How to Build a Commander Deck

[Music] i've been creating youtube videos on magic the gatherings commander format for over four years now and i've never actually thought it necessary before to offer my two cents on deck building for people new to the format or at least a detailed introduction for those wondering if this is for them i've personally been playing the format since its second set of pre-constructed decks released back in 2013 the advantages to choosing the 100 card singleton format are not always known to newer players when they begin playing the game i've been hearing for several years how standard limited or 60 card casual is a better way for people to learn magic when that's just not the case it might have been that way 10 years ago when the format was still in its infancy but now that commander products release as frequently as every set now there's no point in trying to learn two different formats when committing to one has never been easier i sometimes find it hard to explain to new people why i love it because i must go back in time and essentially unblow my mind at the fact that a format with a hundred card decks and only one of each non-basic land allowed would even exist in the first place but that's your very first hurdle in your deck building adventure getting past the weirdness of shuffling an oversized deck with relatively low consistency compared to 60 card strategies the singleton aspect means that you will have to rely on cards that share a similar purpose rather than playing a max of 4 copies per deck this sounds challenging at first and it still can be if you don't have a collection of cards to recycle between decks don't worry if you have a limited budget though because most pre-constructed decks will cost you under 50 u.s to buy and will likely have sufficient support to give you a fighting chance in most games it really hasn't been this easy before to get started in commander because these pre-cons used to be only a once a year release until 2020 but you likely didn't come here for me to tell you to settle for a pre-con so let's talk about the process that i go through personally when building any commander deck math skills will pay dividends in magic the gathering and relying on a formula when approaching your very first commander deck will help you avoid some misfortune when the time comes to test it out the first rule in deck building for me is the rule of 37. lands in overall your ability to find the desired mana to cast spells is easily the most important thing in a game of commander 37 is by no means a set in stone number for every deck but if you want to open a game more often with at least 3 lands in your opening hand 37 hasn't steered me wrong of course if your strategy requires more mana for spells like your general then bumping that total to 39 is understandable the more competitive you play you will require less mana to cast your spells so that number will drop down to 30 lands or below casual commander is the majority and most people only play casualty casual or competitively competitive so don't worry about the need to lower your land total if the people you play with just want to build fun and casual decks that don't have an expected turn wincon it's also worth pointing out that 37 is over a third of your starting deck and will likely be the deciding factor in whether your deck will be more affordable lands have the best budget alternatives compared to any other cards in the game and some monocolored decks rarely need to play too many non-basics making them great for super budget builds the next rule is for ramp ramp is the ability for any deck to increase the amount of mana available for future turns a spell like dark ritual is considered fast mana because while it provides you with more black mana that mana empties as phases end and won't last for your following turn any goal for a good commander deck is to cast more spells each turn as the game progresses if you find yourself only able to cast one spell a turn while your opponents are wreaking havoc on your life total it might have something to do with your insufficient ramp if not your inability to draw into land drops for most stacks i look to add a bare minimum of 8 cards designed to ramp 10 cards if i want to play it safe ramp cards can be anything from mana rocks to mana dorks to instants and sorceries that put land straight into play from your deck independent of your once a turn land drop soul ring is widely considered to be the best affordable source of ramp because it provides you with at least four mana to work with on turn two provided you aren't missing any lands other than that the rest is up to your deck building creativity lands and ramp are essential for every deck so they must be accounted for whereas creatures instants sorceries enchantments utility artifacts and planeswalkers are more dependent on your individual commander's theme so let's talk about the best ways to approach the non-land non-ramp cards in your deck i've found over the years that the most satisfying way to build a deck is to stay true to your commander's theme instead of including good stuff cards that while powerful aren't intended to synergize with any of your abilities synergy is the understanding of how each card interacts with other cards if you are playing a tribal focused commander option then the best way to build around it is to usually include other creatures of that same tribe there's some logic in wanting to include a non-tribal creature for one of these decks the value of synergy should come first though as you will not only be including a powerful card but one that will also draw out the strength of your other cards learn to measure strength and synergy and not just the card's individual strength in the format and you will have a much easier time determining the kind of deck you want to build since tribal decks are the least complicated example of synergy it'll also help you to know how to use a card's abilities when looking for new additions keywords such as lifelink death touch hex proof are sometimes used as themes for a deck