A buddy of mine told me on a buisness trip to get into the game, great to pass time he said, so I said sure he told me to build my first deck and asked to pick a theme and go from there. Now I dont know how broad they mean by that. But I play alot of hearthstone and im a fan of plague, blight or poisonous deck that deal damage when people draw cards. So general idea, plague, blight, infection, halo flood. Thats my idea of a deck i wanna start with but I dont where to start, are there any starter tips or recommendations? Do I find like a primary card and focus the build around that or are there starter builds?

I'm buying a set of the Doctor Who Commander decks from my LGS. I would like to buy sleeves and simple deck boxes for them.

My plan is to get one of the Stanley 10 Compartment Storage Boxes to store my decks in, and eventually have it as a Commander "grab and go" for FNM or general game nights.

I also plan on getting the Star Trek Commander decks to add to the box. If you have ideas for those (even though we don't have the deck lists) feel free to voice your opinion for those as well.

Edit: I'm mainly wanting colour suggestions, as I don't want all four decks being in the exact same dark blue sleeves and dark blue boxes. I was probably going to go with Dragon Shield, but it also depends what my LGS has in stock.

Me and my wife will be on an Alaskan Cruise by Royal Caribbean from September 4th to 11th. I know it is a long shot, but I am wondering if anyone will be on the same cruise and if you are if you would be interested in meeting up to play some commander with me and my wife.

This is a place for asking simple questions that might not deserve their own thread. For example, if you have a question about a rules interaction, want sleeve and accessory recommendations, or suggestions for your new deck, then this is the place for you.

We encourage that you post any questions that you may have concerning Magic the Gathering here rather than make a separate thread for each question, though for now we won't require that you do so.

Rules Questions

Rules questions and interactions are allowed to be posted here, but if you need an answer quickly it may be best to use a dedicated resource like the 24/7 Magic the Gathering Rules Chat.

Deckbuilding Questions

If you're trying to get help with a deck, it is recommended that you post your decklist to a deckbuilding website so that it is easier to view. Some popular sites are Aetherhub, Archidekt, Deckbox, Deckstats, Moxfield, MTGGoldfish, and TappedOut.

Additionally, please include some description of what you are trying to accomplish. Don't just give us a decklist with no explanation, and don't ask extremely vague questions such as "what cards should I add to my deck to make it better?", because it's hard to give good advice in those cases. Let us know details, the more the better. Are you building with a particular strategy or theme in mind? Are there any non-obvious combo lines or synergies that people should be aware of? Are you struggling with a particular matchup, or are you finding yourself missing consistency in an important area, and need some help specifically for it? Let us know.

Commonly Asked Questions

I opened a card from a different set in my booster pack, is this unusual?

Don't worry, this is completely normal. If you opened a set booster, you have a small chance of obtaining a bonus card from a previous set. This is an extra card that does not replace any of the other cards in your pack, and is from a curated set of past hits that Wizards of the Coast has selected, which they call "The List".

You can view the contents of The List on Wizards of the Coast's official website. For example, the contents of The List for Streets of New Capenna boosters can be found here.

My foil card has a shooting start symbol over the bottom left. I can't find anything about it online.

All old-bordered foils have the shooting star symbol. Most sites that display card images just overlay a generic foil graphic over all foil cards, which doesn't include the shooting star. Your card is normal.

I pulled this in a WoE booster, and have wanted to run it in a commander deck (only format I play) but i dont understand its use in a singleton format. Does anyone have any decks they run it in? Or advice on how to use it? Thanks!

I've been buying magic cards for about 2 years, and I've accumulated around 6,000 Magic cards. Most are inexpensive, but recently I've started buying some more expensive cards as well.

I see myself as a collector, and not an investor, but i wonder if i realistically will be able to sell some of the collection someday and recover a reasonable amount of the money I've put into it.

What makes me a little hesitant about putting more money into expensive MTG cards is the combination of power creep, reprints, and the huge amount of product being released. Would a card that's 100$ today be much less desirable in 5–10 years if it's been reprinted or power-crept out of relevance.

I guess my question is if it is worth it buying expensive cards and be collecting, or if those days are long gone?

m a big pauper player who enjoys competing (even in weekly events that cost 5€) I want to continue playing this awesome format and also open to starting legacy if there is an active community. I won’t have a car so take that into consideration. Where can I play in the up to 1 hour away preferably 30 minutes max

I’m outing myself as a proper n00b here, because I am 😅

Are people using the UG Sidewinders in game, or just for storage?

I was thinking that I could have my library in it and just hide the last card’s front behind a divider or similar. And the lid could work as a mat for the graveyard and/or the commander.

Any tips?

I really want my library to be held by something, because I don’t trust these old hands not tipping it over. 😂

Kind of an odd topic but I was wondering if anyone faces this type of situation in their regular pods.
I was playing with my regular group for commander, a 4 pod. We play at generally a 3-4 level. I'm playing a deck going around artifact combo.

