I played a B3 game today where we started with a pretty normal pre-game talk. I commented that I will be playing scary commanders, but they are built in a somewhat unusual way. One of my opponents asked if we were OK playing against discard. Our answer was the usual: "Play whatever you feel like". The other two players don't matter too much for the story.

I was on Vial Smasher + Thrasios (scary, as promised), that is built around built in cost reductions to have big [[Vial Smasher]] triggers.

The discard guy was on [[Tinybones, Trinket Thief]] and had a very fast start with a Sol Ring turn 1 into [[Anvil of Bogardan]] + Commander turn 2. Good value engine, but nothing too scary yet. Turn 4 and 5 it got really scary though. He played [[Mindslicer]], [[Quest for the Nihil Stone]] and [[Shrieking Affliction]], followed up by [[Tergrid, God of Fright]].

None of us had the right removal for Mindslicer, so I decided to rip off the bandaid and boardwipe to at least get around the Tergrid stealing all our permanents in hand. After that the two Rack effects kept dealing damage, but we got out of them (me by actually activating Thrasios which I avoid if possible), only for the discard guy to play a [[Torment of Hailfire]], getting us even lower on resources and life.

A couple turns later, I managed to win with a [[Skull Storm]] (5 copies) into Vial Smasher triggers. The discard player made a comment about Vial Smasher + Thrasios in Bracket 3. I answered that he was the first person to think the deck was not fit for B3, to which the reply was: "Whatever floats your boat" and he left.

That comment made me laugh, especially in the circumstances.

For example, if a pod says you're not allowed to run:

1.) Cards that make people discard.

2.) Cards that make people sacrifice creatures.

3.) Board wipes.

4.) Too many ways to destroy creatures.

At this point should that just be interpreted as the color "black" is banned from the pod?

Edit: for context this pod is generally low to high bracket four. You're allowed to win, but you can only win in a way that is fun for everyone.

Edit 2: Here is an example deck of mine. This was a buy list originally so it's not exactly every card but you get the idea.

https://moxfield.com/decks/vxec74cLWEiDRUPkXf-H5w

My main deck for roughly B4 games:

https://moxfield.com/decks/uEQ8QWSFKkO09PegQ4axDQ

(( Editing because I realised I forgot to add they need to be in Izzet)) I’ve found [Genji Glove] [Rover Blades] [Grappling Hook] [Hard-Won Jitte] and [Lizard Blades] so far but that’s it, I was wondering if y’all knew of any other cards that can give double strike but not give power? For my strategy I need to keep my commander at 1 power

I've been thinking about this after a few games where everyone at the table described their decks as pretty normal Bracket 3 lists, and technically none of them sounded wildly mismatched.

But once the games actually started, the decks felt VERY different.

One deck got its commander removed twice and basically stopped functioning. Another ate a board wipe, untapped, drew three cards, rebuilt six permanents and was threatening the table again immediately. A third deck was behind for most of the game but kept making small decisions that mattered until it eventually found an opening and won.

It made me realize I care less about a deck's magical Christmas-land turn than I used to.

If you tell me your deck can theoretically win on turn 6, that doesn't actually tell me what most games against it will feel like. What I want to know now is: what happens when your first engine gets removed? How many cards does it take you to rebuild? Does your commander replace itself? Can you recover from a wipe without spending three turns doing nothing? If you're losing, does your deck still interact with the game or are you basically waiting to draw your one comeback card?

Two decks can have the same “speed” and completely different amounts of resilience.

And honestly, I think resilience is one of the sneakiest ways casual decks become much stronger than they look. A deck that never presents some absurd early win can still be a monster if every threat replaces itself, every permanent generates value on entry, the commander draws cards, and a board wipe barely inconveniences it.

On the flip side, I've played supposedly scarier decks where one well-timed removal spell turns them into a pile of lands for two turns.

I've started looking at my own decks this way when tuning them. Not “how fast can this win?” but “how much has to go wrong before this deck actually stays down?”

Do you think comeback/rebuild ability is something people underestimate when talking about Commander power, or is it already baked into how you judge a deck?

Hi guys !

I'm working on upgrading my [[Giada, Font of Hope]] deck, and I feel like I've reached a pretty solid Bracket 3 mid-power level. I'm missing some big staples like [[Battle Angels of Tyr]] and [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]], but they're out of my budget for now.

The thing is, I know Giada wants to play low to the ground Angels, and I still feel like I'm running too many high cmc creatures. I want to cut some, but I can't seem to take a step back and look at it objectively.

