In a format with 99 cards in your deck and each only a single copy (except basic lands), you have a 7.07% chance to get any given card in your deck off of the first 7 cards you draw at the beginning of the game. With this in mind, how is it that my opponent seems to explode out with the perfect mana curve while I’m just saying “land, pass”?
During my time playing commander, I’ve both been the person saying land pass, and the person exploding out of nowhere early on. There’s a lot more variance in deck building in commander compared to any other format due to the fact that you have 99 cards in your deck and only single copies of anything but basic lands, and this can be reflective in gameplay especially if a deck focuses too much in one area and neglects another area on deck building.
One of the most common offenders of this that I’ve seen often is that players do not pay attention to or round out the staples of any commander deck. These staples are essential to the function of ANY commander deck and are prevalent in one form or another in all successful decks. In this article, I’ll look to outline what’s given me success in building commander decks and what I always look to include and keep in mind when building a new deck, regardless of the archetype! These staples are as follows:
Ramp - being able to have more mana available than your opponents is key to being able to overrun your opponents and better deal with multiple threats. Everyone who’s played the commander format knows how devastating it can be for your opponent to drop down a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mana Vault/Crypt. In a multiplayer format, you have to work to be ahead of usually at least 3 other people instead of the traditional 1. This means having more access to mana to cast spells is essential in taking over a game. Ramp comes in many forms, green being the best color for it with many sorcery spells like Kodama’s Reach, Rampant Growth, and Tempt with Discovery to quickly put more lands from their deck directly into play or their hand. Another popular method of ramp is Mana Dorks (creatures that tap for mana) as some creature based decks benefit from having creatures on the battlefield, or the commanders colors might not accommodate for other ramp methods.
Popular ramp creatures like Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch, Burnished Hart, and Solemn Simulacrum have always been prevalent in the format and will most likely continue to be for quite some time!
There are other cards that can ‘fix’ your land drops. These are cards that allow lands from your deck to go to your hand, effectively fixing your problem of hitting land drops each turn and allowing you to more consistently draw permanents from your deck instead of land drops. Cards like Land Tax, Tithe, Wayfarer's bauble, Travellers Amulet and Armillary Sphere all are great cards for this exact effect.
By being able to play more spells or powerful spells earlier on, players are able to improve the consistency of their draws (done through drawing more non-land cards by putting more lands in play).
Draw spells/engines - the rather innocuous effect of drawing cards can literally mean the difference between winning and losing in most games. Like explained previously with mana, your ability to win is not determined by just beating one person but rather 3 or more. This means having access to more mana will make it so you can play more spells; but what use is that mana to you if you’re just top-decking the entire game? Having a grip of cards to play from your hand assures that if you get put behind by other players destroying your stuff that you’ll be able to pick right back up and begin accelerating again. Draw engines are usually single cards that allow you to draw cards of multiple turns or through triggering an effect. Popular/efficient draw engines are Rystic Study, Mystic Remora, Phyrexian Arena, and Necropotence. Popular/efficient draw spells include Dig Through Time, Ponder, Sirum Vissions, Gitaxian Probe, Read the Bones, and Harmonize.
One of the most under appreciated advantages for most newer players in a game of commander is card advantage. Next time you’re in a commander game, try to keep track of each opponent's amount of cards in hand, and I guarantee that if that player is casting a spell a and they have 5 or more cards in hand on average each turn cycle that they are in a commanding position in the game.
I’d also like to clarify that technically speaking, card draw really is considered actual draw when the draw spells more than 1 card. The reason for this is that if it takes you 1 card to draw 1 card, then you still have the same amount of cards in hand resulting in no card advantage gained. Spells like Gitaxian probe and Ponder are good 1 draw cards that don’t give you card advantage but can either help telegraph your own plays (scrying and shuffling with Ponder) or help inform you about another players hand (in the case of Gitaxian Probe) and both of these effects make them more than worthwhile to run in most decks than can run it.