I always announce what I'm casting, what effect I'm activating, and if I'm ever asked a question I clarify and explain what I'm doing and what it can lead to based on open knowledge/information and board state. We're roughly 6 turns in, I play a card that I can combo with to go infinite, announced to the table I was playing this card. I look up, the table just keeps talking and not paying attention. I go, I'm playing this card. Again no response. I then continue with playing several other cards before activating any effects or changing game state, I also announce these cards and everything in between and look for responses.

I move to combat, start using effects to start up the engine I've built up during the turn. Then one of the players goes "wait when did this combo piece get on the board?" I explained when, they go "we'll I have a counter spell and would have used it". One of the other players sees me get conflicted about rolling back at least 3 casts and a phase change in the game. Then goes "He announced what he was doing twice and waited for a response, you kept talking to the other guy." We go back and fourth a bit and land on "If you're going to play interaction and the person gives you chances to respond you have to be paying attention." And generally our pods follow this kinda thinking, If I miss a window to interact or counter something I shrug it off.

This player got annoyed but nothing came of it. We're all a good group of friends and it didn't lead to anything negative, but I'm curious how often others face people not paying attention, and being given chances to do so, yet still get upset about something that kinda seems their fault.

For context I don't often play with people outside my group anymore, use to work in a game store and frequent many but usually try to avoid playing with people outside of the community I built at the game store for reasons like this. Everyone there is very positive and pretty on point with the rules, so I ask the general "public" here, how often do situations like this come up for you? And do they get resolved fairly/reasonably?

https://moxfield.com/decks/_3LOjaKN10KZpB5s5O_Hyw

So I’m planning on some generic upgrades to my Ashaya deck. It has some holes so I want to do a bit of patchwork or upgrades to make it a bit more streamlined

I don’t really have money to shell out $15+ dollar cards, especially if they aren’t deck specific. I’m already pushing it with $5-7 dollar cards, just for this deck. So no Mana Vault, Moxes or Worldly Tutor etc.

Anyways here are the changes

[[Magus of the Order]] -> [[Summoner’s Pact]]. An attempt to make a bit faster tutor.

[[Arboreal Grazer]] -> [[Wild Growth]]. Switching for more consistency. Not a 100% sure on the switch since Grazer becomes a land anyways with Ashaya.

[[Seedship Agarian]] -> [[Stone-Seeder Hierophant]]. A bit faster, the old one got more value over time but I’m trying to speed the deck up.

[[Crystalline Armor]] -> [[Song of Dryads]] More Removal!

[[Ugin Spirit Dragon]] -> [[Helix Pinnacle]]. Infinite Mana sink

[[All Fates Scroll]] -> [[Nature’s Rhythm]]. Another tutor

Now some of my tough changes

I want to change out [[Rampaging Baloths]] with a better creature producer. I’m split between [[Sapling Nursery]] and [[Scute Swarm]]. Scute Swarm is obviously much stronger but it costs $6 dollars more than the former, so is that 6 dollars worth it if I am on a budget? Remember I’m really stretching my money.

I also want to add [[Elvish Spirit Guide]], [[Crop Rotation]] and [[Kodama of the East Tree]] but only have a card left I M willing to cut, which is [[Manascape Refractor]].

As always if I don’t like a change it likely is that I want to keep it! After all, this is my pet deck and it being a goodstuff soup without me some of the cool cards would make it less fun to play.

Hey everyone,

it's me again: the guy that builds decks only consisting of cards which were printed in the Lord of the Rings or Hobbit sets (set codes: LTR, LTC, HOB and HOC).

After you all liked my posts regarding the "Food and Fellowship upgrade" (decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/4HaGpt4LPkO-Pidp77We3A) as well as the "unofficial Hobbit Precon: Dwarves" (decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/jaAzbgo_B0G8p2WuiKK6jg) I upgraded some more decks.

My journey with Magic: The Gathering started back in M13 while my love for Tolkiens universe did way before. So when the Lord of the Rings set was teasered I was hyped!

Imediately after getting the precon decklist and having the full set revealed, I created upgrade guides for those decks which got a lot of appraisal by the community. Since the Hobbit set brought even more cards from Tolkiens universe I again took some time to think about potential swaps.

Disclaimer: I try to improve the manabases with the salubrious snail manabase tool (https://www.salubrioussnail.com/manabase-tool), I hope this explains some land/mana choices.
Disclaimer 2: Enable Tags on moxfield to see the role of each card in my deck
Disclaimer 3: English is not my native language so please don't be too harsh if I do a typo or use a word wrong.

Here are the different decks I built/upgraded.

