1x Summoner's Pact
1x Tainted Pact
1x Vampiric Tutor
//Sorcery (10)
1x Cruel Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Dimir Machinations
1x Gamble
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Grim Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Regrowth
1x Wheel of Fortune
//Artifact (6)
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
This deck comes from MCR. Last I heard, he was working on a Stax iteration of Prossh, but this is a fast combo version. The goal of the deck is to go infinite with Prossh and Food Chain, making infinite mana for creatures and infinite kobolds, and then winning with something like Purphoros for infinite damage. The deck is filled with mana-acceleration in the form of creatures so that you can cast Prossh as soon as Food Chain resolves. Prossh and his tokens gives you a valuable resource You can make huge amounts of mana with Gaea's Cradle or Earthcraft, draw lots of cards with Skullclamp, et cetera. Further Reading
1x Zur the Enchanter
//Land (27)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Hallowed Fountain
10x Island
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
1x Windswept Heath
//Instant (30)
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Angel's Grace
1x Brainstorm
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dark Ritual
1x Dispel
1x Flusterstorm
1x Force of Will
1x Frantic Search
1x Gush
1x High Tide
1x Impulse
1x Mana Drain
1x Mental Misstep
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Negate
1x Pact of Negation
1x Predict
1x Pull from Eternity
1x Shadow of Doubt
1x Silence
1x Spell Pierce
1x Swan Song
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Turnabout
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Counterbalance
1x Necropotence
1x Oblivion Ring
//Artifact (20)
1x Azorius Signet
1x Candelabra of Tawnos
1x Chrome Mox
1x Dimir Signet
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Talisman of Progress
1x Tormod's Crypt
//Sorcery (14)
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Doomsday
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Grim Tutor
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Night's Whisper
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Time Spiral
1x Timetwister
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Windfall
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Dark Confidant
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Notion Thief
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Trinket Mage
This is Skuloth's Zur list. Zur is a spellslinger deck. The only win-condition is Laboratory Maniac. This deck uses Ad Nauseam to draw the majority of the deck, then chains spells together until they can resolve Laboratory Maniac and draw their deck, or assemble Doomsday piles and winning that way. High Tide is a very powerful engine that produces lots of mana with untappers like Candelabra of Tawnos and Time Spiral. The deck uses Zur primarily for tutoring Necropotence, which is a plan B.
Further Reading
1x Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
//Land (27)
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
8x Snow-Covered Island
1x Steam Vents
1x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island
1x Watery Grave
1x Wooded Foothills
//Instant (25)
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Brainstorm
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dark Ritual
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Force of Will
1x Frantic Search
1x Gush
1x High Tide
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Impulse
1x Intuition
1x Lim-Dul's Vault
1x Mana Drain
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Pact of Negation
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Remand
1x Swan Song
1x Thought Scour
1x Turnabout
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Copy Artifact
1x Future Sight
1x Mind Over Matter
1x Necropotence
Sorcery (25)
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Doomsday
1x Duress
1x Gamble
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Grapeshot
1x Grim Tutor
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Imperial Seal
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mind's Desire
1x Night's Whisper
1x Past in Flames
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Reanimate
1x Recurring Insight
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize
1x Time Spiral
1x Timetwister
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
1x Yawgmoth's Will
//Creature (2)
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Notion Thief
1x Candelabra of Tawnos
1x Chrome Mox
1x Dimir Signet
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Voltaic Key
Jeleva is pretty similar to Zur, trading White for Red. Zur does more for the deck than Jeleva, but red is a better color for storm, giving tricks like Red Elemental Blast and Past in Flames. This deck also has more ways to win than just Laboratory Maniac - Tendrils of Agony and Grapeshot being the main ones. This deck uses its commander primarily for reach once their initial resources are depleted.