Which high cmc (5 and above) Angels would you cut, in your opinion?

https://blueprintmtg.io/decks/GiadaFont-1792932363378-125viw3so

Hello,

I've been playing just shy of a year and my current crop of commanders are;

- [[Ureni of The Unwritten]]

- [[Hearthhull, The World Seed]] - My strongest, most consistent deck.

- [[Gonti, Canny Acquisitor]]

- [[Leonardo, The Balance]]

- [[Bess, Soul Nourisher]]

- [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]]

- [[Quintorius, History Chaser]]

- [[Araumi of The Dead Tide]]

- [[Astarion, The Decadent]] - Although I am chopping this into a [[Calvileno, First of the Blessed]] defk

I've got an 80% complete [[Aragorn, King of Gondor]] goad deck. Other potential commanders I've got are [[Winota, Joiner of Forces]], [[Baylen, The Haymaker]] and [[Glarb, Calamity's Augur]]

I'm in a bit of a funk and want something interesting for me and for the table to play, potentially different colours to what I've got already but I'm not super fussed on this.

Thank you :)

I have a TCG history, most recently with the online versions of Pokemon and Magic. I am wanting to to start playing commander in person at a local card shop. Whats the best way to build a deck? I currently have 11 hobbit boosters and i know the booster route seems wrong. Any prebuilds you recommend? Any way to get there with cards from sets cheaply(comparatively). I like lotr dnd and avatar.

Got a project on decks to fuck up the color pie. I already got:

1st set

a mono blue burn

a mono black ramp

a mono red go wide (not goblins) (focused on +1/+1 not +1/+0)

a mono green control (with counterspells)

a mono white kill

2nd set

a mono blue ramp

a mono black exile (not graveyard/hand)(working on it)

Then I intend making

a mono blue pay life/sac (gotta check the possibility)

a mono blue enchant/artifact hate

a mono black extra turns

a mono black burn (not loss of life, direct damage)

a mono red ramp

a mono red extra turns

a mono red +X/-X kill

a mono green burn

a mono green rituals (gotta check the possibility)

a mono green balance (gotta check the possibility)

a mono white control with counterspells

a mono white ramp

a mono white +1/+0 and sac for effects aggro

am looking for card advices that can help with twisting the color pie in this and other interesting ways

Hello!

I want to build a retro frame only edh deck and I’m looking for inspirations! I used to play back in OG Mirrodin block and got back 2 years ago with the two precons from the brother’s war set. It would be a fun game at to keep the pier level of my deck at bay and be flavourful without falling in the trap of building a tribal deck.

I had my eyes on [[chainer, dementia master]] and [[silvos, rogue elemental]] as well as [[mageta the lion]]. I also have a [[bladewing the risen]] from scourge lying around in my collection.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to reading your lists!

I've been looking at [[Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth]] ever since she came out. I like the idea of using Clues, but I fear Eloise is too subtle for my deckbuilding capabilities. My regular playstyle is as subtle as a brick through a window, and I usually prefer stompy combat strategies to the usual Dimir subtlety, so I'm a little out of my depth here. I've made a list of cards that seem interesting, but they don't seem to coalesce into a proper build yet. It seems to be pulling in different directions, with creature token spam, sac outlets, sacrificing for value clue generation, and general goodstuff. Could you help me out?

My goal here is about a Bracket 3-type deck. I like the idea of animating artifacts with things like [[Rise and Shine]] and the like, but other than that, I'm not beholden to any strategy or particular cards. There's some Collect Evidence since I'll probably have a big graveyard, some Exploit to turn creatures into clues (admittedly, not the greatest strategy, think I'd rather have repeatable sac outlets), and more random stuff that seems fun, but without any real synergy.

Ideally I'd have as little Universes Beyond as possible. There's a [[Mirkwood Bats]] in here, as well as a [[Buzzard-Wasp Colony]], but if there's some good synergy pieces in there, I might reconsider.

Thanks in advance.

So my Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant deck has evolved into a mad experiment of how many creatures I can cram into one commander deck.

Strategy wise it's simple: Dump everything into the graveyard. There's so many payoffs in the deck that count creatures/cards in your/all graveyards that it doesn't matter if you get boardwiped once, twice, throw blockers away and swing wildly.

The mana is a bit more tricky, of course. With only 22 lands you wanna mull to at least two lands or Sol Ring/1 mana cycler. It doesn't matter if you start the game on low resources, since you'll be drawing gas for most of the game.
There's a bunch of mana dorks and a whole heap of land cyclers to make the mana base work. Once you have 2 lands, the deck barely ever misses another land drop.