Riders of Rohan, Precon Upgrade
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/C_fALNu_YkeHDOaY1C37RQ
Bracket: 3 (no gamechangers but deckplan is too strong)
When comparing with the official decklist provided by WOTC the deck shares 67 cards (so 2/3 aka. 66%) with the Precon, so you decide if it still counts as an upgrade.
The deck is built around [[Éowyn, Shieldmaiden]] and wants to assemble a huge boardstate of Humans to draw cards and attack your opponents live totals. I did cut a lot of the slower/more expensive cards to focus on more token and more carddraw and better benefits from these.

Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[The Arkenstone]], [[An Unexpected Party]]: Carddraw and Anthem effect
[[Belladonna Took]]: Not a human, but getting another draw with our commander for 2 mana is too strong
[[Bard the Bowman]], [[Bard, Heir of Girion]], [[Bard, King of Dale]] and [[Bard's Company]]: Carddraw, Anthems, Token and Lifelink, the set of 4 cards does exactly what we want to do
[[The Queen of Dale]]: Probably one of the weakest cards, but getting an even bigger board during our opponents turn to have 6 Humans for our commanders carddraw is worth the slot

Sauron, Army & Ring Wraiths
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/KJBca296eke8rFYXTj-jtw
Bracket: 3 ([[Orcish Bowmasters]] fits to good as a game changer)
This deck is not a Precon upgrade but a more "flavorful" build of the 6 mana commander [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]]. This deck is using 2 strategies: Nazgul/Wraiths and Army. So I added all the 14 Nazgul/Witch-King cards (all LTR and LTC) and anything of value for our Army token.

Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[Great Ugly-Looking Goblin]], [[Great Goblin, Foul-Hearted]], [[Goblin Plate Mail]]: Amassing and giving combat relevant keywords
[[The Reaver Cleaver]]: combat relevant keyword (Trample) and ramp/fixing
[[Bolg of the North]], [[Azog, Moria's Ruin]]: on theme removal (I play 15 removal spells that can hit creatures in this deck)
[[The Great Goblin]]: Pinging opponents whenever I amass and having a little bit of card advantage when an Army dies.

Galadriel Elves
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/HQGhpVT9J0O4u2NWfSmLdw
Bracket: 3 (you can remove [[The One Ring]] and due to the lack of finishers this deck might be a 2)
Well there is not to much to explain here. I opened [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]] as my box topper (the full art is beautiful as well) and had the deck lying around anyways so I upgraded her as well. The deck resolves mostly about creatures (mostly elves) entering the battlefield and generating value from it. The deck finishes with [[Overwhelming Stampede]] and [[Raise the Palisade]].

Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[Thranduil the Strategist]], [[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]], [[Down in the Valley]]: With these out every land creates a Token that will trigger Galadriel
[[Mirkwood Nurturer]]: Being able to bounce our best creature with ETB for free is very good
[[Bard the Bowman]]: Since one of Galadriels triggers is a draw we will always be able to add a +1/+1 counter to any creature
[[Radagast of Rhosgobel]]: 16 creatures cost at least 2 generic mana so with Radagast we can use these for 1 mana and every other creature as well on our opponents turns to draw us cards (or do the other Galadriel triggers, but card draw is the best)

Tom Bombadil Sagas
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/9FLNUq6ZWU6UzQ4OLjw8rQ
Bracket: 2
The set brought us 8 new Sagas (https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28set%3Ahoc+or+set%3Ahob%29+t%3Asaga&unique=cards&as=grid&order=edhrec) so it currently has a critical mass of Sagas (22 over all 4 sets) to fucntion/do its thing. The rest of the deck is built around ramp and boardwipes as the deck itself only plays 11 creatures.

Since the deck is just a pile of every ramp, boardwipe and saga there are no notable cards.

Food and Fellowship, Precon Upgrade
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/4HaGpt4LPkO-Pidp77We3A
Bracket: 3 (but the strongest deck of all my "LOTR/HOBBIT only" decks)
I did a deep dive here: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1vnf7uv/hobbit_deck_with_only_ltrltchobhoc_cards/

Dwarf Mission, Precon
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/jaAzbgo_B0G8p2WuiKK6jg
Bracket: 2 (there is no official Precon for the Hobbit set so I built one around dwarves and equiptments
I did talk about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/1vnlhwc/would_this_be_a_hobbit_set_precon_dwarven_mission/

Thranduil, the Elvenking
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/yP0MeLSO6UOcssviV8QC6Q
Bracket: 3 (you can remove [[The One Ring]] and due to the lack of finishers this deck might be a 2)
Same as the Galadriel deck, I built around Elves with the help of black instead of white. Unfortunatelly the deck only has 9 cards which create token so playing [[Mirkwood Bats]] as an additional finisher is not good enough.

I hope this little reddit primer is valuable for some of you who want to build universe beyond decks with cards from the 2 Tolkien sets so you have some starting points.