Interaction/Removal - having the ability to interact with (destroying permanents, countering spells) your opponents threats is essential to commander but a lot of players will fall into the mistake of putting removal or interaction that is too expensive to cast for what it does, or has an effect that doesn’t deal with all threats. A big contender for biggest offender to this is ways to deal with certain card types. I’ve seen players jam 10 single target creature removal but run zero enchantment, artifact, or planeswalker removal. The key to interaction and removal spells that do well is 3 metrics: cost, flexibility and efficiency. Cards like Austere Command are 6 mana removal that can remove creatures, enchantments, or creatures 3CMC less/more. This means that despite what board situation there is when you draw this, you can pick the modes that will mess with your opponents the most and leave you in a much better place than having an inflexible board wipe for creatures gathering dust in your hand. Make sure you have a wide array of removal, doesn’t need to just be instants or sorceries as there’s tons of creatures with interaction or removal for your opponents threats like Ingot Chewer, Shriekmaw, and Ravenous Chupacabra.
And then there’s blue players…. Blue does have access to forms of removal like Reality Shift and Pongify which are super good at dealing with threats for cheap, but their main form of interaction comes in the form of countermagics. Counterspells are a part of the blue mantra of playstyle and denying cards for your opponent while only spending max 3 mana (which is what you should be aiming for in a counterspell) to counter massive threats like a Craterhoof Behemoth. A general principle of magic (especially in 1v1 formats) is that the player that uses their mana more efficiently (uses their mana every turn, and uses lower cost spells to remove opponents larger costing spells) will most likely win the game. If an opponent spends 8 mana to cast their Craterhoof Behemoth and you have a destroy creature instant like Slaughter Pact (great card btw), then yes you can deal with this big boi effectively and efficiently but the creatures enter the battlefield ability will still resolve, pumping the opponent's creatures by a scary amount and most likely causing a swift death quickly after for removing their Craterhoof. Counterspells interact with a card before it enters play, meaning countering Craterhoof will stop it’s enter the battlefield ability as well. The only thing that a counterspell can’t stop are: spells with the clause ‘can’t be countered’, or spells that have abilities that say ‘when you cast this card’. The ability that is an ‘on cast trigger’ will still go off despite the spell being countered. Examples of this are the Eldrazi Titans like Ulamog and Kozilek which both have great on cast triggers of destroying a permanent and drawing 4 cards respectively.
There’s a reason why the most efficient removals in the game are usually priced highly like Force of Will, Toxic Deluge, and Cyclonic Rift: because they do a hell of a lot for their costs, they are efficient at removing all types of threats, and are flexible in their use as they each offer the player choice in how they use the removal.
With all of that in mind, I’d like to share a template put together by the great people of The Command Zone podcast on Youtube specifically for commander decks which has helped me tremendously with deck building most especially when I was first getting started in commander.
Keep in mind things like amount of lands in the deck, amount of creatures, enchantments etc all vary depending on your commander and your gameplan to win. Heck, you might even want to run more ramp cards if you’re playing a big spells deck or more card draw if you’re playing more of a control game. The idea of the template is it gives you a point to jump off from, and helps you get an idea of what the shell of a commander deck looks like.
I also highly recommend for both seasoned and newer commander players alike to check out the many Youtube channels that highlight commander gameplay like The Command Zone, Casually Competitive, Spike Feeders, and for more advanced players looking for even higher level gameplay I highly suggest Playing with Power MTG.
Half of the power from your deck also comes from how you play it. You need to know what cards are in your deck, how much they cost to cast, and what your chances of finding them are. By the same principle, this can be applied to having knowledge of your opponents decks and their gameplans. If you know what their game plan is before they execute it, you can proactively work to stop it rather than being dumbfounded when they drop that Craterhoof Behemoth and you’ve got all your mana tapped and nothing to interact with it.
I hope this has been enlightening for players newer to the commander format, and I hope that you will enjoy one of the best formats in Magic and help it grow! Commander games follow a format not shared by any other in Magic’s history and has more subtle nuances like politics, promises, and betrayals that you just do not see at any other Magic table.