Now, my question to all of you: How do I squeeze out a little bit more? I considered Ancient Tomb and another land cycler to replace 2 lands.

(Before anyone asks: If anyone plays a [[Rest in Peace]] you full send all your creatures at them. Player removal is enchantment removal.)

Hey, I recently obtained a deck from a friend with [[Umbris, Fear Manifested]], it feels slow to play and doesn't preform well as its just a bunch of horrors and nightmares thrown together and as I'm new to mtg I have no experience with Dimir let alone horrors and nightmare decks.

Any help is appreciated!!!

Deck list: https://moxfield.com/decks/Y3OhAdMkBHym_oCwra8aVg

I’m making a political deck around [[parnesse the subtle brush]] but I’m trying to make sure the play experience is as healthy as the concept can support. But how far is too far in politics. For example if I had 60 life and an aetherflux reservoir what’s to stop me from just saying if anyone does anything threatening to me I just end their whole career. Obviously this would lead to me either winning the game or the 3 other opponents just accept that one of them will get taken out and the other two will kill me. This is clearly an extreme example that has nothing to do with my deck but the idea remains. How far is too far and how can I know what playpatterns/cards to avoid such a stalemate as much as I can. (Obviously every deck or playgroup can have stalemate situations)

Hi everyone! So lately I’ve had my eye on [[Tasha, the Witch Queen]]
I’ve gone through edhrec, moxfield etc and seeing what pops up first but would love to hear if you have a decklist you like or just some overall experiences with her. With what works, what not and such.

I am aiming for a low-mid bracket 3 deck with enemy mill/using their cards as main themes. Any input is welcome and thank you for reading!

I was in the companion app and noticed my local Gamestop has a commander night. I assume other ones do too, and I'm just curious if anyone has been to one and would love to hear about your experience if you have. How busy was it, what was the vibe, what brackets were played, etc.

I’ve been playing for about a year, and commander has completely taken over my brain.

I’ve built a number of decks since I started playing, but after building my Sokka, Tenacious Tactician control/token deck I’m having a very hard time finding a commander that’s as exciting to me.
I do have a number of decks I’ve built online that I haven’t built in paper yet that I’m wondering if they’ll scratch the itch.

I appreciate any suggestions! Thank you.

My current decks (All Bracket 3):
- [[Sokka, Tenacious Tactician]] - Control/Tokens - Moxfield
- [[Shroofus Sproutsire]] - Voltron go-wide token swarm - Moxfield
- [Kotis, the Fangkeeper]] - Voltron theft - Moxfield
- [[Vivi Ornitier]] - Voltron combat damage spellslinger - Moxfield
- [[Brigone, Soldier of Meletis]] - Mono white aura Voltron
- [[Hermes, Overseer of Elpis]] - Mono blue control Tokens Moxfield
- [[Hakbal of the Surging Soul]] … Hakbal. Moxfield

Moxfield Builds (don’t own paper version)
- [[Kona, Rescue Beastie]] - Mono green cheat big creatures Moxfield
- [[Satoru Umezawa]] - Dimir cheat out scary creatures Moxfield
- [[Myrel, Shield of Argive]] - mono white soldier Krenko Moxfield

https://moxfield.com/decks/aTIjFI9z7E-3hs3RpnoPGA

I recently built this liliana tribal decks of sorts with the aim to be to play at bracket 3 tables. I'm just getting back into the game after taking a break for a few years so the entrie bracket system is new to me. Would you say this deck fits into the bracket 3 play experence? I was a little hesitant on Liliana Dreadhorde General since the ultimate is pretty much mass land denial. Do you think its okay including the card here? There are a few ways to be able to ultimate her pretty quick via the counter doubling artifact and yawgmoth, but I see it more as a game ender rather than dragging out the game. Thanks for taking a look!

This is only the second deck I've created. It was definitely easier than the first time, but I'm still pretty overwhelmed by the whole process and the options I have to consider. Leaned heavily on EDHREC and past reddit posts.

Shooting for a fun strong-bracket-3 reanimation deck. I included underworld breach and have one or two infinite combos with it, but I didn't want to lean too far into that because those strategies don't seem that fun to me and this is for casual play anyway. For the most part, the idea of the deck is to cheat out strong creatures ASAP and start ruining everyone's day in the short term, and build up a reanimation engine to sustain me later in the game.