Further Reading
1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
//Land (36)
1x Barren Moor
1x Blasted Landscape
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Cabal Coffers
1x City of Traitors
1x Crystal Vein
1x Darksteel Citadel
1x Ebon Stronghold
1x Lake of the Dead
1x Peat Bog
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Polluted Mire
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Strip Mine
20x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of Whispers
//Artifact (28)
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Codex Shredder
1x Defense Grid
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
1x Feldon's Cane
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Jeweled Amulet
1x Krark-Clan Ironworks
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Prismatic Lens
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Spellbook
1x Springleaf Drum
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Voltaic Key
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Culling the Weak
1x Dark Ritual
1x Imp's Mischief
1x Rain of Filth
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Snuff Out
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Necromancy
//Sorcery (15)
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Dread Return
1x Duress
1x Exhume
1x Exsanguinate
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Praetor's Grasp
1x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize
1x Unmask
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Blood Pet
1x Hex Parasite
1x Memnite
1x Ornithopter
1x Phyrexian Walker
1x Shield Sphere
1x Skirge Familiar
This is my list. The idea behind this list is to cast Ad Nauseam as quickly as possible, then chain spells together and win with either Exsanguinate or Tendrils of Agony. The Reanimates are for reanimating your commander, so you can have a bunch of tutors, either to find Duress-type effects before Ad Naus, or to find whatever you need after it. You use Krark-Clan Ironworks to produce lots (20+) mana, and Yawgmoth's Will to do it again. This sets you in a position to win with either Exsanguinate or Tendrils of Agony. This is, in my experience, the fastest deck in the format when you're talking goldfishing. On the other hand, it's not resilient at all. If somehow Ad Nauseam is removed, the only way to win is to use Sidisi to tutor up Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth and an infinite-mana outlet (usually Exsanguinate or Sensei's Divining Top).
1x Nekusar the Mindrazer
//Land (27)
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Graven Cairns
1x Island
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Shivan Reef
1x Steam Vents
1x Sulfurous Springs
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Underground River
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Watery Grave
1x Wooded Foothills
//Sorcery (30)
1x Beseech the Queen
1x Cruel Tutor
1x Dark Deal
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Duress
1x Faithless Looting
1x Gamble
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Grim Tutor
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Imperial Seal
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Mind's Desire
1x Mystic Retrieval
1x Night's Whisper
1x Personal Tutor
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Serum Visions
1x Sleight of Hand
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize
1x Timetwister
1x Treasure Cruise
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Whispering Madness
1x Windfall
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Waste Not
//Creature (4)
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Notion Thief
1x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Snapcaster Mage
//Instant (22)
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Brainstorm
1x Dark Ritual
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Entomb
1x Flusterstorm
1x Forbidden Alchemy
1x Frantic Search
1x High Tide
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Impulse
1x Intuition
1x Lim-Dul's Vault
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Pact of Negation
1x Plunge into Darkness
1x Pyroblast
1x Swan Song
1x Tainted Pact
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Chrome Mox
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Izzet Signet
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Talisman of Indulgence
This is DigitalFire's Nekusar, AKA Wheels Combo. The main goal is to chain wheel after wheel, generating mana with Waste Not (since wheels make your opponents discard). You can also use Notion Thief or Consecrated Sphinx + a wheel to generate tremendous advantage. Nekusar isn't really important, but he is a potential win-condition. Your main win-conditions are Laboratory Maniac and Tendrils of Agony.
