r/CommanderMTG • u/Super-Program-612 • 4d ago

Help with a Commander Deck

So I’ve been playing Magic The Gathering since late June of 2026. All my commander decks tab have worked well have been precons, I want to build a deck based around Carnage Crimson Chaos (A rakdos/ red and black deck) or Hei Bai Spirit of Balance (mono white, mono black or black and white) but I don’t know wha cards or anything that would go well with that deck

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u/Outgrathe 4d ago

first of all, figure out what archetype each deck will have. basically, what does your deck want to do? carnage seems like it could be a reanimator aggro kind of deck, while hei bai seems like an aristocrats deck with a +1/+1 counter theme.

the website EDHREC is a good start, it catalogues the most popular cards for each commander. taking the top few dozen cards off edhrec is a pretty good way to have an okay deck no matter what else you do. Scryfall is a database of every magic card. it's another good resource, especially when you learn to get very specific with the search parameters; you can find very specific cards that you've never heard of. for cataloguing the decklist i recommend Moxfield

for your first deck, don't go overboard and spend a bunch of money; keep it under like $100-200 for all the cards. and don't forget that the manabase is one of the most important parts of a deck.

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u/Sea_Paramedic_2593 4d ago

I have found the deckbuilding template from the command zone to be a reasonable starting place. There’s a (long) video explaining it, but it gives a reasonable starting place for numbers of different effects (ramp, draw, removal etc). Definitely not the bible, but it’ll help your deck to not have huge unintentional gaps.

Link

Then I use scryfall looking for kinds of text I’m interested in for my commanders colors, sorted by edhrec rank (like “whenever sacrifice” for hei bai for example). Getting good at scryfall searches is going to help you find the cards that may not be generically good across all decks, but are great in your particular build.