but it is much more common to see activated and or triggered abilities be the central focus of someone's strategy if my commander allows for me to return a creature card from my graveyard to the battlefield then i am probably going to want cards that allow me to place more creatures into my graveyard so that i have a higher chance of being able to reanimate a powerful creature it's also worth saying that synergy isn't always finding a duplicate ability it's finding others that complement that ability if i have a commander that proliferates at my endstep am i going to benefit as much from other proliferate cards compared to cards that use counters probably not not to say that you're wrong and wanting more of the same but if your commander option satisfies one half of the equation it's probably best to try and find other cards to complete it try to avoid redundancies when looking to complement the strategy behind your commander what's just as important as taking good advice is also knowing where to look for it outside of this video and youtube in general there are a few websites that you can use to approach deck building archidak and moxfield are probably two of the best websites i've found for commander players who prioritize decklist presentation and ease of use both websites i recommend to anyone looking to quickly share deck information with their friends online as a resource skrifal is perhaps the best thing to ever happen to online content creators since they provide the best resolution for card images compared to their alternatives including gatherer with the added benefit of rounding the corners of each card so you don't have those obnoxious white corners for anyone looking to narrow their deck building search it's a must the advanced search feature takes some time to get used to but once you get the hang of it there's nothing better you can search with precision based on set card text card types card color and even down to the artist names advanced search results are probably the best way you can discover new synergies for your commander since all you have to do is type in some desirable keyword or wording in the text to find what you're looking for this is especially important for newer commander releases as many other resources rely on community data if you want to create a truly unique deck this is the way to go of course i couldn't go the video without mentioning the most popular website edhrec.com if you were just starting out and don't want to spend a ton of time researching this is the right place community data as i mentioned before is pretty much the entire purpose of edhrec players outside of their comfort zone will want to know what cards synergize with a foreign commander while you won't find the guaranteed best cards to optimize your deck you will see there are different percentages out of decks built that use a certain card this percentage can be used to assume the consistency of play that card c in the commander deck of your choice what's nice is that while you can auto generate a deck list you don't really need to if you exclude the lower percentages my rule when using edh rack is to stick with cards that are included in at least 30 percent of the decks built since that card's release this isn't always the case so keep in mind how new a commander product is and how the data reflects that a commander from a pre-constructed deck will have higher percentages for other cards from that same precon if the deck in question is relatively new these cards range from cheap reprints to brand new staples that only come with that product so there's plenty of room for upgrades your search is also not limited to a specific commander either you can narrow it down by theme and budget so if you wanted to play corvald fakehurst king in a low budget aristocrat deck switching to those modifiers will give you different cards with different percentages based on that criterion over time you will discover that using edh rec is a resource rather than a crutch is more rewarding as the ultimate goal for commander is to prioritize creativity over ubiquity my current method for building new commander decks is as follows i begin over at moxfield where i can set up a new deck list with the commander i've chosen then i head on over to scribe fall to work on some keyword searches so i can find some complimentary cards i will add as many of these cards that i think could work with my commander from this keyword search until i've reached around the number of nonline cards in a normal deck for me which is about 63. then i swing on over to edh rec to figure out what works from the community's perspective with that commander and then i slowly start chipping away at the surplus of non-line cards i have in the deck list on mac's field my goal here is never to copy and paste someone else's idea so if there's a card i discovered that i really like regardless of its popularity on adh rec i will leave it in once i've trimmed the non-land cards down to around 63 again this is never a set in stone number i will likely default to edh rack recommendations for the lands since their only purpose in most decks is to provide convenience and mana fixing there are some situations where a deck will rely more on utility lands in this case i take those into consideration during my search if it's necessary for my strategy so if this video helped you out through your first time building a commander deck then please leave a comment down below and hit the thumbs up button also subscribe if you enjoy videos like this i make a ton of different commander related ones so be sure to check them out i am commander void signing off you will have a wonderful day

Channel: Commander Void

Views: 45,848

Keywords: How to build a commander deck, how to play magic the gathering, how to play commander, how to play edh, how to build an edh deck, how to upgrade a precon deck, how to build a magic the gathering deck, how to build an mtg deck, mtg commander deck advice, commander tips, commander how tos, edh advice

Id: DSMg9pM8nlg

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021