During my time playing commander, I’ve both been the person saying land pass, and the person exploding out of nowhere early on. There’s a lot more variance in deck building in commander compared to any other format due to the fact that you have 99 cards in your deck and only single copies of anything but basic lands, and this can be reflective in gameplay especially if a deck focuses too much in one area and neglects another area on deck building.
One of the most common offenders of this that I’ve seen often is that players do not pay attention to or round out the staples of any commander deck. These staples are essential to the function of ANY commander deck and are prevalent in one form or another in all successful decks. In this article, I’ll look to outline what’s given me success in building commander decks and what I always look to include and keep in mind when building a new deck, regardless of the archetype! These staples are as follows:
Ramp - being able to have more mana available than your opponents is key to being able to overrun your opponents and better deal with multiple threats. Everyone who’s played the commander format knows how devastating it can be for your opponent to drop down a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mana Vault/Crypt. In a multiplayer format, you have to work to be ahead of usually at least 3 other people instead of the traditional 1. This means having more access to mana to cast spells is essential in taking over a game. Ramp comes in many forms, green being the best color for it with many sorcery spells like Kodama’s Reach, Rampant Growth, and Tempt with Discovery to quickly put more lands from their deck directly into play or their hand. Another popular method of ramp is Mana Dorks (creatures that tap for mana) as some creature based decks benefit from having creatures on the battlefield, or the commanders colors might not accommodate for other ramp methods.
Popular ramp creatures like Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch, Burnished Hart, and Solemn Simulacrum have always been prevalent in the format and will most likely continue to be for quite some time!
There are other cards that can ‘fix’ your land drops. These are cards that allow lands from your deck to go to your hand, effectively fixing your problem of hitting land drops each turn and allowing you to more consistently draw permanents from your deck instead of land drops. Cards like Land Tax, Tithe, Wayfarer's bauble, Travellers Amulet and Armillary Sphere all are great cards for this exact effect.
By being able to play more spells or powerful spells earlier on, players are able to improve the consistency of their draws (done through drawing more non-land cards by putting more lands in play).
Draw spells/engines - the rather innocuous effect of drawing cards can literally mean the difference between winning and losing in most games. Like explained previously with mana, your ability to win is not determined by just beating one person but rather 3 or more. This means having access to more mana will make it so you can play more spells; but what use is that mana to you if you’re just top-decking the entire game? Having a grip of cards to play from your hand assures that if you get put behind by other players destroying your stuff that you’ll be able to pick right back up and begin accelerating again. Draw engines are usually single cards that allow you to draw cards of multiple turns or through triggering an effect. Popular/efficient draw engines are Rystic Study, Mystic Remora, Phyrexian Arena, and Necropotence. Popular/efficient draw spells include Dig Through Time, Ponder, Sirum Vissions, Gitaxian Probe, Read the Bones, and Harmonize.
One of the most under appreciated advantages for most newer players in a game of commander is card advantage. Next time you’re in a commander game, try to keep track of each opponent's amount of cards in hand, and I guarantee that if that player is casting a spell a and they have 5 or more cards in hand on average each turn cycle that they are in a commanding position in the game.
I’d also like to clarify that technically speaking, card draw really is considered actual draw when the draw spells more than 1 card. The reason for this is that if it takes you 1 card to draw 1 card, then you still have the same amount of cards in hand resulting in no card advantage gained. Spells like Gitaxian probe and Ponder are good 1 draw cards that don’t give you card advantage but can either help telegraph your own plays (scrying and shuffling with Ponder) or help inform you about another players hand (in the case of Gitaxian Probe) and both of these effects make them more than worthwhile to run in most decks than can run it.
