Never Built a Bad Commander Deck Again

Somehow, I have been building upwards of 30 decks each year for the terminal three and a half years for this article series. It'south pretty common that for any article, I start formulating a deck I'chiliad building from scratch sometime over the weekend betwixt publishing dates. It'southward a tactic that has worked well for me in the past and generally allows for me to accept a effective nighttime or two of writing once the piece of work week starts anew. This week, I was looking to put together a deck congenital around Yargle, Glutton of Urborg and quite honestly, I was ashamed with how bad the deck was.

On rare occasions such equally this, I volition completely scrap an idea early on in the week. And as I began to try to write nigh my Yargle build, I looked through the decklist and realized that I had congenital a bad deck. There's no need to be also difficult myself though, I think everybody builds a bad deck more frequently than they probably care to admit.

The concluding few months have been very isolating, and I call back this country of elongated isolation has led to people being as well hard on themselves near mistakes. So, instead of trying to revise the list to meet a borderline, I want to use this every bit a jumping off point to  find some catharsis and highlight the value in mistakes.

Edifice in an Imperfect Earth

In a perfect world, yous build a deck is built and bring it to your Commander nighttime to try information technology out. In my case, that was a weekly experience in a few different game shops in Minneapolis half dozen or seven years ago. Almost weeks I would come armed with one or two decks that I had tuned to my level of completion, along with an experimental build, for which I likely was inspired to build after the previous week'due south games. This fed off a weekly metagame among the three to six other people I might have played with in a given week and was a pretty forgiving environment to grow into the larger Commander format.

Some weeks I would hit on something really special, like my Doran, the Siege Belfry deck; but well-nigh weeks were just really bad ideas hoping to coast off how cool I thought Tolsimir Wolfblood might be. When the decks didn't work information technology was rather deflating, since in that location had been this week long build up and it was met with a thud. Resting on my laurels, I assumed that with all the years of experience, my power to overcome this and finally uncover a sound deck idea would almost be second nature. Yet, I nonetheless concocted this mess of a deck:

General: Yargle, Glutton of Urborg

Creatures: Glassy Hart, Crypt Ghast, Duskfang Mentor, Erebos, God of the Dead, Herald of Torment, Leaden Myr, Nirkana Revenant, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Solemn Simulacrum

Enchantments: Cartouche of Ambition, Dauthi Cover, Eldrazi Conscription, Glistening Oil, Grisly Transformation

Artifacts: Attack Adapt, Basilisk Neckband, Blackblade Reforged, Chariot of Victory, Cobbled Wings, Coldsteel Heart, Cranial Plating, Endless Atlas, Everflowing Chalice, Fellwar Rock, Fireshrieker, Heraldic Banner, Hero's Bract, Lashwrithe, Loxodon Warhammer, Nim Deathmantle, O-Naginata, Prowler'due south Helm, Band of Xathrid, Rogue'south Gloves, Shadowspear, Sol Ring, Strata Scythe, Sword of Vengeance, Ur-Golem'southward Eye, Vorrac Battlehorns, Wayfarer'south Bauble, Whip of Erebos, Worn Powerstone

Instants: Diabolic Edict, Doom Blade, Drag to the Underworld, Go for the Pharynx, Grotesque Mutation, Hero's Downfall, Howl from Beyond, Cost of Fame, Supernatural Stamina, Unlikely Assist, Unnatural Endurance, Victim of Night

Sorceries: Chainer'south Edict, Barbarous Edict, Epic Downfall, Exsanguinate, Foreboding Fruit, Nighttime's Whisper, Painful Lesson, Unbreakable Bond

Lands: 28 Swamp, Cabal Coffers, Conduce Stronghold, Castle Locthwain, Ghost Quarter, Myriad Mural, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Reliquary Tower, Shizo, Decease's Storehouse

The intent for this deck was to build a Voltron strategy effectually Yargle, leveraging his high power to deal general damage very chop-chop. But intention and reality can exist different. One of the first glaring issues to me is the non-existent mana curve. To be fair, there are decks that purposefully ignore mana curves and do just fine. I don't quite believe that this is one of those decks. Here, 41 cards fall into the two- or three-drop slots inadvertently. This pattern flaw ways that I left myself with no options for powering through for a win if my commander is not in play.

