Summary
Magic: The Gathering’sCommander format is a great way to express yourself. Maybe there’s a character you like and want to build around, or a particular strategy you want to pursue. But no matter how much you love a commander, there comes an inevitable day when you also pull it apart again.
Perhaps it didn’t work the way you planned, or maybe it did and the way you planned just wasn’t any fun. Looking back on your older decks and seeing where they went wrong can really improve your deckbuilding skills, and so here are the skeletons hiding in my conjurer’s closet.
8Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker And Akiri, Line-Slinger
My First Deck
Ishai and Akiri were the very first Commander deck I ever built. I’d pulled both from a couple of packs of Commander Legends, and wanted to give the format I’d heard so much about a go. I scrabbled together cards I already owned, put them in penny sleeves, and headed off to Spelltable to get my face smashed in.
The problem was twofold: first, I was an idiot and didn’t know anything about building Commander decks. I’d started in the pandemic and had nobody to walk me through things, so I threw 100 cards together and hoped for the best. The second problem, though, is that I drowned inthe partner sauce.
Partner lets you put two commanders together as the head of your deck, and I immediately tried to cram as many colours into one deck as I could. More colours means more options, right? Wrong. The landbase was terrible, there was zero synergy between the two, and I didn’t have enough of the staples to even attempt to pull it off.
7Archelos, Lagoon Mystic
Mutate Is A One-Trick Pony
I only built Archelos because I wanted the tortoise to go with my pet deck, Kwain, Itinerant Meddler. While lots of Archelos decks are built to slow down your opponent by forcing their things to enter tapped, I went a different route, and wanted to play a ton ofmutate creatureson top of him.
Mutate is still one of my favourite mechanics in all of MTG. I love how quickly it can spiral out of control, with triggers going off left, right, and centre. But it isn’t really something you can build a deck around, because there aren’t enough creatures with mutate to work with. This was compounded by the fact that Archelos is three colours, and so you’ve lost two fifths of the potential creatures you can use.
Mutate is also very much a mechanic revolving around putting all your eggs in one basket. One Doom Blade or Swords to Plowshares, and your hard work is thrown away. I later tried to build Otrimi, Ever-Playful and found the same problem; mutate is less resiliant and has fewer options than a traditional Voltron deck.
6Jadzi, Oracle Of Arcavios
Forgive Me, I Thoracled
Jadzi came at a time when I was overconfident in my deckbuilding abilities. Between Commander Legends and Strixhaven, I’d gone all-in on the format, building almost every legendary creature in both Kaldheim and Strixhaven. Jadzi was the point where I realised I’d gone too far, and needed to stop.
I did the thing. The thing nobody likes. The thing everyone hates, but eventually finds themself doing nonetheless. I cast Enter the Infinite and Thassa’s Oracle in the same turn. It was filthy. I’m not proud of it. And then I did it again, and again, and again. The rush of comboing out my enter deck in a single turn and winning was too much for me to handle, and I failed to notice the deck just had one, boring, repetitive line of play.
5Kardur, Doomscourge
Kardurr is one of the decks I built in my Kaldheim haze. While goad had been used on a few cards in the past, Kardur did it in all but name, and the thought of forcing my opponents to fight for my amusement was mightily appealing. The plan was for Kardur to be sacrificed, thrown into my graveyard, and recurred every turn to keep my opponents swinging.
This is the deck that taught me that your deck should work without your commander. There weren’t enoughgoading cardsat the time for the deck to work without Kardur, so the second he became too expensive to play, or locked down, or stolen, my strategy would crumple. It was also effectively a kingmaking deck, as I’d focused so hard on having opponents fight each other that I’d forgot to plan for what happened when I was the only opponent left.
4Kibo, Uktabi Prince
Kindred Decks Just Aren’t For Me
Most of my friends have at least one kindred deck. Whether it’s Rabbits, Elves, Hobbits, or even Assassins, they love their creature types like they’re some sort of Pokemon Gym Leader. I’ve never been as on board with the idea, preferring to build my decks like engines instead of armies.
Though I do have a couple of kindred decks now (Minotaurs, mostly), Kibo was my first real attempt at one. It was full of Apes, and I even had custom Banana tokens printed. And then I leaned further in to the other half of the card, and it quickly turned into a deck revolving around artifact gifting and destroying… with a few monkeys on the side.
It never felt like I was living the kindred dream, and the attempts to do so also meant it wasn’t doing the artifact thing as well as it should, either. I felt stuck between two different builds, never settling into the Banana-chomping groove I’d dreamed of.
3Eivor, Battle-Ready
Not Stabby Enough
I ama massive Assassin’s Creed fan. Generally, if I’m not thinking about Magic, I’m thinking about Assassin’s Creed, so of course I was going to jump at the opportunity to build a deck based on my favourite game series. And, as an ardent defender of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, it felt right that my Assassin’s Creed deck would be none other than Eivor, Battle-Ready.
This deck was really fun; playing as many Equipment cards as possible and letting Eivor blast all three opponents for damage at the same time was an interesting take on Voltron, but it didn’t feel very Assassin’s Creed-y. It was an Equipment deck first, and an homage to Assassin’s Creed second.
I’m currently working on building Ezio Auditore da Firenze and making it as singularly Creed-y as possible to fill the void left by taking Eivor apart.
2The Archimandrite
Too Many Plates
I’ve never vibed with the spellslinging focus of blue/red/white commanders. Prowess bores me, and most Jeskai commanders are some variation of casting spells and making tokens. The lack of all that is what drew me to the Archimandrite instead.
Drawing cards and gaining life are always fun, and the light kindred theme of Advisors, Artificers, and Monks all in one deck was very appealing. None of those types have very strong commanders of their own, and I wanted to see what I could put together with the Archimandrite. However, I quickly found the deck is too unfocused to really pop off.
You have to go all-in on the creature types, but also all-in on drawing lots of cards and gaining lots of life. Having three entirely different strategies all rely on each other this heavily meant it felt too much like I was spinning my wheels while others got on with their strategies.
1Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
Gone, But Not Forgotten
Kwain, the little Rabbit from Commander Legends, is my all-time favourite commander. It’s such a simple design that everyone underestimates it, but this Rabbit can really zip through your deck if left unchecked. And, of course, in the Azorius colours of blue and white, you may be incredibly degenerate with how you play.
I built him up as apillow fort commander, with cards like Ghostly Prison, Norn’s Annex, Rhystic Study, and Smothering Tithe all forcing my opponents to focus on each other. It had ten counterspells in there to stop anyone doing anything I didn’t like. It, of course, had Approach of the Second Sun to win the game once tying my opponents up in knots.
Kwain is fantastic, but it began to grind down the people I played with. They hated being locked out of the game, and it is by far the most oppressive deck I’ve ever built. While I do sometimes consider putting him back together, for the sake of my pod, he may perhaps be best left buried.