Further Reading
1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage
//Land (33)
1x Academy Ruins
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Buried Ruin
1x Flooded Strand
1x Lotus Vale
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Seat of the Synod
20x Snow-Covered Island
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Tolaria West
//Artifact (27)
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Chrome Mox
1x Coalition Relic
1x Cursed Totem
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Grim Monolith
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Web
1x Mind Stone
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Prismatic Lens
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Static Orb
1x Tangle Wire
1x The Chain Veil
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Torpor Orb
1x Voltaic Key
1x Ward of Bones
1x Winter Orb
1x Arcane Denial
1x Cryptic Command
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Force of Will
1x Frantic Search
1x High Tide
1x Intellectual Offering
1x Intuition
1x Mana Drain
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Sunder
1x Swan Song
1x Trickbind
//Enchantment (7)
1x Land Equilibrium
1x Mana Vortex
1x Pendrell Mists
1x Power Artifact
1x Rhystic Study
1x Rising Waters
1x Stasis
//Planeswalker (3)
1x Karn Liberated
1x Tezzeret the Seeker
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
//Sorcery (10)
1x All Is Dust
1x Fabricate
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Reshape
1x Savor the Moment
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Warp
1x Timetwister
1x Transmute Artifact
1x Windfall
1x Consecrated Sphinx
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Trinket Mage
This list comes from /u/Zrifts from reddit. Teferi is a powerful stax deck that aims to neuter your opponent's mana early with a stax piece like Tangle Wire, Stasis, et cetera. From there, the deck will ramp into its commander and use its -1 ability to function through the stax effects, or its +1 to get gas after its resources are depleted. Finally, you will want to tutor up The Chain Veil and use it to draw your entire deck with your commander. Further Reading
1x Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
//Creatures (16)
1x Gilded Drake
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Wall of Denial
1x Thassa, God of the Sea
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Aura Thief
1x Academy Rector
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Mulldrifter
1x Frost Titan
1x Sun Titan
1x Consecrated Sphinx
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
//Enchantment (10)
1x Land Tax
1x Blind Obedience
1x Greater Auramancy
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Propaganda
1x Detention Sphere
1x Rhystic Study
1x Aura of Silence
1x Enchanted Evening
1x Omniscience
1x Cleansing Meditation
1x Dream Cache
1x Replenish
1x Wrath of God
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Austere Command
1x Terminus
1x Temporal Mastery
//Instant (22)
1x Pact of Negation
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Orim’s Chant
1x Path to Exile
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Condemn
1x Brainstorm
1x Disenchant
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Arcane Denial
1x Memory Lapse
1x Remand
1x Mana Drain
1x Counterspell
1x Long-Term Plans
1x Dissipate
1x Hinder
1x Render Silent
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Cryptic Command
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Talisman of Progress
1x Sphere of Resistance
1x Winter Orb
1x Isochron Scepter
1x Lightning Greaves
//Planeswalkers (3)
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1x Venser, the Sojourner
This list comes from Madhatter00o. GAA4 is a pretty classical stax deck, based around "taxing" your opponent by making them pay extra mana for their spells. The commander is a perfect example of a tax effect, and also is functionally mana-ramp. Tax effects are extremely effective against spellslinger decks that try to chain together many, many spells in a single turn. You'll want to drop Grand Arbiter as early as possible and assemble a small prison. Keep up counterspells to keep your prison alive, and slowly assemble a combo. You'll eventually win by beating in with your bigger creatures like Sun Titan, Elesh Norn, et cetera, or by comboing with Enchanted Evening.
Further Reading
1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
//Land (31)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Coffers
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Tarnished Citadel
3x Forest
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Strip Mine
3x Swamp
1x Temple of Malady
1x Twilight Mire
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Woodland Cemetery
//Artifact (5)
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Golgari Signet
1x Mana Crypt
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sol Ring
1x Baleful Force
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Eternal Witness
1x Faerie Macabre
1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Hermit Druid
1x Lord of Extinction
1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1x Mindslicer
1x Necrotic Ooze
1x Phyrexian Delver
1x Phyrexian Devourer
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Triskelion
1x Void Winnower
1x Voyaging Satyr
1x Woodfall Primus
//Instant (12)
1x Beast Within
1x Crop Rotation
1x Entomb
1x Krosan Grip
1x Wake the Dead
1x Murderous Cut
1x Putrefy
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Snuff Out
1x Sudden Death
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
1x Liliana Vess
//Sorcery (18)
1x Praetor's Grasp
1x Buried Alive
1x Damnation
1x Decree of Pain
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Dread Return
1x Exhume
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Jarad's Orders
1x Life // Death
1x Living Death
1x Nature's Lore
1x Reanimate
1x Tempt with Discovery
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Victimize
1x Yawgmoth's Will
//Enchantment (11)
1x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Deathreap Ritual
1x Frontier Siege
1x Greater Good
1x Necromancy
1x Necropotence
1x Pattern of Rebirth
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Sylvan Library
This is my signature deck. The deck's main gameplan is to consistently assemble a winning combination of cards as soon as there's an opportunity to do so. You can grind advantage slowly or combo out on turn three. The main combo is to put Necrotic Ooze in play with Phyrexian Devourer and Triskelion in your graveyard, which can be assembled via Buried Alive + a Reanimate. The second wincon is to fling Phyrexian Devourer to Jarad while it's ability makes it (very shortly) really big. There are lots of other ways to win too. The deck uses fatties to get value of take control of the board until it can win. The redundancy of tutors and Entomb effects means that I can tutor for these pieces at just about any stage of the game.