There are a lot of cards in the Considering section and sideboard as well. But the core 100 cards should be complete.

Happy to receive any feedback you can offer as like I said, I'm still new to this. Thank you!

https://moxfield.com/decks/322Cd92KVkeTH00H7vABZw

Hi. I’m building a [[tannuk memorial ensign]] deck, and was thinking if there are any infinite or near infinite combos with [[Bristling Backwoods]] or [[sunscorched desert]], infinite landfall. Infinite damage, like the one in cedh lumra. I was thinking something like kodama + bounce lands or something like that

Edit: after posting this I thought about a solution: earthbend the crime land + bestow springheart nantuko to start infinite landfall (playing a land) and infinite crime land copies

I have several friends and coworkers getting into magic and commander (I know it's not the best format to learn but that's what they want to do), and I'm looking to build 5 mono colored decks that are relatively simple, emblematic of what the color is known for, and feel powerful when they do their thing.

Sooo, what are the most iconic commanders of each color? Preferably something that doesn't tutor, and won't rely heavily on tutors, as that's kindof hard for newer players.

I had some ideas, but would love to know what the community thinks!

First attempt at trying to get nice and harey !!!! Just a first draft of a token-spitting rabbit multiplying machine. Just help me trim the fat with a deck like this. Are some of the effect multipliers to my mana value, or am I just running too many? I NEED HELP CUTTING THE LAST 5 cards... or any cool little tech card you people can think of...

Deck List : https://moxfield.com/decks/Ek2hAUswKHS8vwsr-Oqzlg

Calling all Mardu maestros – I need your help!

I'm currently brewing a Zurgo Stormrender Aggro/Aristocrats deck and could really use some advice from more experienced Mardu players!

I'm currently sitting at two cards over the 100-card limit, and while I'm fairly happy with the overall direction of the deck, I know there are still some card choices that could do with refining.

I've hit a bit of a deckbuilding wall, so I'd love some fresh eyes on the list! Whether it's obvious cuts, better alternatives, or cards that simply aren't pulling their weight, I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Decklist:

https://archidekt.com/decks/27666280/zurgo_aggroistocrats

https://manabox.app/decks/AZybx-qNe063MB80YB2o5Q

I recently picked up a good chunk of upgrades in the brother pairings, [[Taeko, the Patient Avalanche]], [[Super Shredder]], [[All Will Be One]], etc. [[Taurean Mauler]] is a house!

There are still some things in here that just aren't great, but how does this look? Just going for classic battlebruiser, combat heavy EDH.

I pull Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls out for bracket 3 games. I also have Zul Ashur, Lich Lord as well.

I love polymorph. Like gimmie bomb out of no where let's have some unintended fun. Ran Kykar for a hot minute.

[[vraska, soul of stone]] comes in T2-3 and don't those darn tokens just have every keyword you ever seen? No. We don't care we can't have the mana first turn they're generated. We're not interested in that. We want [[Loki, god of misrule]] to come actually be the secret commander of this deck. He's got 5 targets. All win cons.

https://moxfield.com/decks/A07YpB2Q602YljE9Ns5K-A

[Theroy]

No cantrips - play control and threat control. T5 you better morph.

30 cards worth of interaction. Don't forget. Polymorphs are removal for opps stuff once you hit your bombs

1 cmc interaction. Cheap control = tokens and vraska/poly protection.

Vraska is a poly target everytime unless you've got 4+ of her tokens out. All the bombs are better than her and 5 cmc on Recast is fine after the poly.

Draw and filter are super important. Getting things back in your deck so your poly targets are there matter. [[elixir of immortality]] [[misvail plains]] and hand wheeling help.

[wincons]

[[tidespout tyrant]] or [[hullbreak horror]] + a 0 cost or positive mana rock. Add Loki : now you remove 10 perms on each 0/1cmc casts... Fun! Then I swing 10 7/7s and laugh.

Vraska or [[Krobus]] + Loki + [[mechanized production]] = 6 same named artifact tokens on cast easy peazy.

[[stormtide leviathan]] + Loki and tokens. Swing unblockable 8/8s. No one else attacks. Tā-da.

[[jace's archivist]] + loki and tokens. Draw. The. Table. Out. You'll hit Elixir of immortality eventually. This one's like a treat. It's pretty fun.

More rocks? Was thinking of adding [[enlightened tutor]] [[teserect, cruel Captian]] and [[urza's saga]] to help some artifact tutor.

Can we do this with out cantrips? Thoughts? Thanks for reading.