Additionally, at that place is a lot of mana product, just zilch to put all the mana into. I've overlooked mass removal and I found room for Glistening Oil, simply no other methods for delivering poison. Again, the thought was that past stacking the deck with enough equipment, Yargle would just make information technology happen with general damage. But constructing your deck around a dependency for your full general over synergy is never a good thought. I believe it was Emma Handy who said that in a Commander deck, you don't want to construct your deck in such a manner where it only works if your Commander is in play. This is valuable advice and I don't have it to center enough.

Starting with a Program

Building a new deck can exist very intimidating, I call back that's why striking a wall, realizing that yous've built something that's ineffective can be so difficult for people looking to start out in the format. This is why even if they don't ever feel like they aimed at me, I really appreciate the Commander products that come out every year. This is the about bones form of a net deck for our format and a solid base I have recommended to many seasoned Standard and Modern players who are looking to dip their toe into our casual format.

Of form, when yous want to build around the Arasta of the Endless Web you just pulled out of a pack, aggregate sites like EDHrec exist. There's really no shame in looking at what works, I will confer with EDHrec when I'grand trying to figure out the concluding $.25 of an unruly deck. You may unintentionally miss out on hidden gems that are just not going to come upwardly when the hive mind builds an efficient deck. But in an effort to find something that matches the power level you're looking for, information technology's wise to go a second opinion.

This will ultimately only get you then far, as even a deck built by a hive listen is not always going to be platonic. Only because Swords to Plowshares and Demonic Tutor are the virtually popular cards within their color, that doesn't mean they fit into every deck. And I think fifty-fifty players who use the product or more than traditional forms of net decking know that this isn't something permanent, that at some point they're going to let their own ideas take flight.

Finding Your Groove

Taking my deck this week as an example, I wanted to build a deck built effectually a vanilla animate being every bit my full general. That's a pretty simple idea and comes with some challenge. To overcome and meet that claiming required me to dedicate more infinite to granting my general flying, trample, and lifelink while also finding other means to draw cards. Due to this tunnel vision, I wound upward in a place where my deck does a lot of things, but none peculiarly well.

While this process tin can often exist easier said than done, in that location can be a feeling of achievement when things come together. I one time wanted to construct a decklist that recreated the feeling of the Caw Blade deck within the confines of Commander. For the proper feel of the deck, I had to get through and define that deck for the correct attributes—ultimately equally refined consistency, tutoring, disruption, and a high threat density—to be able to identify the right general and back up cards to see my vision through.

On a dissimilar occasion, I wanted to build a deck where my general was Invisible Stalker. From the onset, I tried out a lot of mono blue generals before ultimately building a mono black deck around Cao Ren, Wei Commander, afterward identifying the power of saboteur effects. The Cao Ren deck definitely compares closely to the process of my Yargle deck, in that things didn't really come together on the first or second typhoon. Both of these decks would non accept been constitute without accepting that mistakes might be made forth the style.

Making Useful Mistakes

I would like to close by discussing mistakes a petty fleck more. Every bit somebody who has gone through the process of edifice Magic decks, along with beingness a graphic designer; I tin can say that mistakes have been stigmatized to the point of beingness a hindrance. Throughout my adult life, I've found a lot of people are afraid to exist wrong. In truth, mistakes can be very useful.

The Tolsimir Wolfblood deck I alluded to earlier was a rough attempt to build a wolves tribal deck. The tribe had never really had a lot of support, but the original Innistrad cake had given enough support that I felt that something might be at that place. Of grade, my first mistake was building a Selesnya deck for a tribe that was being supported in Gruul colors. Even today, I don't know what I was thinking. Just from that experience, I discovered Trostani, Selesnya'due south Vox, originally a back up spell, which somewhen took over equally the general. I had found that I was getting more use out of the little bits of life gain and the power to generate tokens than a single legendary creature token was worth.

From this discovery, eventually I spit the deck in 2. Yasova Dragonclaw was printed, giving wolves an anarchistic general that I was very happy with, while leaving Trostani behind to transform into a quirky squirrels deck. I honestly don't believe that either of these decks would exist in the form that they before long are if I had not made the mistake of trying to build a tribal deck in the incorrect color pair. This is why I can wait at a decklist I synthetic, realize information technology'south terrible, and express mirth. There will always be some other deck to build, some other chance to right the wrongs, and perchance, something fruitful will blossom from it. Next time you make a terrible fault, I hope you can find the fun in information technology regardless likewise.

Ryan Sainio  is a Graphic Designer who writes virtually EDH and the EDH customs. He has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 7th Edition in 2002 and values flavorful and fun gameplay over competitively optimized decks.

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Source: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/10/so-you-built-a-bad-commander-deck/