Further Reading
1 Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Creatures (39)
1x Academy Rector
1x Acidic Slime
1x Apprentice Necromancer
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Blood Artist
1x Boonweaver Giant
1x Carrion Feeder
1x Dark Confidant
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fauna Shaman
1x Fiend Hunter
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Grim Haruspex
1x Harmonic Sliver
1x Hushwing Gryff
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Karmic Guide
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Loyal Retainers
1x Peacekeeper
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Reveillark
1x Saffi Eriksdotter
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Shriekmaw
1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Sun Titan
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraban
1x Viscera Seer
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Entomb
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
//Sorcery (6)
1x Altar of Bone
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Imperial Seal
1x Reanimate
1x Shred Memory
//Artifact (9)
1x Altar of Dementia
1x Birthing Pod
1x Chrome Mox
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
//Enchantments (7)
1x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Necromancy
1x Pattern of Rebirth
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Sylvan Library
This is cobblepott_mtgs's list. This deck functions very similarly to Jarad, though it has different win-conditions. The easiest way to combo out is to get any sac outlet and Pattern of Rebirth in play, then using Boonweaver Giant to get every creature in your deck into play. (The link below explains how this is done.) This can be done very quickly, but the commander and the recursive nature of the deck makes for a good grindy game too. Further Reading
1x Sharuum the Hegemon
//Land (36)
1x Academy Ruins
1x Ancient Den
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Buried Ruin
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Crystal Vein
1x Darksteel Citadel
1x Fetid Heath
1x Flooded Strand
1x Gemstone Caverns
1x Glimmervoid
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Marsh Flats
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Mystic Gate
1x Petrified Field
1x Phyrexia's Core
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Scrubland
1x Seat of the Synod
1x Strip Mine
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Tarnished Citadel
1x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of Whispers
1x Wasteland
1x Watery Grave
1x Aether Spellbomb
1x Azorius Signet
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Dimir Signet
1x Dispeller's Capsule
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Executioner's Capsule
1x Expedition Map
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Bloom
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar
1x Mind's Eye
1x Mindslaver
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Salvaging Station
1x Sculpting Steel
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Tawnos's Coffin
1x Thopter Foundry
1x Time Sieve
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Trading Post
1x Voltaic Key
1x Voyager Staff
1x All Is Dust
1x Bitter Ordeal
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Open the Vaults
1x Roar of Reclamation
1x Timetwister
1x Transmute Artifact
1x Unburial Rites
1x Windfall
//Creature (7)
1x Duplicant
1x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Kuldotha Forgemaster
1x Magister Sphinx
1x Myr Battlesphere
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
//Instant (5)
1x Entomb
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Intuition
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Vampiric Tutor
//Planeswalker (4)
1x Karn Liberated
1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1x Tezzeret the Seeker
1x Venser, the Sojourner
//Enchantment (1)
1x Artificer's Intuition
This is Jostin123's build. Many people will object to me including Sharuum in the midrange section, but keep in mind that I am not using the word the same way that it's used in other formats. This deck has many, many ways to win, as is the nature of artifact combo - it's hard to not go infinite. The classical Sharuum combo is to use her plus a clone, often Phyrexian Metamorph or Sculpting Steel, to generate infinite leaves-the-battlefield triggers. This fuels one of many outlets, including Salvaging Station and Bitter Ordeal. As before, lots of tutors allow for redundancy, and the graveyard theme allows for a lot of redundancy.
Further Reading (That whole thread is full of great resources.)
