How do you decide what your deck's strategy is? As with competitive decks, the inclusion of fast mana sources like low mana value artifacts and rituals can offset your land count. So to power your deck down, you can consciously limit your deck - removing interaction, increasing the mana cost of your ramp (for example swapping a, ) or removing it, and increasing how easy your game plan is to interrupt (which will reduce its potency). Of course, you could use Wizards Gatherer, but if you want to get really efficient at finding the perfect card(s), Scryfall is astronomically better. Interaction in single target removal and board wipes are key components to include so youll be able to either protect yourself or remove problems created by your opponents. I wont go into detail here, but you can read my thoughts on the topic, . This isn't Command Zone dictating the meta- this is them giving folks a guide as to how to have fun and ensure you're an involved party in today's meta. A board wipe can fix that but so can pathing krenko when they move to equip boots. We play Commander on Tuesday nights organizing games in the Discord and playing games over Spelltable. You can drop in basics and select some good utility lands like War Room and youre good to go. four years ago, the cards in commander decks cost an average of 4-5 mana. If youre open to more variance in your games, you can use a lower threshold, but youll need to accept you may not be able to cast that, Now if youre making a monocolored deck, picking the lands you want is a bit easier. One of the best aspects of Commander is the limitless potential for deck building. The real strength for Scryfall is in its advanced search, where you can set multiple criteria very easily. I also think the idea of "basics being part of the stargey" needs further emphasis. Then you can figure out how many you have in each category and how many you need, I always go off of you see 10 cards by turn 3 so if you want a card type by then you need 10 of them in the deck. Beyond deck building sites, youll also want a site to help you find cards. In this article, we loo Top 10 Best Preconstructed Commander Decks.
If youre coming from other constructed formats, you may be familiar with having more resources means winning more games. In terms of ramp, these effects will often give you access to more mana on the current turn and in future turns, either through putting additional lands in play (Three Visits or Cultivate) or playing mana rocks (artifacts that generate mana like Sol Ring or Worn Powerstone). Coming from that mana curve, will also be an average mana value (historically average converted mana cost or CMC), which we can use to get an approximation of how many lands we should run. How do you build a deck that's more casual or more competitive? Interaction in single target removal and board wipes are key components to include so youll be able to either protect yourself or remove problems created by your opponents. When were looking at which lands to include, another important facet is whether they enter untapped or not. Would you like to see a deep dive on each of the categories? I've found that the best decks include ramp, draw, interaction, etc. Im a fan of not needing to think about what mana I have available in my multicolored decks, so Im content using the Kaldheim duals with fetches so I dont need to worry about if I have enough colored sources in later turns (friendly reminder that enemy fetch lands are being reprinted in Modern Horizons 2 releasing in June!). These on theme cards will work towards increasing your decks synergy, which just means the cards you have will do more when used together with other cards that are working towards the same goal. I have a similar thing and it is hard to pin down a general concept for it. Am I reading your comment correctly? Commander is already at this point whether OP wants to admit it or not. Since Commander is singleton, the win cons you use may need to be more varied than those youd use in other constructed formats. Maybe you've played another trading card game and want to mimic a strategy, or maybe there's some specific mechanic you enjoy, or even a playstyle you like (although I wouldn't recommend Lantern Control for casual games). Multicolored decks on the other hand need a bit more effort in land selection. Rakdos Midrange is at the top of Explorer today and proposes a fair play that adapts to an Magic: The Gathering and its respective properties are copyright Wizards of the Coast. Their templates could see a rise in the cost of staple mana rocks and spot removal as players seek to grab copies for all their decks. If youre open to more variance in your games, you can use a lower threshold, but youll need to accept you may not be able to cast that Winding Constrictor on turn two. Im a fan of not needing to think about what mana I have available in my multicolored decks, so Im content using the, with fetches so I dont need to worry about if I have enough colored sources in later turns (friendly reminder that enemy fetch lands are being reprinted in Modern Horizons 2 releasing in June!). The common thread between these two approaches is knowing what you enjoy, so giving that some thought should be your first step. Then again, combo is not as prevalent in the games I