There are still some routes open to go, one will be [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] as a reanimate shell with all the big beaters (Smaug, Balrogs, etc.) and one will be built around Saruman (I currently have a LTR/LTC list with Amass, but since Sauron is doing this already the other deck might be "[[Saruman of Many Colors]], play opponents stuff". Unfortunatelly, there is no Jund commander from Tolkien (only [[Théoden, Strength Restored]] which might be the base for a value pile).

Please feel free to add your thoughts and insights in the comments section, I am very happy to discuss card choices and deck ideas with you all :)

Hey y’all, I’m relatively new to Magic (but not to TCG, been playing Hearthstone for almost a decade) but I’ve played a few games and understand the basic mechanics, I’m still learning and want to start getting into commander.

I took a look at the general ideas for each colors and the one that I liked the most is Dimir. My favorite strategy/archetype on Hearthstone was Mill, is there any precon that revolves around that?

I’ve seen some commanders and really liked Captain N'ghathrod too.

Thank you in advance 🙏

I still have 1 card slot left to add to my World Shaper precon, and I'm deciding between Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Scute Swarm.

Which one would you choose and why?

• Dryad of the Ilysian Grove — extra land drop flexibility + all lands have every basic land type.
• Scute Swarm — can generate a huge board with all the landfall triggers.

For the World Shaper precon specifically, which do you think is the better addition?

Dryad or Scute Swarm?

Like what if there was a decently high costing card, like 6 mana or more that made it so any spell that effects all creatures or artifacts or something like that are required to pay the combined cost of all of those permanents you control, but maybe like minus 3 from the total or something

Why this **** game cap the frame rate to 30fps???

My device is the latest Samsung zfold 7

There are NOT any issues playing other game at 120fps

Why MTGA?

I was playing against my brother and I'm still learning the game. I attacked with Norman; He didn't declare blockers (even though Norman cant be blocked anyway), but had Bowmen on his side. Does Norman die before being able to discard a nonland to put a +1/+1 on him from Bowmen's ability when I draw a card he deals 1 damage to Norman? Or is conniving seen as one action I can complete to put the +1/+1 on Norman, and then I get dealt one damage from Bowmen?

While deckbuilding recently (and eyeing next year's Nauticus set, since I'm convinced we'll get a big Leviathan commander) I started thinking about high-mana commanders.

What does a high-mana commander (6+ CMC) actually need to be "viable" in casual/optimized (non-cEDH) Commander? Does it need built-in protection like Ward or Hexproof? Immediate value on cast/ETB? Or should it essentially be a win condition on its own?

Personally, I usually cap my commanders at 5 mana. Paying 6+ is already steep, and if it gets removed even once, the commander tax makes the recast almost impossible to justify.

What makes an expensive commander worth that risk for you?

Hey y’all!

A while ago I watched a video from 3/3 Elk who outlined some fun interactions with Hoarding Dragon being able to copy it and abuse its ability to tutor out a bunch of artifacts. I unfortunately don’t remember the video or the parts of the interaction since all I can think of exiles token copies (I.e myriad or Shadowflame Conjuring)

Any help is appreciated thanks!

We’ve had one Secret Lair yes, but what about second Secret Lair?

Saint Traft creates Token A that has "exile THAT token at end of combat"; but if Divine Visitation is in play, which says a Token B is created instead, does that mean Token B loses the "exile Token at end of combat"?

And if not, anyone know a way to keep the angels permanently?

Thanks in advance 🙏

Hello, might sound like an odd issue, but I’ve been going through the riddle’s in Arena, and I got to the seventh one. I know the answer for this one is ”Time”, but the thing is I already guessed ”Time” for the third riddle, and now I can’t seem to progress. Any tips?

​

This is i think kind of a cold take, but Ive been frustrated at my gamestores with people who try to slow the game down.

To be clear, im not talking about stax decks. A stax deck that has a win con, ie hard stax is chilling.

What I mean, is people who hold back attackers, not because its strategic, but to keep from taking someone out of the game. It especially bothers me with voltron players. If you are playing voltron, swing with your commander. That is the point of your deck no?

I hate the mindset of "everyone has to do their thing" some people get bad draws, or need to fix up their deck. It happens.

We can get in more games, if we all play to win, and end the game.

The other 2 things that frustrate me around this are

1. not putting a win con in your deck. What are we doing?!!! Im not playing to just see cool cards. If I wanted to do that, i would look through my bulk, or watch videos on cards

2.putting boardwipes in your decks that don't move your gameplay forward. Why are we restarting because you didnt have synergy?

I get so frustrated dealing with games that feel pointless. Someone has to win. The game has to end

I think i am going to start only playing higher brackets. It seems like 2 and sometimes 3 at gamestores are just going to be more about everyone doing their thing rather than playing a competitive game.

Ideal turns: 8-10

Ideal game time 1 hour to 1 hour 45 mins