1x Arcum Dagsson
//Lands (37)
1x Academy Ruins
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Blinkmoth Nexus
1x Buried Ruin
1x Cavern of Souls
1x City of Traitors
1x Crystal Vein
1x Flooded Strand
1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Seat of the Synod
17x Snow-Covered Island
1x Strip Mine
1x Svyelunite Temple
1x Tolaria West
//Creatures (18)
1x Dross Scorpion
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Hangarback Walker
1x Junk Diver
1x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Manakin
1x Metalworker
1x Millikin
1x Myr Retriever
1x Myr Sire
1x Palladium Myr
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Plague Myr
1x Scarecrone
1x Scuttlemutt
1x Silver Myr
1x Spellskite
1x Trinket Mage
1x Tezzeret the Seeker
//Instants/Sorceries (11)
1x Counterspell
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Fabricate
1x Mana Drain
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Negate
1x Pact of Negation
1x Swan Song
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Timetwister
1x Transmute Artifact
//Enchantments (2)
1x Copy Artifact
1x Power Artifact
//Artifacts (30)
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Clock of Omens
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Darksteel Forge
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar
1x Mycosynth Lattice
1x Myr Turbine
1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Null Brooch
1x Pithing Needle
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Possessed Portal
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Sculpting Steel
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Spine of Ish Sah
1x Staff of Domination
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
1x Torpor Orb
1x Unwinding Clock
1x Voltaic Key
This is TheTrueNub's deck. Arcum or artifact tutors assemble one of many combos, and you have lots of play outside of that. The deck can stax out its opponents by tutoring an early Possessed Portal, since as long as you have enough creatures, you only need enough mana to cast your counterspells and you can sacrifice the majority of your permanents.
Further Reading
1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
//Land (38)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Cavern of Souls
28x Forest
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Maze of Ith
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Strip Mine
1x Wasteland
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Yavimaya Hollow
//Creature (43)
1x Acidic Slime
1x Ant Queen
1x Arbor Elf
1x Argothian Elder
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bane of Progress
1x Boreal Druid
1x Brutalizer Exarch
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
1x Duplicant
1x Elvish Archdruid
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Elvish Visionary
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Genesis Hydra
1x Karametra's Acolyte
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Nullmage Shepherd
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Priest of Titania
1x Quirion Ranger
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Regal Force
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Seedborn Muse
1x Seeker of Skybreak
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Soul of the Harvest
1x Sylvan Safekeeper
1x Temur Sabertooth
1x Terastodon
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1x Ulvenwald Tracker
1x Wall of Roots
1x Whisperwood Elemental
1x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Wood Elves
1x Woodland Bellower
1x Chord of Calling
1x Crop Rotation
1x Worldly Tutor
//Sorcery (2)
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Sylvan Scrying
//Enchantment (8)
1x Burgeoning
1x Concordant Crossroads
1x Earthcraft
1x Exploration
1x Quest for Renewal
1x Sylvan Library
1x Utopia Sprawl
1x Wild Growth
//Artifact (8)
1x Birthing Pod
1x Expedition Map
1x Illusionist's Bracers
1x Mana Crypt
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Umbral Mantle
This deck uses Yisan as a powerful engine to answer your opponents' and combo out with your own creatures. There are several ways to get infinite mana and infinite Yisan untaps - Umbral Mantle and any creature tapping for more than three mana, Concordant Crossroads + Temur Sabertooth + any dork that taps for 3 more than it's cost, and Argothian Elder are three ways to win. You can also assemble a combo that is ONLY creatures with Yisan - Wirewood Symbiote + Temur Sabertooth + Priest of Titania. Unfortunately you have to have five or more elves to make this combo work, but Yisan can find those easily. Further Reading
1x Captain Sisay
//Land (38)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Canopy Vista
1x Command Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Flagstones of Trokair
6x Forest
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x High Market
1x Homeward Path
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
1x Mistveil Plains
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Mosswort Bridge
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
5x Plains
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Savannah
1x Strip Mine
1x Sungrass Prairie
1x Sunpetal Grove
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Temple Garden
1x Temple of Plenty
1x Windbrisk Heights
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Bastion
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Yavimaya Hollow
1x Academy Rector
1x Acidic Slime
1x Archetype of Endurance
1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1x Bloom Tender
1x Dragonlord Dromoka
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Eternal Witness
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
1x Joraga Treespeaker
1x Karmic Guide
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Loyal Retainers
1x Mangara of Corondor
1x Mirror Entity