play. This can also make building a deck from scratch daunting, there are so many possibilities! Top down isn't always strategy alone though, you could build around a particular Commander based on their color identity, back story, creature type or even the art. I have many decks that run 10+ spot removal spells and some that run less. The most surprising thing is doubling the number of spot removal. Before we get to the most technical piece of deckbuilding, lets take a quick minute to speak about how we can adjust our deck components to modulate its power level. Youve just gotta eat your vegetables sometimes. Now if youre making a monocolored deck, picking the lands you want is a bit easier. In terms of contents, the template is broken down into ramp, card draw, targeted removal, board wipes and lands. how much for enchantments? We only sell cards in this condition that are fully intact and can be played in a casual setting. In this article, I present five dec Standard: Mono-Green Aggro Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide. Customers purchasing Damaged cards generally inquire before making a purchase to see the type of wear the card has experienced.Cards can have extreme instances of wear seen in the Heavily Played Category and may also have some of the issues below. As part of the "main" cards. Two things youll want to consider to modify this number is the density of colors in your casting costs and your mana curve. I generally prefer to have more board wipes (3-8, depending on the deck). Cards in this condition have significant wear which often extends across the surface. They recently put out an episode updating their Commander. Like, in my Lathril deck, I would run [Wood Elves] or [Farhaven Elf] over [Cultivate], even if I also run Cultivate. All Rights Reserved. Did you say 3-8?! which outlines their thoughts on what a rough template for your deck should be to function properly. Innistrad Crimson Vow Collector Booster Box, D&D Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Collector Booster Box, Innistrad Midnight Hunt Collector Booster Box. Generally when a deck's plan is unrelated it suffers. These cards are never tournament legal and can have a large array of major issues.
What's everyone's opinion on this? Pauper: About the (new) bans and the Metagame. throw in [[winds of rath]], idk, I'm not super worried about the rush for 'staples' and spot removal can already be pricey -- I think it boils down to a couple things. Of course, you could use Wizards, , but if you want to get really efficient at finding the perfect card(s), Scryfall is astronomically better. Card draw takes several forms, but what you should be aiming for is draw effects that will net you more cards than you had prior. You will have a 'sac outlets' category with things like phyrexian/ashnods altar then another category of 'sac value' with things like blood artist and zulaport cutthroat. When were looking at which lands to include, another important facet is whether they enter untapped or not. The other consideration is our mana curve, which is a visualization of our casting costs that will make a vertical bar graph (most deck building tools will calculate this for you). It's not your commander, you bombs or your pet cards. Scanned cards you see in our inventory or on our website may not explicitly note a condition, and you can reference the image associated with the scan to get information on the wear of the card. mana rocks that cost 3 or more are being dropped for mana rocks that cost 2. If you wanted to reliably cast a, on turn three, youd want at least 37 sources that produce that color of mana according to Franks math. Well, with 10 targets in a 99 card deck, that translates to having one of those cards in our opening hand about half of the time. Of course, as with your draw and ramp, youll want to keep an eye out for removal spells and board wipes that align with your primary strategy. Sacrificing on essentially for more strategy specific cards does not help your strategy be more effective. I think enchantment and blink themed decks are the best examples for playing on theme. If several of the issues listed below appear on the card, it will likely be downgraded to Moderately Played. If youve made these changes and youre still feeling like your deck hasnt been powered down enough, some other options include introducing a new restriction (like a theme such as people sitting in chairs) or removing some particularly, According to the math, a 99 card deck should have 40 lands, which aligns with the 38+ lands camps mantra. Draw Effects in Commander: Categories and Utilities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9PEeLG_6M. Rather than go into the weeds for each of the categories mentioned previously, well keep it high level and focus on why you should try to meet these targets. You would probably have a 'big threat/wincon' category where say Korvold would fall but he is also a sac outlet so fulfills double duty. Themes usually relate to what your cards do, whereas archetypes are more akin to playstyle. I figured it was a disadvantage, since it typically only impacted a single opponent. If youre coming from other constructed formats, you may be familiar with having more resources means winning more games. If you're not sure what you want to