Interaction/Removal - having the ability to interact with (destroying permanents, countering spells) your opponents threats is essential to commander but a lot of players will fall into the mistake of putting removal or interaction that is too expensive to cast for what it does, or has an effect that doesn’t deal with all threats. A big contender for biggest offender to this is ways to deal with certain card types. I’ve seen players jam 10 single target creature removal but run zero enchantment, artifact, or planeswalker removal. The key to interaction and removal spells that do well is 3 metrics: cost, flexibility and efficiency. Cards like Austere Command are 6 mana removal that can remove creatures, enchantments, or creatures 3CMC less/more. This means that despite what board situation there is when you draw this, you can pick the modes that will mess with your opponents the most and leave you in a much better place than having an inflexible board wipe for creatures gathering dust in your hand. Make sure you have a wide array of removal, doesn’t need to just be instants or sorceries as there’s tons of creatures with interaction or removal for your opponents threats like Ingot Chewer, Shriekmaw, and Ravenous Chupacabra.
And then there’s blue players…. Blue does have access to forms of removal like Reality Shift and Pongify which are super good at dealing with threats for cheap, but their main form of interaction comes in the form of countermagics. Counterspells are a part of the blue mantra of playstyle and denying cards for your opponent while only spending max 3 mana (which is what you should be aiming for in a counterspell) to counter massive threats like a Craterhoof Behemoth. A general principle of magic (especially in 1v1 formats) is that the player that uses their mana more efficiently (uses their mana every turn, and uses lower cost spells to remove opponents larger costing spells) will most likely win the game. If an opponent spends 8 mana to cast their Craterhoof Behemoth and you have a destroy creature instant like Slaughter Pact (great card btw), then yes you can deal with this big boi effectively and efficiently but the creatures enter the battlefield ability will still resolve, pumping the opponent's creatures by a scary amount and most likely causing a swift death quickly after for removing their Craterhoof. Counterspells interact with a card before it enters play, meaning countering Craterhoof will stop it’s enter the battlefield ability as well. The only thing that a counterspell can’t stop are: spells with the clause ‘can’t be countered’, or spells that have abilities that say ‘when you cast this card’. The ability that is an ‘on cast trigger’ will still go off despite the spell being countered. Examples of this are the Eldrazi Titans like Ulamog and Kozilek which both have great on cast triggers of destroying a permanent and drawing 4 cards respectively.
There’s a reason why the most efficient removals in the game are usually priced highly like Force of Will, Toxic Deluge, and Cyclonic Rift: because they do a hell of a lot for their costs, they are efficient at removing all types of threats, and are flexible in their use as they each offer the player choice in how they use the removal.
With all of that in mind, I’d like to share a template put together by the great people of The Command Zone podcast on Youtube specifically for commander decks which has helped me tremendously with deck building most especially when I was first getting started in commander.
The template is:
10 Ramp cards
10 Card Draw/Engine spells
5 Single target Removal
5 Board wipes/board interaction
Keep in mind things like amount of lands in the deck, amount of creatures, enchantments etc all vary depending on your commander and your gameplan to win. Heck, you might even want to run more ramp cards if you’re playing a big spells deck or more card draw if you’re playing more of a control game. The idea of the template is it gives you a point to jump off from, and helps you get an idea of what the shell of a commander deck looks like.
I also highly recommend for both seasoned and newer commander players alike to check out the many Youtube channels that highlight commander gameplay like The Command Zone, Casually Competitive, Spike Feeders, and for more advanced players looking for even higher level gameplay I highly suggest Playing with Power MTG.
Half of the power from your deck also comes from how you play it. You need to know what cards are in your deck, how much they cost to cast, and what your chances of finding them are. By the same principle, this can be applied to having knowledge of your opponents decks and their gameplans. If you know what their game plan is before they execute it, you can proactively work to stop it rather than being dumbfounded when they drop that Craterhoof Behemoth and you’ve got all your mana tapped and nothing to interact with it.
I hope this has been enlightening for players newer to the commander format, and I hope that you will enjoy one of the best formats in Magic and help it grow! Commander games follow a format not shared by any other in Magic’s history and has more subtle nuances like politics, promises, and betrayals that you just do not see at any other Magic table.