1x Myojin of Cleansing Fire
1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Reki, the History of Kamigawa
1x Reveillark
1x Saffi Eriksdotter
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Somberwald Sage
1x Sun Titan
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
//Enchantment (10)
1x Aura of Silence
1x Aura Shards
1x Darksteel Mutation
1x Exploration
1x Living Plane
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Prison Term
1x Stasis Snare
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Wild Pair
1x Beast Within
1x Crop Rotation
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Krosan Grip
1x Path to Exile
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Worldly Tutor
//Sorcery (8)
1x Austere Command
1x Farseek
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Nature's Lore
1x Primal Command
1x Search for Tomorrow
1x Tooth and Nail
//Artifact (7)
1x Birthing Pod
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Mana Vault
1x Selesnya Signet
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Unity
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
This is a toolbox deck that uses its toolbox primarily to control and lock out the opponent. Many of the cards in your legendary toolbox are "answers," like Kataki or Mangara of Corondor. You typically want to put Sisay in play on turn three or four, and tutor for Saffi to protect her. You can produce a powerful lock with Elesh Norn and Living Plane, or loop Reveillark and Karmic Guide and Acidic Slime with Mirror Entity. Further Reading
Final Thoughts
Well, thanks for reading my eight billion words about my favorite format. As I mentioned before, I highly suggest you check out /r/CompetitiveEDH, a community with all the best EDH players I know. MTGS is great, but unfortunately it's hard to get good advice on a decklist since many of the members here play more casually. As you progress with your deck, definitely share your progress somewhere - there's no satisfaction like seeing other people replicate your decklist with success.
As you introduce the concepts of playing competitively with your playgroup, consider trying to teach your friends. There was a long period of time where I would help my playgroup tune their decks, since they weren't as in touch with the principles of the format. (That's still true for newer members.) Being the go-to guy for deck help will also help you better understand their decks, which will in turn help when you play against them.
I welcome comments and critique on this guide, including on grammar and presentation. I intend to keep this a living document so that it never becomes obsolete. I also intend to keep the thread attached to this live, and will be replying to comments or questions posted below. Again, thanks for reading.
-Razzberries
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
However I disagree with the entire premise. Specifically the "If you don't like X then stop playing with them". I'd argue that is possibly the least competitive mindset you can bring to a table.
In addition competition requires balance which I do not believe you have covered. The only banlist multiplayer has for "competitive" play is one specifically designed to not be competitive.
And thirdly, why play competitively when by your own admission it is not, can not, and should not be a tournament viable format. Where will you get data? How can metagames exist beyond individual playgroups. This style of play does not foster either the type of competitive spirit that exist with a large scale consistency nor does it create a feeling of relaxed 'whatever' enjoyment of traditional commander. It exists for individuals and due to that niche audience I ask this. Why?
Which part are you refering to here? All I saw was that you might not want to play with colluders because they are playing a different game and you might not want to play with players who are too easy to beat because you will not learn much. Both of those seem reasonable, so I must have missed the part you were thinking of.
Great article. I'm happy to see voices from more competitive groups make themselves heard lately. I love trying to optimize my decks and lately my local FNM has grown up quite a bit in its deck building, but I do think there is quite a bit of misunderstanding out there... even hostility, towards being a spike in EDH, and thus the desire to built watered down decks to fit in in more casual groups.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Overall, I like the potential that this format and its restrictions would place on being competitive, but a competitive multiplayer will always be limited in scope, as you addressed. Personally, I'd play Modern if I chose to play competitively, and its really just a budget concern that I currently don't(law school loans are expensive and not to be spent on a Modern deck, but once I'm a lawyer, I'm getting foil Tarmogoyfs).
As Sheldon says, "Build casually, play competitively." While you can certainly improve your deck over time, you don't have to push the relatively non-existent limits of the banlist in order to become a better Magic player by playing EDH.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
I have a couple friends who play competitive EDH, and while I like watching their games sometimes, I find them boring to actually play, so I choose not to build a competitive deck to play against them. No hurt feelings.
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While you say that the decks are by no means solved, I could see someone seeing your Decklist section and thinking that those are the only way to build those commander lists. My own Zur list, for instance, is more Control/Stax, and looks nothing like that list; as it uses Zur to pull out answers (in the form of O-Ring and similar) and stax elements (Contamination/Bitterblossom) while digging for combo pieces.