do, a great place to start can be themes and archetypes. You're lucky if you find more that a few cards which cost 7+ mana making the cut in most decks. Well cover each one in a bit more depth, but below are the targets Josh and Jimmy provide. In terms of ramp, these effects will often give you access to more mana on the current turn and in future turns, either through putting additional lands in play (, ) or playing mana rocks (artifacts that generate mana like, ). Why or why not? Cards like Counterspell and Heroic Intervention can be considered single target removal, they just remove your opponents spells in the stack, instead of removing permanents in play. So why are these targets too low? So to power your deck down, you can consciously limit your deck - removing interaction, increasing the mana cost of your ramp (for example swapping a Mana Crypt for a Hedron Archive) or removing it, and increasing how easy your game plan is to interrupt (which will reduce its potency). Spot removal does make for more interactive games -- something alluded to in the episode deals with that same point -- the 30+ cards that include ramp, draw, removal -- it's my belief that the specific cards you slot in here aren't just staples or good stuff, but cards that have utility while cohering to your strategy or theme. There's so many cards that are great removal pieces that aren't [[swords to plowshares]]. If youre not yet familiar, you should check out, on YouTube, they have a large backlog of videos all focusing on Commander. ), because it is very different from how I approach my deckbuilding. For example, using rummaging and looting effects in a reanimator themed deck can help ensure you have some juicy targets to resurrect. The only target I strongly focus on for casual decks, are my turn one sources so I can cast my one drops on curve. Beyond deck building sites, youll also want a site to help you find cards. Rather, a better way to conceptualize your decks power level is in terms of redundancy, speed and potency. How much spot removal do you run in your decks? Each of these tools has their own strengths and Id recommend you try each to find the one you like the most. The real strength for Scryfall is in its, , where you can set multiple criteria very easily. Following this line of thought, if we move our target up to 14 then we have a much healthier probability of roughly two thirds. In higher power level games, youll also see ramp in much faster versions - rituals and loops that generate large amounts of mana out of nowhere (cards like. Streets of New Capenna: Theories and Unanswered Questions. With that in mind, the targets I think you should work towards are below. I would also include Stax/hatebear cards (e.g. Well, with 10 targets in a 99 card deck, that translates to having one of those cards in our opening hand about half of the time. Now you may be thinking, wait a minute, now there are only 16 card slots left in my deck, how am I supposed to express anything with 16 cards! The short of it though, is that to calculate the probability youll draw any card in a deck, you need to use a hypergeometric distribution which can be done with a specific. So, they're calling for 30-35 card slots to be taken up with ramp, draw, and removal. While we could go into depth on each of the categories, this should give you a good place to start or inspire some new builds. This is one place where you can flex those creative muscles, finding cards that fill multiple roles. To add to this, the few decks that do want to win via combat or slug it out are often vulnerable to spot removal/ instant speed interaction anyways. Think about something like Krenko wants to win by going wide with gobbos in some capacity usually. Forced discard strategies naturally generate card advantage. Having access to more mana will also let you play more cards, which will give you the ability to progress your plan and respond to your opponents efforts to do the same. You can also consider your mana rocks here, but its important to remember the turn they become usable in an additive way. Smothering Tithe - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)Nature's Claim - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call. If youre looking for a quick way to find lands for your deck you can use, or use Scryfall to search for lands in your Commanders color identity (, There we have it, a short-ish guide for building a Commander deck. Rather than bore you with the math, Id recommend checking out some of Frank Karstens thoughts on the subject of, on Channel Fireball. One unique aspect is the inclusion of win cons, specific cards that will end the game. Commander is the most fun when everyone involved is aligned on what type of game is going to happen, and discussing this should be the first thing you do before playing with a group. Two things youll want to consider to modify this number is the density of colors in your casting costs and your mana curve. So my removal is fight effects or things like [[veridian longbow]], Running a voltron commander? The average mana value of deck lists is going down. You can also mix and match themes and archetypes to create very unique decks. The number you run is to taste, but a general rule of thumb is that using more board wipes will mean games take longer.