Fully understand that the combo list may be "better" (May not, I dunno; never tried Combo Zur, which means I hate this thread for giving me something else I need to do...), but I feel like the section may be unintentionally pigeon holing certain commanders into certain decks for becoming-more competitive players.
What stood out to me was your post saying to be part of a playgroup to get better. But not just any playgroup, one to expressly get better and avoid certain decks or players. The best way I have learned was to play against many opponents from all skill levels. Believe me, i have a personal playgroup I prefer to play with. But sometimes I just like heading over to my LGS and seeing what people bring to the table. It is a very valuable thing.
But I may just e a social butterfly:)
Awesome write up and a fun read. Now, can we get a CEDH banlist please?
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Good lord you kids take this format so seriously hahahaha
GOTTA WIN BRO OR ITS NO FUN
My playgroup acknowledges the speed, but we unanimously agree that it is a glass cannon deck (Terribly built). If a player/playgroup is knowledgeable of the deck strategy, the deck is generally a non-factor.
Keep brewing.
The way I think about it is "why play a different game than the people around you?" People who are colluding, or casuals who place restrictions on themselves that the rules of the game don't - like "no infinites" - are effectively playing a different game. Since the point of competition is self-improvement at a specific goal, it doesn't really make sense to play with these players. This also implies that this philosophy is only effective against things like casual players or cheaters (colluders) but doesn't include things like "I don't like playing against stax decks so I won't play with him."
In regards to balance, there is a related point. It is the job of the game designer to create a good game, and the job of the competitive player to find the best strategies in that game. I am not a member of the Rules Committee, so it is not my job to ensure that the game is "balanced." That said, while the RC does not pay much attention to the competitive scene, I think the format is rather balanced by its nature, and I think the post reflects that. If you look at the "metagame" section, there are four archetypes, each of which plays differently, and in reality there are more archetypes - this is an oversimplification. If by "balance" you mean that the format is owned by one particular kind of deck, I certainly don't think that's so.
I sort of created my playgroup, or at least turned them into competitive players as the same thing happened to me. You can try and introduce competitive strategies to a local group and see if they find it interesting. I recommend playing games on Cockatrice until then (but make sure your room is tagged Competitive).
I'd agree with this. Empathy is a bigger part of the game, and even that's not very much.
I think dividing up how the abilities of the actual commanders mechanically work gives the wrong impression. You need to look at how the deck functions and plays at a table, not specifically how their commander accentuates the deck. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is a "tutor" commander, but what's more important is that 5c Hermit Druid is a combo deck.
I agree and will edit my post directly after this.
While of course there are many ways to build a commander, I was referring more to the deck than the actual commander. This is related to what I was saying in reply to elfric. What you call Zur Combo, many players call Esper Storm, since the commander is not as important as the strategy. I'm not nearly as familiar with control Zur, so I didn't want to write too much about it.
I'm actually really happy to have a Druid player in my meta now. Beast all the midrange decks and loses to control and Sidisi (who usually wins the race), and is just about on par with the other fast decks. Still, doesn't strike me as the strongest.
I wanted to include your 5c Omni. Do a writeup and it'll get edited in for sure.
They definitely have their place. I play a pretty glass canon Ad Naus myself, and it can prey upon a weaker meta. It's the deck I play at side events in big tournaments, since my opponents don't know as much what I'm going to do. At my LGS tournaments (and with friends) I usually play a midrange deck, since it's more resilient.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
This is literally the first time I have ever seen anyone describe Azami as something other than control or combo.
As razzliox said below, though, who the commander is is less important than what the strategy of the deck is. E.g. two different decks may have Sharuum as the commander, but the combo Sharuum will probably play more similarly to mono-black Storm and the control Sharuum will probably play more similarly to GAAIV than the two will play to each other.
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Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
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RIP Twin
Just wanted to say thanks for the shoutout on the Prossh list. I don't play Prossh anymore, but I will still say that it is a competent glass cannon combo deck Maybe I should update it anyways...
I do feel like you're missing a few lists here, but I also understand that it's impossible to have a comprehensive list of commanders.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Combo/control hybrid is pretty much tempo. Tempo aims to win at a medium speed using disruption, typically counterspells, as a backup. They differ from control in that they don't plan on playing a long game and eeking out card advantage, and they differ from combo in that they don't plan on trying to go off very quickly.
At a competitive level, Narset is typically built to put their commander onto the board as quickly as possible, and win on the first combat (or at least, without passing turn - extra turns and combats may be involved). Narset is one of those "Outside the Archetype Paradigm" decks that are fueled almost entirely by their commander. Narset plays like a combo deck if it involves attacking with Narset on turn 2 or 3, and like a tempo deck if it takes a bit longer than that.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden EDH
GAzusa, Always in a Rush EDH
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Warlord EDH
Trade thread on MOTL
Azami can be considered a control deck, in that a lot of the 'denial' of resources may come from counterspells and bounce, which is generally bad at efficiency. An Azami deck that focuses primarily on such removal, and doesn't build a board state, would be control.
An Azami deck that focuses on building board presence (with more and more wizards) in order to gain further resources, and build an overwhelming board state (via Wizard synergy) could be a Tempo deck.
Since a lot of cards that generate good resource advantage (Mind over matter, to turn those cards into mana), in fact end up comboing with Azami, some tempo decks may have both control and combo elements. While a Control Combo deck is different than a Tempo deck (primarily in the acquisition of resources), they can be closely related, especially in blue, where a number of cards will be common to both sets.
A quick vague idea is:
Aggro - seeks to capitalize on initiative
Midrange - seeks to capitalize on value (will typically run out after Aggro, but still seeks to end the game in a set time, and will run out if pushed passed it)
Tempo - seeks to capitalize on resource differential
Control - seeks to capitalize on denial, pacing and control
Combo - seeks to capitalize on a moment of weakness
Most of the archetypes typically fit based on their pacing in the game, with the exception of combo. Combo can apply to fast combo decks, that seek to exploit a weakness in hitting before an opponent manages to set up sufficient defenses (dedicated combo), or it could be a combo deck that seeks to control the board and apply the combo in such a time as the opponents options are more limited compared to their own (control combo)(midrange decks may also have combos within them, in order to take advantage of that moment in time they are at the top of their bellcurve in power, when an opposing deck cannot answer the combo and the value board presence simultaneously), or it could even be a combo deck that seeks to exploit a moment of weakness at any point of the game, such as by causing an opponent to tap out, and using that window to activate the combo.
Due to the large and varied nature of Magic, decks do not typically form as 'pure' to one archetype or another. HearthStone currently shows a lot more division in the different archetypes.
HS in general is a more tempo oriented game, since the rate at which you gain resources is more closely regulated. You are always trying to maximize your card-per-cards trade in HS.
While all decks should strive to gain and maintain Tempo, to various degrees, Tempo can describe an archetype as well, in the decks that strive to continuously gain and maintain tempo throughout the game.
An example would be that while an aggro deck would seek to gain some Tempo, their main goal is simply to kill the opponent by the time they exhaust their cards and options; while an Aggro deck would use some forms of tempo (efficient removal, for example), they are primarily interested in capitalizing on initiative - actions that force the opponent to react. A tempo player on the other hand would seek to efficiently build their board state, such that even as the game goes longer, they will maintain a full hand of options, as well as a board state to be able to use them.
That last sentence sounds like it share a lot with control, and to an extent it does - However, control typically seeks to deny the opponents actions, and focuses primarily on efficient answers and prevention rather than directly pressuring the opponent; Tempo seeks more balance and efficiency - it's still running efficient denial, but it seeks to pressure the opponent, and set them on a clock, if able. Control is willing to make less efficient plays, if the net result is a greater efficiency, especially in stall. Control will kill you with a Shadowmage infiltrator, one turn at a time, or with psyhatog (faster clock once it's out, but they still need to find their few win conditions, which might take time). Tempo will kill you with Siege Rhino and Murder (so might midrange, but there are other differences there).
Tempo shares a lot of similarities with both midrange (except it tries to maintain more options) in its efficiency, and Control (although it tries to maintain more efficiency and boardstate) in that it aspires to constantly have to options to handle any issue that arises in the best possible way.
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These are good quick reads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_(Magic:_The_Gathering)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative_(chess)
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek