# Salubrious Snail Commander Index

_Search the lessons, takeaways, quotations, and full transcripts._

## #1. Using Math to Decide How Many Bad Cards to Run  (Jun 2026, 27K views)
*Original title: It's okay to put *some* janky trash in your deck*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Pet Cards, Deck Consistency, Card Evaluation, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that Commander decks can include some bad or situational cards without harming consistency if they can reliably reach a post-engine state with high card draw.
We recommend using hypergeometric calculations to check the odds of drawing too many early-game dead cards.
By categorizing cards into premium enablers, situational blanks, and general support, deckbuilders can balance fun inclusions with a functional early game.

**Principle**
- Commander decks often have a pre-engine phase with limited card access and a post-engine phase where drawing extra cards makes individual card quality less important.
- Including some situational or weak cards can be acceptable if the deck can reliably reach the post-engine state.

**Evidence**
- Hypergeometric probabilities show that with about five situational blanks, the chance of drawing multiple such cards early is low.
- Fast lands entering untapped early demonstrate how situational cards can be reliable when later card selection becomes available.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Categorize nonland cards into three buckets: high-quality enablers, situational blanks, and general support to assess early-game consistency.
- Use a hypergeometric calculator to check that the probability of drawing an engine starter is high and the probability of drawing multiple blanks is low.

**Limitation**
- If the number of bucket two cards grows into double digits, the risk of drawing too many dead early cards rises and can disrupt deck function.

**Example**
- A Radha, Heir to Keld deck runs a single humorous seven-drop like Tyrant of Discord as a bucket two card that does not harm early consistency.
- Protection spells like Heroic Intervention are dead early but valuable later, exemplifying how situational cards can be included sparingly.

**More quotes**
> It might actually be okay to have some bad cards in your deck.
> You can check how often you won't draw cards you don't want.
> I think of a lot of Commander decks as having two very distinct phases, pre-engine and post-engine.
> Getting to purge the trash for the first time in a game and sculpt a hand of seven beautiful, situationally applicable cards, delicious.
> You can almost think about all of these bucket two bad cards as blank for the purposes of your early game.
> Craft the foundation of your deck in a way that's maximally consistent and flexible, and the amount of room to sprinkle garbage into that bad boy might just surprise you.
> My Radha Heir to Keld deck has a single permanent funny seven drop deck slot. It was occupied by Panglacial Wurm in the past, and it's currently occupied by Tyrant of Discord, both not very good creatures.
> Treat this as your reward for being such a responsible deck builder in other ways.
> The first three turns of the game are the ones where you're going to be the hardest pressed to have a land that both enters untapped and gives the colors you need, and fast lands fill this exact profile.
> With any other commander, this deck's ratios would make no sense at all and it would flail around doing nothing most of the time.

## #2. How to Build a Hidden Commander Deck: Two Key Principles  (Jun 2026, 63K views)
*Original title: The Two Rules for Making a Successful "Hidden Commander" Deck*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Athreos, Shroud-Veiled, White, Black, Aristocrats, Tokens, Reanimator, Budget, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Synergy, Resilience, Deckbuilding Principle

To build a successful hidden commander deck, you must find functional analogs for your secret commander and minimize cards that only work with that commander.
These rules ensure the deck works when the key card is absent or removed.
We demonstrate by building a budget deck around Sibsig Ceremony with Athreos, Shroud-Veiled as a synergistic commander.

**Current status (verified Jul 2026):**
- The card tags on this entry follow Scryfall: Athreos, Shroud-Veiled is White and Black, and The Sibsig Ceremony is mono-black. The green-black heard in the transcript is a spoken slip (source: Scryfall card records).

**Principle**
- Two rules for hidden commander success: find functional analogs and minimize the footprint of synergy cards.
- These rules follow from the simple fact that you often will not have your secret commander in play.

**Evidence**
- Sunforger decks succeed because the instants they fetch are already independently useful.
- Astral Slide decks succeed due to available direct analogs like functional reprints.
- Sibsig Ceremony lacks inherent analogs and requires dedicated support, making it a trickier build.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Choose a commander that independently synergizes with the secret commander to reduce card slot demands.
- Ensure support cards advance your visible commander's strategy to avoid dead draws.

**Limitation**
- If a hidden commander demands heavy support without analogs, the deck becomes vulnerable to targeted removal.

**Example**
- The Sibsig Ceremony deck used Athreos and other indestructible creatures to turn forced sacrifice into token generation.

**More quotes**
> Hidden commanders are an interesting subject, but they definitely aren't all made equal.
> Some of the classically touted examples of build-around cards, such as Sunforger, are deceptively simple to pull off because the cards they work with don't eat up that much deck space.
> How do I make weird niche hidden commanders work?
> Cards don't always get drawn and sometimes get removed.
> [The Sibsig Ceremony] This card keeps coming up.
> In the process [of building a deck], I ended up landing on two principles that should guide anybody building a deck centered around a card in their 99.
> One, find analogs for your central card, and two, minimize the footprint of cards that synergize with your central card.
> Both principles stem from the essential fact that you simply won't always have access to your hidden commander card.
> Astral Slide is a ridiculously powerful late game tool, so I'll almost always want a copy of the card at some point even if I survive the early to mid game.
> The Sibsig Ceremony provides us a lot of mana through its discount. So the first order of business in making sure the deck works without it is adding a lot of other ramp, finding analogs.

## #3. The Problem With Magic's One-Off Set Structure  (May 2026, 135K views)
*Original title: The Subtle Reason Why Sets Feel Worse Now*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Format Health, Design Intent, Meta Trends

We argue that Magic's shift from multi-set blocks to yearly one-off sets has made the game feel rushed and disconnected.
It acknowledges that three-set blocks often had filler sets that didn't convey the story well.
We propose that an alternative set structure could better balance immersion and mechanical iteration.

**Principle**
- Multi-set blocks enable players to become immersed in a plane's setting and storyline over time.
- Mechanical themes develop more fully when given multiple sets to iterate and expand.

**Evidence**
- No new plane has had a multi-set block since Ixalan, which concluded over 8 years ago.
- Later sets within a block historically sold worse than the first set.
- Currently, Magic releases five or more one-off sets per year, each on a different plane.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Deckbuilders should evaluate new mechanics for their standalone power, as one-off sets rarely provide follow-up support.
- Without mechanical iteration across sets, synergy-based archetypes become riskier to build around.

**Limitation**
- Three-set blocks sometimes forced players to experience a poorly received plane for an entire year.
- Crafting satisfying limited environments across three connected sets was difficult for developers.

**Example**
- Dragon's Maze, the third set of Return to Ravnica block, attempted to feature all 10 guilds but felt cramped and failed to convey its maze race story.

**More quotes**
> Having every set be a new plane, particularly with five or more sets per year, makes things feel rushed, leaving no time to breathe and become immersed in a particular world.
> The gradual pivot from three-set blocks to purely one-off sets has been an unambiguous tragedy.
> I could tell you that we as magic players are fallen and need to return to the glory days of 2013, where magic sets came in threes and where bold duels could take place on a middle school lunch table.
> Dragon's Maze simply didn't feel like a proper third set, rather just a little bit of extra Ravnica with some attached plot that not enough effort was put into guiding us through with its design.
> Born of the Gods felt more like Theros B-sides than anything else, just some kind of odd designs to go along with a group of five gods in order to allow the 15 gods to be evenly spread between the three sets.
> Fate Reforged feels more like the middle of an Animorphs cover than it does its own cohesive world.
> It's okay to have a hat set. However, for that sort of set to feel justified, it has to feel differentiated in some way from what surrounds.
> The biggest reason I like two-set blocks is that they're able to tell the story of a place much better than a one-set block could.
> Seeing that clear change communicated through the design of a set would be great for getting players to engage more with the lore and ask more questions, as opposed to one-off sets that present a snapshot of things and then dash away.
> One-off sets can be great as a way to do something funky and unusual, to explore some bold new aesthetic territory without committing too hard.

## #4. Using Fulcrum Cards to Add Subthemes in EDH  (May 2026, 48K views)
*Original title: Snail's Guide to Giving Your Deck More Sauce*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Blink, Tokens, Discard, Synergy, Card Evaluation, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain how to expand a Commander deck's synergy by adding subthemes through fulcrum cards that bridge archetypes.
We stress evaluating a card's floor and considering the deck space required for support.
Players learn to combine themes intentionally, balancing novelty with consistency.

**Principle**
- Fulcrum cards connect two archetypes by allowing one's setup to pay off the other.
- A card's floor performance in a subpar state determines whether it earns a slot.

**Evidence**
- Professional Facebreaker creates treasure with minimal evasion, while Dross Scorpion often just grants a single untap.
- Ret to the Mystic is worse than a merfolk looter in a deck where 40% of creatures already cycle.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Assess the support cards a subtheme requires; if it demands many slots, it may dilute your main plan.
- Count the fulcrum cards linking two themes; abundant bridges make a hybrid deck more cohesive.

**Limitation**
- Theme pairs with sparse natural synergy, like cast-from-exile and landfall, risk being inconsistent.
- Conditional enchantments like Astral Slide become dead draws without cycling enablers.

**Example**
- In an Arcades defender deck, Doorkeeper's milling subtheme diverts from combat damage and needs extra support.
- An initiative-focused deck with legendary and background themes has few direct connections but can be built with intentionality.

**More quotes**
> Subthemes can make your deck better or they can make your deck worse. Either might be a desirable outcome depending on what you look for in a game of Magic: The Gathering.
> Having your deck do more stuff, have more textured play paths, and produce more unexpected results is desirable for players who have already played a lot with more linear styles of deck.
> A good place to start in expanding your deck's synergy universe is what I'll call fulcrum cards: things that naturally tie together multiple subthemes.
> An important consideration when thinking about [fulcrum] cards is the floor of the effect. I'm stat brained, so I think about the 25th percentile game: how will the card feel when it's not living up to our wildest dreams?
> It's important to figure out what works as a minor part of a deck and what has no business being outside a deck that doesn't heavily support it due to its low floor.
> [Ret to the Mystic], a little bird, gets mugged by a merfolk looter in this particular deck.
> Sometimes you're just going to have a bit of a hard time combining two themes. Does this mean that you shouldn't smash together two very different synergy families? No.
> Artifacts plus ETB and tokens plus one/one counters have been done tens of thousands of times before for good reason, but you always have the opportunity to do something different, unique, and more specifically suited to who you are as a player.
> Card selection tools like filtering spells and conditional tutors will reduce the play pattern variance of a deck, but if you add them to a deck that would otherwise have extreme variance due to many moving parts, you'll likely end up with something still very fresh and dynamic to play.
> Is Spread the Sickness the best removal this game has to offer? Definitely not, but it feels immensely at home in this deck and I wouldn't dare cut.

## #5. The Long Road to a Satisfying Aggro Deck  (Apr 2026, 105K views)
*Original title: How I Failed to Build an Aggro Deck for 3 Years*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Liesa, White, Black, Aggro, Stax, Design Intent, Synergy, Table Politics, Deckbuilding Principle

We spent three years iterating on a commander aggro deck, finding early versions unfocused and lacking card draw.
Attempts to add the initiative proved distracting, but discovering Bruna, the Demagogue as commander provided both damage and value, finally aligning with the goal of pressuring opponents' life totals.

**Principle**
- Deckbuilding should begin by defining the specific play experience you want to create, such as making opponents constantly worry about their life total.

**Evidence**
- The initial Liesa deck, with 16 hate bears and low draw, felt more like a stax deck than an aggro deck and bored the pilot due to lack of cards.
- Adding the initiative generated value but made the deck cumbersome and less focused on life pressure.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Ensure your aggro deck includes enough draw to keep your hand full and the game interesting; otherwise, both you and opponents are locked out.
- When adding a new mechanic, test if it directly advances your primary goal; if it distracts or complicates, cut it.
- A commander like Bruna can unify damage and value, making the deck more consistent and enjoyable.

**Limitation**
- The initiative's need for physical props and its occasional absence made games awkward and diluted the deck's aggressive identity.
- Cutting damaging cards to make room for value pieces pulled the deck further from its life pressuring ideal.

**Example**
- Bruna, the Demagogue transformed the deck by providing card draw and +1/+1 counters, satisfying the need for both value and damage.
- Switching commanders from Liesa to Bruna maintained the hate bear shell while better suiting higher power tables.

**More quotes**
> I wanted to make my opponents think about their life total a lot.
> An aggressive game plan can mean the ability to knock opponents out of the game early, but even before that happens, the first 20 to 30 damage dealt to an opponent already influences the way they play the game.
> In retrospect, the biggest [issue] is that [the original deck] felt more stax than it did Liesa.
> The initiative is a mechanic [that] is like monarch, but needlessly complicated for entirely aesthetic purposes.
> A commander deck can be a compact, self contained thing, and here I had introduced an extra mechanic that required me to use a full sheet of paper as a prop.
> Liesa is an inevitability commander, an unstoppable life total tax that always represents a way to grind the game toward a single digit hit point slugfest.
> By contrast, Breena is very much a tempo commander.
> This deck came out of the gate swinging and routinely knocked 50 points of life off of its opponents within the first six turns of the game, even in games it eventually lost control.
> I was not just looking for an aggro deck. I was looking for a sort of inevitability aggro experience, where opponents would spend time dealing with the consequences of a painfully low life total.
> A small part of me wishes she drained opponents for three per spell, but alas, my girl Liesa just does not quite have that kind of sauce.

## #6. Blight Curse Precon Review: Johnny-Style -1/-1 Counter Deck  (Feb 2026, 72K views)
*Original title: Blight Curse is a Johnny Playground*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Amzu, Black, Green, Counters, Card Draw, Reanimator, Upgrades, Synergy, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We review the Blight Curse precon, highlighting its commander's explosive draw potential and the diverse Johnny-style synergies from minus one counters.
We note that the limited and varied card pool requires careful balancing to avoid dead draws.
The alternate commander enables a creature theft strategy.

**Principle**
- The commander's ability has no per-turn limit, allowing it to draw multiple cards from a single spell that places counters on many creatures.
- The deck appeals to Johnny players by offering varied synergy pieces that combine in creative and powerful ways.

**Evidence**
- In 20 test games, the deck consistently built towards strong midgame plays rather than early explosive starts.
- The deck contains four cards that put minus one counters on all creatures, which become one-sided draw engines with the commander.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Add more cards that distribute minus one counters to all creatures to maximize card advantage from the commander.
- Include proliferate effects to multiply existing counters and accelerate your value engine.

**Limitation**
- The fragmented pool of minus one counter cards means some will be dead draws if they do not fit the current board state.
- Cards designed to weaken opponents may be inefficient when used on your own creatures for card draw.

**Example**
- The alternate commander, the Reaper King No More, steals opposing creatures that die with minus one counters, supported by the deck's removal suite.
- Hapatra and Flourishing Defenses turn minus one counter placement into token generation, rapidly building your board.

**More quotes**
> Blight Curse is pretty phenomenal as far as pre-constructed Commander decks go.
> This strikes me as quite a Johnny sort of precon.
> Liliana Death Wielder is an intro deck planeswalker from Amonkhet and it is truly god awful; it'd be barely playable at four mana and in reality it's seven mana because it's an intro deck planeswalker.
> I guess this was added to the deck to be an educational first cut for new players, à la Temple of the False God.
> This deck has a better relationship with its alt commander than most precons do.
> Anti-U has a lack of limiting phrases in the text box: no 'one or more creatures' and no 'once per turn'.
> Some cards put minus one counters on all creatures, rewarding wide boards with massive card advantage, whereas others gain minus one counters over time, pushing a slower, grindier play style.
> She is a powerful draw engine that allows somebody piloting the deck to see more of it, which is super useful for a deck whose cards are highly varied in how they work.
> There are so many different ways the various synergy elements can be pieced together, whether it be making a value engine, a removal engine, having a single explosive turn, putting together a wide board,.
> The minus one counter synergies take a variety of different shapes, and the setups and payoffs within this deck piece together in some really cool and sometimes really powerful ways.

## #7. How to Avoid Common Commander Deckbuilding Mistakes  (Jan 2026, 259K views)
*Original title: The 5 Most Common Deckbuilding Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Deck Consistency, Resilience, Win Conditions, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We analyze recurring deckbuilding mistakes observed in two years of deck reviews.
It identifies unfocused game plans, vulnerability to disruption, and lack of proactivity as common issues.
We advocate for tighter synergy focus, versatile protection over narrow spells, and ramp or haste to increase consistency.
These lessons aim to help players refine their Commander decks into more cohesive and resilient strategies.

**Principle**
- A deck should have a clear primary game plan; mixing multiple payoff directions weakens the deck's focus.
- Restraint in card inclusion is crucial; even cards with thematic synergy can dilute a strategy if they do not support the core win condition.

**Evidence**
- Unfocused macro goals were found in seven reviewed decks, making it a common issue especially among newer players.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When selecting payoffs for a synergy like landfall, choose ones that all contribute to a unified strategy (such as tokens and buffs) and avoid adding cards that generate incremental life gain or damage if they do not align.
- To protect a fragile game plan, use versatile tools like counterspells, haste enablers, or ramp instead of narrow protection spells that are dead when behind.

**Limitation**
- Protection spells can be ineffective when you are behind on board, making them a risky inclusion in decks that need to catch up.
- Relying solely on expensive commanders or resource-intensive setups increases vulnerability to disruption.

**Example**
- A landfall deck aiming to win via token beatdown should avoid including cards like Grazing Gladeheart (life gain) or Tunneling Geopede (incremental damage) because they dilute the primary aggressive plan.
- Using haste sources like Anger or end-step enablers like Leyline of Anticipation can effectively protect key creatures without dedicated protection spells.

**More quotes**
> Protection feels great to have when I'm ahead, but when I'm behind, they're the most useless pieces of garbage clogging up my hand that I can possibly imagine.
> The trick is learning to crank up the specificity, turning a soup of generic payoffs into a deck that knows what it is and where it is going.
> A necessary lesson here is in restraint, knowing when to exclude a card, even when it theoretically has a bit of synergy with what you're building.
> The worst feeling is having a creature eat dirt before it could do anything at all.
> If you're adding a goad card to your deck, its effectiveness will be inversely proportional to the number of good cards already in your deck.
> [If you overload on goad], pretend cards are fogs instead and suddenly your deck with 12 fogs in it is looking a little suspect.
> Some decks are a bit of a glass cannon. They have the potential to be very powerful, but can easily get kneecapped and do nothing.
> If you're cruising through Scryfall with a certain search term related to your synergy family, it's easy to just add endlessly until your deck space has filled up.
> I don't like protection spells very much. I've had multiple protection heavy decks that just felt kind of bad to play.
> With goad in particular, players treat goad as a plan for winning in and of itself when it's really not a mechanic that can be relied upon to do.

## #8. How Much Ramp Your Deck Really Needs  (Jan 2026, 100K views)
*Original title: You Might Have Too Much Ramp (but you also might not)*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Ramp, Deck Consistency, Mana Base, Curve, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

Ramp serves two distinct functions: smoothing out the early curve and increasing total mana over the game.
We provide a framework to decide if a deck needs more ramp based on its curve, commander cost, and game plan.
Hypergeometric calculators can quantify the right amount, with roughly 18 ramp spells giving a high chance of curving out.

**Principle**
- Ramp spells perform two separate functions: curving out and increasing total mana quantity.
- Deciding on ramp requires considering the mana values of other cards and the desired pacing of plays.

**Evidence**
- In deck reviews, more decks needed additional ramp than additional card draw.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Use a hypergeometric calculator to match the number of ramp spells to your desired chance of curving out.
- Aim for around 18 ramp spells for a 77% chance of having one by turn three.
- Choose ramp cost that aligns with your curve gaps, such as two-cost ramp if you lack two-drops but have many four-drops.

**Limitation**
- Adding ramp without purpose can dilute deck synergy and make it less powerful.
- Mana dorks are efficient for curve but fragile against board wipes; prioritize land ramp for long-game mana growth.

**Example**
- A dinosaur deck wanting to cast its four-cost commander on turn four can ramp on turn two to have four mana on turn three and then cast it on schedule.

**More quotes**
> Adding ramp feels like a somewhat dated suggestion, a tip offered to newer players in 2018.
> In 2025, card draw and synergy feel like bigger focal points for EDH critique, with a trendy hot take being that people run too much ramp.
> Ramp spells don't fulfill one single task. Rather, they perform two separate functions: curving out and increasing total mana quantity.
> Adding ramp to a deck without thinking about why you're adding it is both a commonplace action and a recipe for decks that aren't as lean and powerful as they could be.
> Ramping on turn one is theoretically the most mana efficient, but basically all one mana ramp will be in the form of mana dorks, which could amplify the weakness to board wipes.
> An Elvish Mystic will be great for a buttery smooth curve out, but an EDH game is a hostile climate for a squishy guy like that in the long term.
> A deck with a high 30s land count is naturally going to start missing land drops around turn six absent any draw or filtering.
> If you're just getting started with a new deck, a good starting point will be to aim high with both draw and ramp.
> [My] Malfagore deck runs very little ramp. The goal is to push all players, myself included, into a low resources state.
> Consistent land drops are really all that's needed to keep up with [my commander's] command tax.

## #9. Why the Hybrid Mana Proposal Sparked Strong Reactions  (Dec 2025, 3,076 words in transcript)
*Original title: The Hybrid Mana Debacle, and how WotC caused it*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Format Health, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Design Intent, Meta Trends, Meta Analysis

We argue that the intense community backlash to the proposed hybrid mana color identity change is excessive given its low stakes.
We suggest the reaction stems from recent player frustration with Wizards of the Coast decisions and the timing of the announcement.
We note that a similar suggestion was well-received in a past podcast, indicating the current context amplified the response.

**Current status (verified Jul 2026):**
- The proposed hybrid-mana color-identity change never became a rule. Under the current Commander rules a hybrid card counts every color in its cost toward color identity, so any alternate treatment has to be agreed as a pregame house rule (source: magic.wizards.com).

**Principle**
- The hybrid mana change is a minor clarification that fixes an unintuitive aspect of color identity without altering the format's core restrictions.
- Community reactions to rules changes are often amplified by pre-existing dissatisfaction with the company rather than the change's merits.

**Evidence**
- our earlier podcast proposing the same hybrid mana fix received agreement from viewers, showing the idea is not inherently controversial.
- The surge of heated YouTube videos and comments against the proposal indicates the response was disproportionate to the change's actual impact.
- Wizards of the Coast's diminished community trust from decisions like the Spider-Man set and product overload intensified the negative reaction.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Consider whether your decks would benefit from hybrid mana flexibility, and discuss house rules with your playgroup to enhance personal expression.

**Limitation**
- We do not advocate for abolishing color identity entirely, only for addressing specific edge cases like hybrid cards and indicator-defined identities.

**Example**
- The community's anger over the Spider-Man set and upcoming Universes Beyond overload created an atmosphere where the hybrid mana suggestion became a target for pent-up frustration.

**More quotes**
> The hybrid mana change seems like such a low-stakes issue no matter what side you fall on. But the community response to the suggested change has felt like what it would be if Wizards of the Coast were suggesting literally abolishing color identity.
> The online Magic community has been hotboxing anger and resentment in all of its various spaces and subspaces and niches for the past several months. With the Spider-Man set now behind us, that anger has been looking for a new target to explode out at, and this month, that something ended up being the suggested hybrid mana change.
> A lot of the arguments against hybrid mana are reheated versions of the arguments defending color identity I've heard.
> It's like rhetorical homeopathy. The angle you're arguing is very minor, almost inconsequential, and when you argue it with the passion of somebody whose mother just got insulted, it makes you look like a goofball.
> Does hybrid mana weaken color identity? My answer would be only a tiny bit at most, particularly if Wizards of the Coast is more careful with the hybrid color pie in the future.
> I think a lot of players forget that [this is a minor change] and just pretend they're arguing against the abolishing of color identity, and the result is that conversations end up feeling deeply strange.
> Wizards of the Coast already has colorless cards they can use to give a power card to any commander deck. So, the best tool for this is already available.
> Will Wizards of the Coast start rubbing their hands together evilly and sending hybrid stockup or hybrid beast whisperer to the printers the second the hybrid mana change happens? Maybe, but probably not. Once again, this is rhetorical homeopathy.
> The fact that it was Wizards of the Coast making an announcement suggesting this change rather than a handsome and big-brained YouTuber talking about it in a podcast definitely had an effect, because Wizards of the Coast is in a rough spot right now with community trust.
> The commander format has been identified as a cash cow, and a whole lot of decisions about what gets printed, when it gets printed, and how it gets printed seem to be motivated by milking that cash cow.

## #10. Eminence Mechanic Defense and Its Design Problems  (Nov 2025, 100K views)
*Original title: In Defense of Eminence*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Tokens, Ramp, Card Draw, Design Intent, Format Health, Power Level, Meta Trends

We argue that eminence is largely a fine mechanic, but its bad reputation stems from specific design decisions on Edgar Markov and The Ur-Dragon.
These commanders are too powerful and crowd out other options in their tribes due to low-cost, high-impact eminence abilities and five-color identities.
Wizards should limit future eminence commanders to fewer colors to avoid overshadowing niche options.

**Principle**
- Eminence itself is a reasonable ability structure. Its negative perception stems from overpowered designs on specific cards.

**Evidence**
- Edgar Markov and The Ur-Dragon are currently the two most popular commanders, demonstrating the raw power of their eminence abilities.
- Edgar Markov's eminence creates a vampire token each time you cast a vampire spell, with no restrictions on number or mana cost.
- The Ur-Dragon's eminence reduces the cost of all other dragon spells by one, and its five-color identity allows it to be slotted into any dragon deck, marginalizing other commanders.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When selecting a commander for a tribal deck, prefer one with two or fewer colors to preserve the distinct identity of your archetype, rather than defaulting to a five-color eminence option.

**Limitation**
- This argument primarily addresses the original cycle of eminence commanders. Newer eminence designs like Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir may demonstrate improved balancing.

**Example**
- Edgar Markov dominated vampire decks because his Mardu colors let him lead black-red decks without needing white, providing a strict upgrade with no downside.
- The Ur-Dragon's cost reduction and five-color identity made it the optimal dragon commander, crowding out alternatives like Bladewing, Atarka, and Scion of the Ur-Dragon.

**More quotes**
> Mostly, eminence is a largely fine keyword that I would like to see again in some form. Its bad reputation is primarily due to some questionable design decisions on Wizards of the Coast's part when they designed some of the original Eminence cards.
> [Atraxa, Praetors' Voice] lost her position as the most popular commander. Then last month, she lost her position as the second most popular commander as well. What replaced her were [the Ur-Dragon] and Edgar Markov, both commanders with the keyword eminence.
> Edgar Markov, the playable creature, is a six-mana 4/4 with first strike and haste that gives all your vampires a +1/+1 counter when he attacks. Not a bad effect, but certainly not something most Edgar players will be rushing to spend six mana to get.
> These two crowd other commanders out of lanes. Dragons and vampires are two of the most iconic Magic: The Gathering creature types, and they're naturally going to be popular choices for players new to the commander format. The issue is that both of these commanders ended up being by far the strongest option for their creature type.
> If [the Ur-Dragon] had the same eminence text but was mono red or even red blue, suddenly that's an actual niche.
> If you instead make a five-color option that's dramatically better than the others, and if that power doesn't even require casting the card, you destroy a lot of the reason to consider other options.
> All other Eminence abilities are easier to get value with, with Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir only requiring attacking with knights, Inalla only requiring wizards to enter, and the other three being almost entirely impossible to stop the effects.
> This uninteractability is another point of critique that you'll most commonly find from the removal lovers of the world.
> I'll lay my cards on the table here and say that in principle, this feature of Eminence doesn't strictly bother me. There are lots of things that can't be interacted.
> Setting aside these more specific examples, it's also important to remember that deleting opposing stuff doesn't need to be the end-all be-all of EDH. And I find that this intense focus on spot removal tends to indicate a lack of creativity from players.

## #11. Glass Cannon Commander Design and Its Pitfalls  (Oct 2025, 181K views)
*Original title: The Problem with Glass Cannon Commanders*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** White, Black, Red, Midrange, Design Intent, Resilience, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that glass cannon Commanders like Kaalia and Animar are powerful enablers but have fragile game plans.
Their decks often rely heavily on the commander, making them vulnerable to removal and leading to unsatisfying play experiences.
We advise evaluating deck construction to mitigate this built-in fragility.

**Principle**
- Glass cannon Commanders are efficient enablers that can create high-variance games, where the deck either dominates or stalls entirely based on the commander's survival.
- Decks built around enabler Commanders risk becoming non-functional if the commander is repeatedly removed, because the rest of the deck depends on the commander to operate.

**Evidence**
- Kaalia of the Vast decks average only 36 lands and 11 ramp spells despite an average mana value above 4, creating a mismatch that makes hardcasting threats difficult without the commander.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When constructing an enabler commander deck, ensure your mana base and backup options can sustain the game plan even if the commander is neutralized.

**Limitation**
- Even when including protection for the commander, decks like Kaalia remain vulnerable to board wipes because they rely on a fragile attacker and a slow creature-based strategy.

**Example**
- Kaalia of the Vast is a classic example of a glass cannon: a 4-mana 2/2 that must attack to cheat creatures into play, making her easy to disrupt and stranding high-cost cards in hand.

**More quotes**
> Powerful designs like Yuriko and Edgar Markov stretch the mechanics of the Commander format to its outer limit, and all sorts of other cards are controversial in their own right, even if they're less obvious mechanical outliers.
> I want to talk about glass cannon Commanders, Commanders that are powerful and explosive, but also fragile.
> [These cards], while certainly having some benefits, can risk misleading players and causing them to stumble into play experiences they don't necessarily want.
> Fundamentally, all Commanders will be an enabler, a payoff, or something.
> Whereas a payoff Commander is the amplifying adornment atop a solid 99, an enabler Commander will often be step one to doing anything in the game, with the rest of the deck living atop.
> Why play some neutered halfway consistent Kaalia deck when you can live out your most daring Mardu fantasies, to stray ever closer to the sun with your cool flyers?
> Due to the fact that both of these Commanders are enablers that discount large amounts of mana on creatures, in the most ideal games with the best draws and the least opposing interaction, they're exploding out of control.
> Quite a lot of Commanders feature the phrase 'draw a card' or some equivalent in their text box. And while you could argue that generic value is a little overplayed as a payoff for a Commander to grant, this design choice has had the undeniable boon of improving the resilience of a lot of play styles.
> Your command zone secures you exactly one element of your deck, and though you can try to sculpt your 99 to lead to a well-balanced experience, there will still only be one card in your deck that you're absolutely guaranteed to see.
> This is why the most explosive decks out there typically feature an explosive commander focused on either damage or raw board size.

## #12. Why Some EDH Players Resist Pre-Game Deck Pitches  (Sep 2025, 66K views)
*Original title: r/EDH and Communication*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** White, Blue, Red, Rule Zero, Power Level, Threat Assessment, Social and Politics

We examine a Reddit post advocating for brief pre-game deck pitches and the backlash from players who prefer to deduce strategies through gameplay.
We argue that in casual EDH, the lack of a dominant winning goal leads players to substitute competitive skills with encyclopedic format knowledge, treating games as deductive puzzles.
We acknowledge the appeal of this mystery-driven playstyle but question its opposition to transparent communication.

**Principle**
- In casual EDH, the absence of a dominant winning goal leads players to seek substitute skills to find meaning in gameplay.
- Players often replace competitive skills with encyclopedic knowledge of the format, treating games as deductive puzzles.

**Evidence**
- Negative reactions to pre-game deck pitches on Reddit show a faction that prefers to deduce strategies through play rather than be told.
- Comments like 'revealing what your deck does by playing it sounds way more fun' illustrate the desire for in-game discovery.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Before a game, provide a short description of your deck's strategy to help opponents calibrate their threat assessment.

**Limitation**
- The deduction-based playstyle can be genuinely enjoyable, testing players' knowledge and pattern recognition.
- Not all players will embrace transparency, and the mystery-driven approach remains a valid preference.

**Example**
- Upon seeing a commander like Tasa, experienced players immediately anticipate typical combos such as Ashnod's Altar.
- Observing a Blood Artist prompts players to consider sacrifice outlets and loop potential within the opponent's colors.

**More quotes**
> Brackets are a useful tool, but they don't address specific play pattern preferences.
> A good solution to this problem is to have players come to the table with a basic 10-second pitch for what their deck is doing.
> Revealing what your deck does by playing it sounds way more fun to me than everyone giving a synopsis on how the game is going to go before it even starts.
> Leaving some mystery to the game is fun. It means we can play to figure out each other's weakness instead of basically being told.
> There seems to be a large online faction of Commander players who think this way, who treat Commander as some sort of detective game where a large part of the gameplay is figuring out what's going on in opposing decks, or alternatively as some sort of show that you wouldn't want to spoil the ending.
> EDH players are aimless goblins wandering through the world looking for meaning.
> I don't even need to have a conversation with my opponent. All I need to do is see that TASA pull up and I'm already squaring up for some Ashnod's Altar BS.
> EDH is already an unbelievably information dense format. Dingus.
> The information density of EDH is untouched by any other widely played format.
> The game of figuring out what my opponent's deck does is just not one I think is beneficial to have at the heart of the EDH format.

## #13. Using EDHREC Effectively in Commander Deck Building  (Aug 2025, 77K views)
*Original title: How I use Commander's Most Misunderstood Tool*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** EDHREC Data, Card Evaluation, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We teach a balanced method for using EDHREC in Commander deck building.
We recommend consulting EDHREC early to understand popular builds, then exploring independently to preserve creativity, and finally using filters with indicator cards to discover cards for your specific archetype.
This approach avoids both over-reliance and dismissal of the tool.

**Principle**
- Use the default EDHREC page only for broad awareness of common themes, not as a blueprint for your deck.
- Treating commanders as monolithic entities ignores the diversity of possible builds.

**Evidence**
- The Animar page shows that more than half of decks are combo-focused, which will shape how opponents react to your deck regardless of your build.
- Scryfall searches often miss niche synergistic cards like Dour Port Mage or Whitemane Lion, which EDHREC can surface when filtered.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- After establishing your deck's core concept, return to EDHREC and apply the filter option with indicator cards to see only lists that match your specific archetype.
- During the initial creative phase, avoid looking at card popularity percentages (such as 47% of decks using Deadly Dispute) to prevent subconscious bias.

**Limitation**
- The default EDHREC page is less useful for commanders with highly divergent builds because it pools all versions together, burying niche options specific to your intended archetype.
- Relying on EDHREC without early independent exploration results in decks that are flat, formulaic, and missing creative tools.

**Example**
- On the Zada page, Fists of Flame is a top card, showing that the base page often highlights explosive plays that may define a commander's reputation.
- Looking at the Prosper page can reveal the category of 'cast from anywhere other than your hand,' leading to cards like Memory Worm that might not appear in typical Scryfall searches.

**More quotes**
> I have spoken before about how using EDHREC for all of your deck building needs can lead to decks that are flat, formulaic, and missing lots of great tools.
> In reality, EDHREC is an intensely useful website that has the capability to make your decks better, more interesting, even more unique in some ways if you know how to use it correctly.
> The longer you spend on this unaltered EDHREC page without looking elsewhere, the more you'll get sucked into the stuff on this page and subconsciously let it decide what your deck wants to be for you.
> I find that the progression of gradually building up in cards and plugging in different Scryfall searches as I figure out different ways the deck could play is really valuable as a creative step.
> EDHREC can help you fill in the gaps with popular cards that Scryfall searches might have missed.
> We as EDH players have a tendency to treat commanders as whole entities, like characters selected from a grid in a fighting game.
> Decks with a given commander can vary dramatically from one another. And the more diverse a given commander's decks are, the less helpful the base EDHREC page will be.
> The filters option allows you to filter out decks that do or don't include a given card.
> The presence of more expensive ramp will generally be a good sign that a deck has a big mana game plan.
> If I filter for decks that include Thalia and exclude Soul Warden, life gain is basically obliterated from the page.

## #14. Building EDH Decks with Counterweight Commanders  (Jul 2025, 355K views)
*Original title: The Strange Method for Building EDH Decks that I Can't Stop Using*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Discard, Combo, Ramp, Deck Consistency, Curve, Synergy, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We teach the concept of counterweight commanders, which offset a deck's weaknesses rather than directly synergizing with its theme.
By interrogating what the command zone truly provides, builders can design decks where commander and 99 have a mutualistic relationship.
Examples like Rada, Glissa, and Liesa show how this approach mitigates downsides such as lack of early plays or vulnerability to aggression.

**Principle**
- A counterweight commander serves to cover the weaknesses of a given deck instead of directly synergizing with its cards.

**Evidence**
- Many players only view commanders as enablers or payoffs for themes, missing the broader strategic potential of the command zone.
- The concept emerges from rigorously interrogating what the command zone offers in exact detail.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Cut low-cost ramp from the 99 if your commander can consistently provide it, as with Rada enabling a cascade deck with only four-drop or higher spells.
- Use a low-cost deathtouch commander like Glissa to offer early blocking and draw, allowing the rest of the deck to focus on high-mana-value battlecruiser cards.
- Pair a commander that efficiently depletes life totals with a 99 full of hatebears to close games in a slowed-down environment.

**Example**
- Rada: guarantees turn-two ramp, permitting a deck with no cards below four mana and strengthening cascade effects.
- Glissa: provides first strike, deathtouch, and card draw, making her an ideal blocker and early play for a greedy late-game deck.
- Liesa: serves as a resilient, damage-dealing commander alongside hatebears that hinder opponents and slow the game.

**More quotes**
> A counterweight commander is a commander that serves to cover the weaknesses of a given deck.
> Almost all popular commanders fall into one of two categories: they're an enabler for a particular thing, or more commonly, they're a payoff for a particular thing.
> A lot of players internalize this as the way to build Commander decks, but this actually misses a lot of the possibility space of the format.
> The idea of a counterweight commander emerges naturally from the process of rigorously interrogating what in exact detail your command zone is offering you.
> If we think about a commander deck as a stool, I basically removed one leg from that stool and then shoved my commander under there as a replacement.
> By fully covering my low-cost ramp, R allows me to have nothing below four mana in the 99, thereby strengthening the cascade cards.
> When [my commander] dies early I shrug, garner a bit of table sympathy, and then proceed normally starting on turn four.
> My Glissa deck is a pile of generic dudes, my R deck is a cascade flavored pile of generic dudes, my Liesa deck is a lower curved and somewhat staxy pile of generic dudes, and if you squint around the interesting bits my Malfegor deck is also kind of a pile of generic dudes.
> The counterweight commander method is all about rejecting direct synergy with the commander in favor of a game plan that meshes with the commander indirectly.
> Without that direct synergy relationship, it is easy to end up grabbing best-in-class cards rather than ones that perform a specific dynamic or synergistic game plan.

## #15. What Commander Players Miss from Other Formats  (Jul 2025, 316K views)
*Original title: The Lessons that EDH-only Players Don't Learn*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Midrange, Ramp, Deck Consistency, Threat Assessment, Meta Trends, Format Health, Strategy

We argue that the decline of 60-card casual play leaves Commander players unprepared for grindy, low-life-total games.
It claims that experience in other formats improves life total management, blocking discipline, and handling resource scarcity.
We also caution against rigid deckbuilding templates, suggesting flexible adoption based on a deck's plan.
Venturing outside EDH can thus sharpen a player's skills.

**Principle**
- Playing 20-life 1v1 formats teaches players to treat life total as a resource, a skill that Commander's high life totals and explosive win conditions often fail to develop.

**Evidence**
- Commander players frequently face win conditions that reduce life totals from full to zero in one attack, causing them to undervalue incremental life loss.
- In grindy games where resources are scarce, primarily Commander players tend to view the situation as a lost cause, whereas players with 60-card experience remain vigilant and seek marginal advantages.
- The habit of blocking with useful creatures is rarely punished in Commander but becomes critical in low-life formats, leading Commander-only players to instinctively avoid necessary blocks.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Deckbuilding templates for ramp and draw are often treated as universal in Commander, but 60-card formats demonstrate that ramp should be included only when a deck's plan demands it, encouraging more flexible construction.

**Limitation**
- These skills can still be developed within Commander, but because resource-scarce games occur less frequently, it takes significantly more playtime to internalize them.

**Example**
- A Commander player might keep a valuable creature back instead of blocking an attack that leaves them at 3 life, not realizing that the next unblockable hit will kill them.

**More quotes**
> EDH has effectively become the casual way to play paper Magic; the days of 60-card kitchen table gaming are in the past, replaced by a diverging path for newer players.
> Commander as a format clearly isn't going anywhere in the casual scene, so it's pointless to try and fight against.
> Commander players are often less prepared for grindier games where every point of life total matters.
> Life total is a resource, and players of 20-life formats learn when to spend and when to save.
> In formats outside Commander, a player must ask themselves why this ramp spell is here, and without a clear answer it gets cut.
> Many Commander deck builders add ramp staples without considering what the cards actually accomplish.
> I play ramp because I want more mana, come on now.
> The step of asking how much mana a deck actually needs and when it will want to play ramp spells is one that a lot of players forget to complete.
> One other deck building skill that EDH isn't great at teaching players is figuring out optimal card quantities.
> Singleton formats outsource a lot of decisionmaking about card quantities to the nature of the format.

## #16. Why Some Good Cards Are Wrong for Casual Decks  (Jul 2025, 239K views)
*Original title: Stop Shortcutting the Fun Part of your Deck*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Discard, Control, Midrange, Card Evaluation, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Deckbuilding Principle

In casual Commander, not every powerful card belongs in your deck.
Adding cards that generate easy resources or simplify decision-making can bypass the engaging game states you intentionally built around.
Consider whether a card enhances or short-circuits the experiences you enjoy, and be willing to cut even strong cards that undermine your deck's core identity.

**Principle**
- Casual decks are intentionally not perfectly optimal, forgoing powerful cards to preserve a desired play experience.
- Some cards can diminish fun by shortcutting the engaging decision-making or resource tension your deck is built around, even if they don't directly win games.

**Evidence**
- In a Malakir discard deck, Waste Not was excluded because it generated effortless resources, removing the gritty low-resource struggle that made the deck enjoyable.
- In a cycling deck, Monument to Endurance was excluded because it reduced a complex choice-intensive engine to a simple cycle to draw loop, trivializing tutoring and resource decisions.
- Draw doublers like Alhammarret's Archive and Teferi's Insight were also cut from the cycling deck for similarly automating value generation.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Evaluate cards based on whether they enhance or undermine the interactive decisions and resource scarcity your deck intentionally creates.
- Be willing to cut even highly synergistic cards if they eliminate the need for the tricky, engaging choices central to your deck's identity.

**Limitation**
- Not all powerful cards are problematic; cards like Cacophodon can align with and bolster the intended play style without shortcutting the fun.

**More quotes**
> What you find fun about playing your deck may be a lot more fragile than you think, much more sensitive to the blunt instrument of an out-of-place card or two than you'd expect.
> A deck is casual when it is not perfectly optimal in its ability to perform tasks and win games, and when this state of being is intentional.
> Plenty of casual EDH players understand that they'd prefer to win with Purphoros and a bunch of goblins rather than Dualcaster plus Twinflame.
> The fun part of the deck for me is when I'm clawing for advantage in a scrappy game, and if a two mana enchantment just hands me a bunch of advantage, it shortcuts.
> [With Waste Not,] it basically just turns my deck into a generic oppressive Stax deck in the process.
> The issue with Monument to Endurance is that it shortcuts around this whole thing. Its ability doesn't compete with anything else in the deck and the correct first choice per turn will almost always be card draw.
> Suddenly the task of gaining advantage has one simple route of administration: find the card that makes my cycling cards do more cycling, play it, and then the advantage makes itself.
> These generic do thing get card synergies would suck the identity and a lot of the interesting decision making out of the deck, thereby removing a lot of what makes it fun to me.
> If you find the process of building advantage a particularly fun one, you'll want to be careful with the cards you add.
> I like playing the role of a final boss with this deck, pumping my volume of gameplay up to seismic proportions before lumbering in the direction of victory with my large creatures.

## #17. The Homogenization of Commander Decks  (Jul 2025, 238K views)
*Original title: The Sluggish Era of Tall Commander*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** Ramp, Card Draw, Midrange, Format Health, Meta Trends, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Meta Analysis

Commander's 40 starting life and casual nature encourage decks to focus on ramping and drawing cards to build large threats.
Over time, this has led to homogeneous midrange decks that all rely on similar ramp and draw packages.
Social pressures against aggressive or disruptive strategies further entrench this pattern, making the format increasingly sluggish and uniform.

**Principle**
- The format's 40 starting life makes it necessary for decks to accumulate significant mana and cards to overwhelm multiple opponents.

**Evidence**
- Originally, preconstructed decks featured high-cost spells, reflecting the intended slower pace of the format.
- As powerful draw engines have been printed and deckbuilding has become more streamlined, decks have increasingly focused on ramp and draw as self-amplifying engines.
- Players often consider aggressive, stax, or combo strategies rude, leading to a social environment that discourages countering tall decks.
- Even when commanders could handle ramp or draw, decks still include redundant amounts of these effects, showing the depth of the homogenization.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Consider including early aggressive plays or stax pieces to counter opponents who spend turns ramping.

**Limitation**
- Social rules against certain strategies limit the format's ability to self-correct, as there is no formal metagame or banlist to keep greedy decks in check.
- The pressure to let everyone do their thing can lead to games where players are essentially goldfishing, reducing meaningful interaction.

**Example**
- Specific cards like Armageddon, Winter Orb, Gaddock Teeg, and poison counters are often socially banned, allowing ramp-heavy decks to go unchecked.

**More quotes**
> A common unspoken rule of Commander is that people should get to have a game plan, to do a thing, to do their thing.
> Commander's 40 starting health itself serves as a built-in 'do the thing' enabler.
> The funny thing about ramp and draw is that they have an amplifying effect: ramp gives mana to cast more ramp spells, and card draw finds more card draw.
> As more and more powerful draw engines have been printed over the last 10 years, along with the EDH developing a more streamlined deck building culture, decks that focus heavily on draw and ramp have become more and more prevalent.
> The polite counterplay [to greedy decks] is to go bigger, to get more mana and more cards, and escalate harder.
> Commander as a casual format has the awkward dynamic that there isn't a metagame per se, and everything that happens is basically moderated by a giant glob of expectations.
> As counter measures become less and less widespread, players will feel more and more emboldened to chase big greedy decks to their logical end point.
> The dominance of tall Commander means that players are able to do big expressive plays with a wide degree of freedom.
> One issue with the gradual upward race of tall Commander is information overload: EDH boards are wildly complex these days.
> Long turns beget long turns: if the game's turns are a sequence of back to back 5 to 10 minute fiddle fests, other people are going to start chatting or checking their phone or gazing off into space.

## #18. Deckbuilding Creativity vs. Actual Gameplay Experience  (Jul 2025, 232K views)
*Original title: The Impossible Search for a "Fun" Combo Deck*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, Blue, Black, Green, Combo, Ramp, Control, Budget, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Win Conditions, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We reflect on the disconnect between creative deckbuilding and actual gameplay in Commander.
We built a Maze's End combo deck that could win consistently by turn 7, but opponent treated it like any other combo deck.
A friend's Yidris cascade deck faced similar indifference, as players easily disrupted it.
The core insight is that deckbuilding and playing are separate activities, and creative building doesn't inherently make games more fun.

**Principle**
- Deckbuilding creativity is not rewarded in Commander games on its own. The gameplay experience often differs from the builder's narrative.

**Evidence**
- our Maze's End deck, despite weeks of tuning, was met with indifference. Opponents simply acknowledged the combo and moved on.
- A friend's Yidris cascade deck was religiously hated out because players recognized the combo and focused on removing the commander.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Use 20 or more ramp spells to consistently assemble a Maze's End win by turn 7 or 8.
- Cheat all Gates into play with Scapeshift or Reshape the Earth to bypass the slow Gate accumulation.
- Include Amulet of Vigor to untap the Gates immediately and win on the same turn, avoiding a vulnerability window.

**Limitation**
- Maze's End is slow and visible. Opponents can track your progress and apply pressure before you reach 10 Gates.
- Even a creatively built combo deck ultimately behaves like a standard combo deck, vulnerable to countermagic and commander removal.

**Example**
- The Aros Maze's End deck is an example of an optimized alternate win condition deck that still produced dull game moments.
- The Yidris cascade deck illustrates how creative execution is irrelevant if opponents can stop the commander's combat trigger.

**More quotes**
> The issue with Mesa's End is that it's both visible and slow. Opponents can track the progress of the deck to its wincon with pinpoint accuracy.
> What if I simply played all the gates at once?
> I spent weeks and dozens of hours tweaking until I'd achieved a deck that could pull off a Mazes End win consistently by turn seven or eight, for a bit over a hundred bucks.
> In an actual game of Commander, this plays just like any other one card plus Commander combo deck.
> Despite having a creative execution, [the Yidris] combo was still a combo and opponents treated it as such.
> Deck building creativity is not rewarded in and of itself in Commander games.
> An inherent weirdness of a collectible card game like Magic: the Gathering is that deck building and playing are two separate phases of the game.
> The platonic ideal of an EDH win is brief; there is no ceremony where the winning player gets to revel in their glory and be celebrated for their deck building or gameplay accomplishments.
> I had constructed narratives of grandeur as I was reaching out striving for a powerful Mazes End deck, but once it was in my hand it was clearly something far more mundane than I had expected.
> Despite understanding all of that, I have a pattern of continually coming back to build new creative combo decks; it's an itch that I can't seem to stop scratching.

## #19. The Double Standard of Resource Denial in EDH  (Jul 2025, 211K views)
*Original title: You're Probably Wrong about Stax in EDH*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Stax, Format Health, Meta Trends, Rule Zero, Table Politics, Social and Politics

The EDH community accepts board wipes but shuns mass land destruction and stax due to social norms, not card balance.
Players prepare for common strategies but not for discouraged ones, making those strategies more oppressive.
We critique the inconsistent definition of player agency, as snowballing decks can deny agency as much as stax locks.

**Current status (verified Jul 2026):**
- Sway of the Stars is legal in Commander again after being unbanned. Iona, Shield of Emeria is still banned.
- Farewell now appears on the Commander Game Changers list, so it counts toward a deck's bracket (source: Scryfall card records).

**Principle**
- Social norms, not objective power levels, determine which resource-denial strategies are accepted in EDH.

**Evidence**
- Players could mitigate mass land destruction with indestructible lands, artifact ramp, and land recursion, but they rarely do because the strategy is socially discouraged.
- Classic stax pieces universally target mana and card draw, fundamentally denying the same resources that board wipes deny by removing creatures.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To reduce vulnerability, include artifact and creature based ramp, land recursion, and a lower mana curve.

**Limitation**
- While some stax cards are justifiably banned for locking players out, the broader stigma ignores that snowballing midrange decks can equally prevent opponents from making meaningful game actions.

**Example**
- In a world where board wipes are absent, a single Wrath of God would feel as taboo as Armageddon does now, illustrating how preparation norms dictate perceptions.
- A stax soft lock with a 90% win chance feels more objectionable than being behind an aggressive dragon player with the same odds, despite identical comeback potential.

**More quotes**
> Mass land destruction is acutely painful largely because people don't prepare for it, and people don't prepare for it because it's not commonly accepted as a major part of the format.
> Frequent board wipes being accepted as a fact of life at most EDH tables isn't some natural fact that got plucked out of the ground wholly formed, and the fact that mass land destruction is mostly absent from EDH tables isn't a natural fact either. The reason why people are frequently prepared for one and frequently unprepared for the other comes down to social factors.
> The stax archetype is traditionally all about denying your opponents the tools they need to play the game.
> The gameplay goal of [Lantern control] was less to win than it was to prevent the opponent from playing Magic: The Gathering, to assemble a Rube Goldberg machine that could prevent the unlucky opponent from taking any meaningful game action.
> Player agency is important in EDH. On this much I agree. It's good when all players get to play a part in an EDH game and it's never a great feeling when somebody feels truly left out of a game. However, over time we as players have developed a skewed vision of what player agency actually looks like.
> These situations are identical in terms of ability to perform meaningful game actions. It's just as easy to break out of the stax player's grip as it is to catch back up to the Ur-Dragon player, yet the first one is generally thought of as the much more objectionable one.
> A lot of players seem to think of their deck as more of a fidget toy than an actual game piece. You have some sort of synergy thing that your deck is meant to do, and being able to complete a few entirely insignificant game actions on your turn to scratch that brain itch registers as a more positive thing than being able to do nothing at all.
> Large portions of Commander decks are snowball midrange in some form or other, decks with abundant tools to keep getting ahead once they're already ahead. Why don't these violate conventions of player agency?
> For three mana, [Teferi's Protection] shuts down all board interaction and forms of damaging a player until that player's next turn, with a counterspell being the only possible option for counterplay. It's the sort of effect whose all-encompassing nature would be valid at an inflated mana cost of something like five mana, but instead it's costed at three, the same amount as most board wipe dodges. You get invulnerability as just a little bitty tacked-on side benefit.
> Looking at the stax primer from ten years ago is fascinating, as a number of cards listed as stax or stax-adjacent sound weird to a modern Commander player's brain. Edicts are one instance of this, and wraths are another.

## #20. Choosing the Optimal Land Count for Your EDH Deck  (Jul 2025, 200K views)
*Original title: All of the Reasons You Should Put More Lands in your EDH Deck*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Red, Green, Ramp, Midrange, Mana Base, Curve, Deck Consistency, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain why many Commander decks benefit from higher land counts, focusing on factors like mana curve, draw efficiency, and mana sinks.
Using a Ruric Thar deck as a case study, it shows how missing land drops forces decks to waste mana on ramp instead of threats.
The deck's 41-land count is a deliberate choice to ensure consistent mana development.
We provide a framework for evaluating your own deck's land needs.

**Principle**
- A deck's mana curve determines how many lands it needs: higher curves require more lands to cast spells on time.
- Missing land drops in high-curve decks forces you to spend mana on ramp just to hit land drops, which should have been spent on threats.

**Evidence**
- We found that with 40 lands, we frequently had to use ramp to make land drops, so we increased to 41.
- Many players slavishly stick to a preferred land count like 36 or 38, ignoring a deck's specific needs.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Track how often you use ramp to hit land drops; if it is frequent, increase your land count.
- Ensure your land count is high enough to cast expensive draw spells on curve without relying on ramp.

**Limitation**
- Decks that aim to win by turn six can run fewer lands because they do not need as many land drops.
- Decks with a lot of cheap cantrips can run fewer lands because they can easily find them.

**Example**
- The Ruric Thar deck averages a nonland cost of 5.33 and has no spells below four mana, so it runs 41 lands to avoid mana screw.
- Its cheapest draw effects cost four mana and require further hoops, making early land drops critical.

**More quotes**
> I suppose maybe people consider setting the land count of a deck they're adapting to their preferred number as a part of putting their own spin.
> I've also seen people react with shock or skepticism when I mentioned that one of my decks has a land count in the 40s.
> You don't need to play a land on turn seven if there is no turn seven.
> What happens if you draw 10 cards and then end the turn with a hand containing six lands and eight non-land cards? You discard four or five lands. That's what.
> When a deck can readily access powerful draw that is a bit mana expensive, running a higher land count is often an all-around win.
> Playing a six drop is twice as card efficient as playing two three drops.
> I bumped the land count from 40 up to 41 specifically because I had too many games where I was effectively paying mana for land drops that I could be making for free normally.
> Running a land count closer to your ideal land proportion in your opening hand gives you more wiggle room to use your mulligans to hunt for non-land cards.
> A 32 land deck will often need to play a Bojuka Bog on curve in order to not miss a land drop, and this may end up greatly reducing the effectiveness of the card's ETB.
> Some decks care about what's on top of their deck more than others, an attribute that I like to call the krip coefficient.

## #21. The Ethical Case for Playing Simple EDH Decks  (Jul 2025, 186K views)
*Original title: The Strange Ethical Case for Playing Boring Decks*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Format Health, Meta Trends

We question whether the hipster ethos of building unique Commander decks is good for the format.
We argue that high card diversity causes information overload, especially in pickup games with strangers, making it harder for new and experienced players.
Playing simpler or more common decks might be more ethical and lead to greater overall fun.

**Principle**
- Playing highly unique or complex decks in casual Commander can create an overwhelming experience for others, particularly new players.
- Choosing simpler, more familiar strategies may be a more considerate way to maximize fun in pickup environments.

**Evidence**
- A four-player Commander game can feature over 150 unique nonland cards, approximately ten times more than a typical 60-card format duel.
- The format's rapid release of thousands of new cards each year makes it difficult for even experienced players to recognize every card.
- Processing unfamiliar cards consumes mental energy that players would otherwise use for threat analysis, planning, and politicking.
- New players face a steep learning curve as they must digest a huge volume of unfamiliar card text and board state information.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When building for unknown pick-up groups, consciously limit the number of niche or rarely seen cards to help lower the cognitive barrier.

**Limitation**
- The creative freedom enabled by Commander's vast card pool is a legitimate and cherished part of the format for many dedicated brewers.
- The argument is not that players should abandon unique decks entirely, but that they should weigh the social cost of high card diversity in certain contexts.

**Example**
- our friend Hans recently built a deck so filled with obscure cards that even we, a Commander expert, could not recognize many of them, illustrating information overload even among veterans.

**More quotes**
> I am an honest-to-god, dyed-in-the-wool EDH hipster.
> Is having a weird-off with the table where everybody tries to do the most performatively unusual things actually a good way to play Magic?
> Might it even be more ethical, better to one's fellow Magic players, to play a deck that's simpler or does something more common?
> Commander offers an elegant one-size-fits-all solution with a broad card pool and a slim ban list.
> Pick up EDH can be an absolute information overload, and this broader problem can be broken down into two separate subproblems, card diversity and gameplay diversity.
> With Wizards of the Coast increasing the number of brand new cards they print into the Commander format from the high hundreds per year to multiple thousand per year, keeping up even as an experienced EDH player can be difficult.
> Getting a foothold in that environment will be a difficult and time-consuming process even in a setting with somewhat consistent decks and players.
> [In cEDH,] fewer cards are viable, and that's good, actually.
> Whereas in cEDH, there is a smaller group of viable strategies with off-meta tech being a spicy exception rather than the rule, high-power casual is packed to the rafters with off-meta because there isn't a meaningful meta.
> I'd also wager that this is where a big dose of frustration comes from in pick-up magic, particularly in games that straddle the line between mid and high power, and where players enter with differing expectations.

## #22. Reducing Dead Draws in Commander Deckbuilding  (Jul 2025, 164K views)
*Original title: Snail's Guide to Drawing Less Junk*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Synergy, Deck Consistency, Card Evaluation, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain how to minimize dead draws among non-land cards in Commander decks.
We emphasize building synergistic decks, carefully evaluating subtheme support, and using a tagging system to track card interactions.
The key is to ensure each card is useful in multiple situations and supported by enough other cards.

**Principle**
- Dead draw mitigation starts with evaluating a card's standalone function and its synergies.
- Commander's higher life totals and multiple opponents make synergy essential, as cards must combine to produce sufficient impact.

**Evidence**
- A deck of 35 Swamps and 64 Rat Colonies demonstrates that perfect synergy and task uniformity remove dead draws entirely, at the cost of strategic flexibility.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Label cards with categories like Flicker, ETB, or Graveyard Enabler to evaluate how many other cards they synergize with across game states.
- For each card, consider the situations where it is powerful versus dead, and estimate its dead draw percentage based on your deck's composition.

**Limitation**
- Subtheme cards like Metastatic Evangel can become dead if reliant on an easily removed commander or if they only interact with a small fraction of the deck.

**Example**
- In a Kyler humans deck, Copper Coat Vanguard remains useful with any human board state, whereas Increasing Devotion requires specific enablers like Kyler or anthems to avoid being a poor draw.

**More quotes**
> In the worst case, you've got the dead card: a card that you draw and it doesn't do anything meaningful whatsoever.
> Drawing a land when you don't want one, or not drawing a land when you do, will always be a struggle.
> An exclusively rat colony and swamp deck has an exceptionally specific game plan with little to no flexibility.
> EDH as a format encourages synergy. And by synergy, I simply mean cards doing more together than they do on their own.
> This is the case because the format is 40 life instead of 20 and has three opponents instead of one.
> Paired with the commander, [Metastatic Evangel] can turn powerful plays into utterly earthshattering plays, but it also doesn't do much to smooth over [the commander's] weaknesses.
> When I'm building decks, I'll typically keep track of support for different themes and sub themes via [Archidekt's] category system.
> Quadrant theory exists to make sure that you're thinking about all of the situations a card might exist in, not just the ideal ones.
> This concept was originally designed with limited formats in mind, where cards are typically simpler and players tend to be on the lookout for narrow slivers of advantage.
> [Drakuseth, Maw of Flames] is a good symbol of what this deck is best at. It's just always decent.

## #23. How to Use Card Categories in EDH Deckbuilding  (Jul 2025, 146K views)
*Original title: The Most Forgotten Part of EDH Deckbuilding*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Midrange, Interaction, Mana Base, Curve, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Principle

Categorizing cards into core functions like lands, ramp, draw, protection, and interaction clarifies a deck's structure and reveals its strategic shape.
A separate 'theme' category early on can mislead, as many theme cards should overlap with core roles.
Ramp and interaction categories must be tailored to the deck's specific timing and goals to avoid inefficient choices.

**Principle**
- Categorizing cards into core functions (lands, ramp, draw, protection, interaction) reveals the deck's fundamental shape and primary game plan.
- Ramp and interaction categories should be defined based on what they accomplish for the deck's specific strategy, not just by card type.

**Evidence**
- Standard starting counts (35-40 lands, 15-20 removal, 13-18 draw, 7-12 ramp, 3-8 protection) leave almost no room for pure theme cards without overlap, illustrating the tight slot budget.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Always include a card in a core category if it performs that function, even if it also fits a theme; use subcategories for theme identity.
- When building ramp, ask whether the deck needs to accelerate to specific mana values by certain turns or just scale into larger spells.
- Treat interaction cards as tools to set opponents back; recognize that different interaction types (counters, fogs, removal) serve different purposes and cannot fully substitute for one another.

**Limitation**
- Creating a discrete 'theme' category too early leads to overvaluing cards that do not contribute to core functions, causing decks to lack necessary mana, draw, or interaction.
- Rigid non-overlapping categories cause bloat; overlap between categories is essential for a streamlined deck.

**Example**
- A two-mana rock like Worn Powerstone functions as ramp only if the deck's acceleration goal is not to reach four mana quickly.
- Murder can stop combos or clear blockers, but Fog excels defensively while being useless against value engines, showing why interaction categories must be tailored.

**More quotes**
> If somebody asked me for healthy starting ranges for their core categories for a bog standard EDH deck, I'd say something like 35 to 40 lands, 15 to 20 pieces of removal equivalent, 13 to 18 pieces of draw, 7 to 12 pieces of ramp, and 3 to eight pieces of protection.
> What you may notice about that is that if you go on the higher end of each of these values to be safe, that adds up to 98 deck slots. You got a whole one left over to work with after these core categories.
> The implication here is that cards that don't fit into one of these categories are inherently charging your deck an opportunity cost, and you should keep that in mind when deciding how many of them to have.
> I've seen a lot of guys recommending people include a category such as theme as a discrete entity alongside these other sorts of function categories, at least in the early stages of deck building, and I simply cannot recommend that as a general practice.
> In most successful decks, a large number of these theme cards will also be accomplishing the other core tasks I mentioned earlier: mana acceleration, value generation, protection, and ways to slow opponents.
> The card Murder performs one game action, destroying a creature. But this game action can accomplish a number of different tasks.
> [Because interaction serves multiple roles,] your instinct might be to back away from this fact and pretend it doesn't exist. But for purposes of categorization, all this means is that in lieu of perfectionism, we can focus on building categories that are flexible and work with our deck's needs.
> Protection plus counter spells and removal plus defense. This might sound odd at first, but it makes some sense if you think about all interaction in terms of how proactive versus reactive.
> I'll often include graveyard exile in a removal stacks or general interaction category because most decks won't gain anything by granting this necessary tool its own category.
> Worn Powerstone isn't a ramp spell if you're playing a Grenzo deck because it's fun to speak in cryptic absolutes. But what I really mean is that if your acceleration category is mainly intended to get you to four mana a turn early, Worn Powerstone doesn't fit that function and thus probably isn't worth playing unless you can find another purpose.

## #24. A Tool to Diagnose Commander Manabase Issues  (Jul 2025, 117K views)
*Original title: My Brother and I Built a Tool to Yell at You About Your Manabase*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Mana Base, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that manabase construction is deceptively complicated because lands must fulfill two roles: providing the right colors and hitting land drops.
It introduces a new tool that uses hypergeometric distribution to model land draws and identify issues.
The tool calculates odds of drawing land combinations that can cast all spells, and the difference between total lands needed and color-producing lands determines how many utility lands a deck can support.

**Principle**
- Effective manabases require accounting for not only the total number of color symbols but also their intensity and when spells need to be cast.

**Evidence**
- The manabase tool calculates exact probabilities for drawing every possible combination of land categories using a hypergeometric branching tree structure.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- In casual EDH, prioritize consistently hitting land drops by running enough lands (e.g., 37) before adding utility lands.

**Limitation**
- The tool simplifies by modeling land draws statistically rather than simulating full games, so it may miss some gameplay nuances.

**Example**
- A deck that requires 37 lands to hit drops and 33 lands to produce colors can support four colorless utility lands.
- A counterspell demands less blue mana early than a master of pearl trident because it is reactive and cast later.

**More quotes**
> One of the most deceptively complicated tasks of building a Magic: The Gathering deck is constructing a mana base.
> Lands are the foundation upon which a deck is built, and as with construction, a shaky foundation will lead to a shaky deck.
> If somebody asks you what's going on in your Prosper deck, you're not going to say, 'I'm glad you asked. It's running 35 lands, six two mana rocks, and a Sol Ring with an even blend of 21 black and 21 red symbols and an approximately 15% tap land saturation.' That would be strange.
> A Ball Lightning has the same total symbol requirement as three Shocks, but those two selections of cards apply very different levels of demand on a deck's red mana.
> Counterspell has the same mana cost as Master of the Pearl Trident or Counterbalance, but it generally applies less strain on a deck's blue mana since it's a reactive card that will likely be played later in the game.
> In limited, your task will generally be to create the least bad mana base you can out of basics and whatever nonbasics you were lucky enough to get your hands.
> The available fixing is so good in EDH that decks often include some number of lands which are lackluster in their color producing abilities, instead played for other benefits they provide. These are usually called utility lands.
> I actually like to think of land bases of decks as existing to hit two different goals: one is covering a deck's symbols, and the other is covering total mana values.
> If a deck wants 37 lands for purposes of hitting its land drops but only needs 33 lands to produce an acceptable number of symbols to cast its spells, that leaves four slots for colorless producing utility lands.
> There are a ton of unique ways to screw up a mana base: poor color pip distribution, inadequate overall pips, too many tap lands for a deck's intended play pattern, not enough overall lands,.

## #25. Rethinking Interaction in EDH Deckbuilding  (Jul 2025, 110K views)
*Original title: The Things EDH Players Get Wrong about Interaction*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Removal, Stax, Tokens, Interaction, Threat Assessment, Card Evaluation, Meta Trends, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that EDH players often misunderstand interaction by relying on a checklist of card types.
Instead, they should treat interaction as a network of overlapping solutions to problematic game states.
Defensive permanents, graveyard exile, and other situational tools can be more efficient than traditional removal.
The ideal interaction suite depends on the deck's strategy, draw power, and the specific threats in its meta.

**Principle**
- The value of an interaction piece is determined by the specific game states it can solve, not by its ability to target a wide range of card types.
- Relying on a mental checklist of removal types often leads to wasted deck slots and functional gaps.

**Evidence**
- Graveyard exile, defensive permanents, and hate pieces are often more mana-efficient than generic spot removal for handling recurring threats.
- Decks with high life pressure or life gain cause opponents to play cautiously, reducing the need for dedicated removal.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When tuning a deck, identify the most common problematic play patterns in your meta and select interaction that answers those patterns through multiple lines.
- If your deck already includes defensive elements like Ghostly Prison or counter magic, you can reduce the count of traditional removal spells.

**Limitation**
- There is no optimal universal count for interaction spells because overlap and deck-specific draw power vary widely.
- An interaction suite effective in one meta may fail in another.

**Example**
- Against an opponent reanimating Archon of Cruelty with Animate Dead, viable removal includes destroying the creature, the enchantment, countering the spell, or exiling the graveyard target.
- Against a go-wide Krenko deck, a defensive card like Ghostly Prison or life gain from Soul Warden can serve as effective interaction, reducing reliance on board wipes.

**More quotes**
> In EDH, problems are often more complicated than one single problem permanent that needs to be removed, and even more complicated than just being the occasional spooky board that needs wiping.
> Single target removal and generic board wipes can be the solution to a lot of problems, but they're far from the only options available, and a lot of times they won't be the most efficient way to tackle a given problem.
> Sources of graveyard exile are generally extremely cheap per mana, as are stax cards, defensive permanents, and other things that stick around to hinder multiple opposing plays.
> As you get deeper into tuning an individual deck, it's generally good to move away from deciding counts of different cards using a simple template.
> There's no way to know exactly how many removal spells or overall interaction spells you need because different forms of removal will have overlap in the profile of what they can answer.
> I don't know if you've ever watched how a person with 14 life conducts themselves in a commander game, but it's generally very different than how somebody with 34 life conducts themselves.
> That 14 life person will often find themselves holding back on attacks and chump blocking more often than they'd like, and they're also going to be more conservative in the sorts of spells they play.
> For that reason, having a higher degree of life total pressure can often allow for a bit smaller of a removal count.
> Careful threat assessment and a few swings with a big commander can be worth countless pieces of removal.
> Different decks will utilize removal for very different purposes: if you're playing a combo deck, you want to focus your interaction on dealing with obstacles to your combo and spending removal on only the most imminent of threats.

## #26. Tutors and Power Level Variance in EDH  (Jul 2025, 106K views)
*Original title: The Difficult Reality of the Tutor Question*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** Deck Consistency, Power Level, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain that debates about tutors in casual EDH arise from conflating card variation (seeing different cards) with power level variance (fluctuations in deck power).
We argue that tutors reduce the former but increase the latter by making powerful cards appear more often.
Using Sol Ring as an example, it shows that not all powerful cards inject the same amount of power variance due to contextual factors.

**Principle**
- EDH's larger deck size and singleton rule cause higher card variation than 60-card formats.
- Card variation (seeing different cards) is separate from power level variance (how much a deck's power fluctuates game to game).
- When a powerful card is already in the deck, adding tutors raises the frequency of that card's impact, increasing the deck's expected power level.

**Evidence**
- Probability: any given card is about one-sixth as likely to be drawn in EDH compared to a 60-card deck.
- Expected power level can be quantified: a non-tutor deck might have an expected power of 3.3 while a tutor version is 4.1, even though both have a 10% chance of a power 6 game.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To reduce power spikes, a deckbuilder can remove tutors that consistently find the strongest card.
- Synergy-driven decks with many sub-themes can use tutors to smooth disjointedness, but omitting tutors forces greater inherent deck cohesion.

**Limitation**
- Not all powerful cards cause equal power variance; Sol Ring's impact is often less dramatic because it only provides mana.
- The abstract expected power model oversimplifies real cards, as different powerful cards accomplish different tasks and context matters.

**Example**
- Sol Ring: its power is mitigated because it is low cost (falls off after turn five), it only gives mana (dependent on having spells to cast), and it is early in the winning pipeline.

**More quotes**
> The tutor is part of the immediate problem here.
> A game with a lot of card variation is different from a game with a lot of power level variance. You can have one without the other, and a defense of one of these things isn't necessarily a defense of the other.
> The deck that runs the tutors will be more powerful than the deck that does not.
> Soul Ring is powerful, but its power is somewhat less felt than a lot of other cards.
> The most problematic instances of Soul Ring tend to be where there was already a bit of power level imbalance between decks.
> Calls to ban Soul Ring, or now to put it on the game changers list, exist for a reason.
> Combos or combo-adjacent cards tend to lead to the most jarring instances of power level variance because the table doesn't have much time to react.
> Removal can be a tool for power level variance mitigation on the scale of a game.
> I've been jokingly calling [Sol Ring] my Wizards of the Coast mandated dose of variance.
> Power level variance will be felt more sharply the further along this pipeline a card is due to the social nature of the EDH format.

## #27. Deckbuilding Challenge Winners: Underused Commander Decks  (Jul 2025, 101K views)
*Original title: I Challenged My Community to Deckbuild with Some of the Least Popular Commanders*
**Category:** Community Challenge
**Tags:** Senator Peacock, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Midrange, Counters, Stax, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Synergy, Interaction, Curve, Deckbuilding Principle

We present the winners of a community deckbuilding challenge featuring five unpopular commanders.
We analyze each winning deck's strategy, highlighting how they creatively used the commanders' abilities, and offers suggestions for improvement.
Honorable mentions are acknowledged and linked.

**Principle**
- Commanders with two distinct abilities should be built around synergies that use both halves to justify the card choice.

**Evidence**
- The winning Senator Peacock deck combined modular creatures with her abilities; modular creatures want to die to trigger her draw and become unblockable to deal damage.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- In artifact creature decks, use modular creatures to turn temporary +1/+1 counters into persistent threats through sacrifice and evasion.
- In group-hug decks, break symmetry by using effects like phasing to deny opponents the donated resource during their turns.

**Limitation**
- Modular decks are constrained by a small card pool where many creatures are overcosted, forcing inclusion of suboptimal cards.
- Asymmetrical group-hug setups demand significant deck space for enablers like specific lands and recursion, potentially diluting the core strategy.

**Example**
- The Senator Peacock deck includes Arcbound Hybrid despite its mana inefficiency solely for the modular keyword.
- The Shizuko deck uses Talon Gates of Madara and land sacrifice effects to phase out the commander and maintain a one-sided mana advantage.
- Inkmoth Nexus and Plague Myr are the only infect cards in the modular deck, used sparingly to avoid excessive aggro.

**More quotes**
> For this commander there was a clear winner: a deck called 'filthy Stacks players modular Beatdown deck.'.
> A clear goal for building a Senator Peacock deck is figuring out how to use both halves of the card.
> Modular is a brilliant solution to this challenging question.
> Infect can really put opponents on edge and attract unwanted attention.
> It’s very funny to play a group hug commander only to put a lot of effort into denying opponents the hug.
> The winner of Shizuko was a spell tax lands deck with the goal of repeatedly looping Talon Gates of Bandara to keep Shizuko phased out on opposing untap steps, preventing opponents from gaining her mana.
> The third commander, Éomer, Marshal of Rohan, was the card that inspired the challenge.
> The number one deck was 'lock fins reanimator deck' , yes, that’s mono-red reanimator.
> Extra combats from Éomer mean extra zombies from God-Pharaoh’s Gift, allowing the deck to build advantage as successive combat phases pass.
> Artifact creatures that transfer their +1/+1 counters to other creatures when they die have both a clear reason to want to hit the graveyard and a clear reason to want to be unblockable.

## #28. Peace Offering Deck: Not a Generic Group Hug Deck  (Jul 2025, 95K views)
*Original title: Is the Peace Offering Deck Actually Group Hug?*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Ms. Bumbleflower, White, Blue, Green, Group Hug, Counters, Midrange, Mana Base, Interaction, Design Intent, Synergy, Card Evaluation

We argue that the Peace Offering precon, commanded by Ms. Bumbleflower, is mislabeled as group hug.
Her ability rewards casting two spells per turn for card advantage, but the precon includes many generic group hug cards that dilute this focused plan.
We suggest cutting those cards to better align with the commander's strategy, similar to a past precon's flaw.

**Principle**
- Ms. Bumbleflower's ability gives opponents cards when you cast spells, but only draws you cards if you trigger the ability twice in a turn by casting two spells.
- This design encourages a focused strategy of casting two spells each turn rather than a generic group hug approach.

**Evidence**
- The precon contains many group hug and political cards, such as those with the bloom's gift mechanic, that are not directly tied to casting two spells per turn.
- The deck's beaters and +1/+1 counter synergies point toward a beatdown plan that the group hug elements do not strongly support.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- A deckbuilder should cut defensive and generic group hug cards to make room for cards that help consistently cast two spells per turn or that benefit from doing so.

**Limitation**
- Giving resources to opponents can be politically useful for deflecting pressure from struggling players, but it raises the deck's required performance threshold to compete with the advantage given away.

**Example**
- The precon suffers from a similar flaw as the OTJ Gonti precon, which was built as a generic theft deck instead of one tailored to Gonti's specific ability.

**More quotes**
> Just the line 'whenever you cast a spell, target opponent draws a card' is wild.
> If you don't cast exactly two spells per turn, she gives your opponents more cards than she gives you.
> I find the aesthetic contrast between psychosis crawler and the rest of this deck very funny.
> It seems like Wizards added a bunch of group hug stuff because the commander does something vaguely group huggy, but Ms. Bumbleflower is not a generic group hug commander.
> I'll take a Manglehorn over [Bloodroot Apothecary] any day of the week.
> [For Tenuous Truce and Intellectual Offering,] the rate on the cards per mana just isn't that great.
> Octamer is a funny card, but this isn't really a token deck and five mana is just too much to pay for some vanilla stats.
> Coveted Jewel is funny, but this deck doesn't have enough ways to prevent opponents from snagging.
> Bloodroot Apothecary, though it's pre-selling for upwards of $10, seems highly mediocre to me.
> Hoofprints of the Stag is a decent incremental value piece if played early, but it's a very dead draw later in the game.

## #29. Eternal Might Precon: A Disjointed Zombie Deck Review  (Jul 2025, 88K views)
*Original title: Eternal Might is the Messiest Zombie Deck I've Ever Seen*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Temmet, Naktamun's Will, White, Blue, Black, Tokens, Discard, Synergy, Upgrades, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We critique the Eternal Might Commander precon, praising its card quality and mana base but criticizing its conflicting themes.
It lacks enough discard to support Hashaton and lacks burst draw to maximize Temmet, leading to unfocused gameplay.
The deck is more a sampler of zombie subthemes than a functional list.

**Principle**
- Commander precons that sample multiple archetypes without sufficient support for each can feel disjointed and fail to function cohesively.

**Evidence**
- The deck contains approximately six discard enablers, which is too few to reliably activate alternate commander Hashaton.
- Temmet incentivizes burst draw before combat, but the deck's draw spells are mostly expensive or conditional.
- The ramp suite is larger than typical for Esper, featuring synergistic cards like Crowded Crypt and Bontu's Monument.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To utilize Temmet effectively, add burst card draw spells that can be cast before the attack step.
- Focus on generating numerous small zombie tokens rather than investing in expensive 4/4 token producers.

**Limitation**
- The solid mana base and ramp are undermined by the deck's inability to simultaneously cast Temmet and a large draw spell due to high combined mana costs.

**Example**
- Cards like Forgotten Creation show how a single piece can synergize with both commanders, but the deck lacks enough such enablers.

**More quotes**
> In terms of construction this deck is a hot mess, a disgusting mishmash of conflicting game plans and synergistic dead ends.
> Hashaton has gotten a lot of attention as an undeniably cool secondary commander, but it doesn't even really work as a secondary commander.
> The deck just doesn't have enough discard to consistently enable Hashaton's ability.
> This deck really lacks a lot of what might give a zombie deck a sense of mechanical identity, causing both play pattern issues when disparate synergy packages don't line up and vibes issues when it plays just like a generic blob of typal midrange gameplay.
> There isn't a reliable way to sacrifice Corpse Augur, nor any good way to let Midnight Reaper or Undead Augur translate into Temmet triggers.
> The one thing working in Tet's favor here is the half dozen or so cycling cards, but at that point you're paying five mana for the commander plus two mana to cycle during the combat step for roughly an Undead Warchief worth of anthem.
> A blue deck that's vulnerable to removal and board wipes runs no counter spells? Come on!
> Just don't buy this if you're looking for a cohesive deck out of the box, because this is not.
> The most generous way to view this deck, in my mind, is as a sample of possible game plans and/or a toolbox of possible implements for beginning the journey of building them.
> This is a rare Gravecrawler L: with no sacrifice, this card just doesn't really do anything.

## #30. How Cheap Powerful Cards Warp Commander Deckbuilding  (Jul 2025, 82K views)
*Original title: Let's Talk About My Most Controversial Video*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Budget, Card Evaluation, Power Level, Format Health

We revisit our controversial video on budget cards, explaining how cards with mismatched price and power levels cause players to overvalue synergistic cards and undervalue essential effects like interaction and ramp.
He argues that adding overly powerful staples can backfire by increasing threat perception without improving consistency, and advises builders to determine necessary card counts and stick to them to maintain balance.

**Principle**
- Cheap cards with disproportionately high power cause players to fill the best slots and then neglect further essential effects due to diminishing returns in perceived value.
- A deck with a wide range of power levels among its cards can cause opponents to always assume the strongest possible play, drawing disproportionate retaliation even when the average is low.

**Evidence**
- Players overrate synergistic win-more cards and underrate consistent vegetables because synergies are harder to evaluate than simple interaction and ramp.
- Upgrading a mid-power graveyard deck can backfire because opponents will likely pack silver bullet graveyard hate, leading to less consistent games.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Determine the correct number of slots for a given effect ahead of time and avoid exceeding that count even when powerful budget options are available.
- Cut cards that increase your deck's threat level without solving a specific weakness it already has.

**Limitation**
- The original video's points about social dynamics may be exaggerated, as we now acknowledge a tendency to overstate such factors in earlier work.

**Example**
- Sol Ring is a cheap powerhouse because its price stayed low through reprints, but if scarce it would rival Mana Crypt in cost and be limited to power gamers.
- We avoid Torment of Hailfire in our Glissa deck because we do not want opponents to equate having many lands with an imminent game loss.

**More quotes**
> The like-to-dislike proportion is an abysmal 77%. For context, my second lowest is around 95%.
> [My most controversial video] is wildly unpopular compared to literally everything else I've released.
> Are cheap powerful cards a problem? Was I on to something or flat out wrong?
> Players will add the best options within their budget, then notice the rapidly worsening power to money ratio and stop adding them, even if running more of that type of card would be better for their deck.
> Decks become crammed with win more cards but lack the basic building blocks that lead to consistently performing well.
> I don't run Torment of Hailfire in my turbo ramping Glissa deck because I don't want my opponents to equate me having a lot of lands with an immediate game loss.
> Less than half of people are still watching when I get to the part of we where I start to justify my soul ring slander.
> I don't think Sol Ring should have been reprinted in commander sets because I don't think fast mana belongs in casual Commander.
> I just don't like what explosive starts do to the tempo of games.
> Some have argued that it should be banned but that ship has sailed given the number of reprints it has seen.

## #31. Tutor Decisions Define Four EDH Player Types  (Jul 2025, 79K views)
*Original title: The Simple Question that Determines What Type of EDH Player You Are*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** Tokens, Card Draw, Power Level, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Card Evaluation, Deckbuilding Principle

We use a thought experiment about tutoring for a powerful card to segment EDH players into four types.
We explore the first two types: players who always tutor for the powerful card for fun or to enable other strategies, and players who sometimes decline to tutor for it to match the table's vibe.
We explain our own philosophy of treating gameplay as a separate optimization stage, which makes intentional suboptimal play feel unsatisfying.

**Principle**
- Powerful cards carry an allure beyond their win rate, tapping into a player's nostalgia and desire for memorable plays.

**Evidence**
- The popularity of Vintage Cube on MTGO demonstrates that many players enjoy playing with high-power cards for their own sake.
- We recount our own experience of optimizing a mono-black pile with Cabal Coffers and Necropotence, only to find the excitement diminish over time.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Tutors can serve as a bridge, allowing a deck with a weak core strategy to consistently access a single powerful enabler like Skullclamp.
- Powerful cards can remain enjoyable when used to prop up offbeat themes, like Necropotence drawing into a casual tribal deck instead of an infinite combo.

**Limitation**
- A player who consciously chooses a weaker tutor target may feel they are violating the competitive spirit of the game, leading to dissatisfaction.

**Example**
- The specific scenario of having Enlightened Tutor in a token deck with Skullclamp forces the player to confront whether they always want to draw an overwhelming number of cards regardless of the table's power level.

**More quotes**
> Yes, I tutored for the Skullclamp because I like Skullclamp and I want to draw a shitload of cards regardless of the situation.
> No, and in fact I cut the Skullclamp because the number of cards it draws doesn't fit the vibe of my deck.
> No, and in fact I cut the Enlightened Tutor because I don't want the option of tutoring for the Skullclamp.
> Powerful cards can go from a fun thing in their own right to a way to enable some other fun things that are a bit less powerful.
> Trotting out the same old powerful cards in the same ways just might not remain as enjoyable.
> There's a reason why Vintage Cube is one of the most popular Cube formats on MTGO. Are these powerful cards more inherently fun than any others? No, but they're famous and alluring, and playing them pokes a little good card dopamine button.
> If I need to make a sub-optimal choice or hold back in some way, it pierces the immersion of the game and kind of takes me out.
> A lot of people dislike playing suboptimally, and another segment of players dislike playing against somebody they know is playing suboptimally. It almost feels like an insult.
> The most dominant feature of casual EDH is some degree of suboptimality, and I generally think of that as being in the deck building part of things.
> This game doesn't have 10 Necropotences you can slip into your deck, and even if it did, that might not even be desirable. Tutors are a nice way to work around that fact.

## #32. Winning Decks from Baldur's Gate Commander Challenge  (Jul 2025, 66K views)
*Original title: I Challenged My Community to Make Decks with Bad Baldur's Gate Commanders*
**Category:** Community Challenge
**Tags:** Red, Black, Blink, Aristocrats, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Budget, Synergy, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We reveal the top decks from a community challenge where players built around Baldur's Gate background commanders.
Judged on creativity, cohesion, and dynamic gameplay, the winning Allora deck polymorphs its background to find Sneak Attack, and the Amber deck pairs sacrifice-outlet clerics with Haunted One for repeated value.
We highlight how unique synergies can turn perceived downsides into powerful engines.

**Principle**
- Evaluating decks on creativity, cohesion, and dynamic gameplay helps identify builds that are both original and highly functional.

**Evidence**
- For Allora, common strategies included Ball Lightning creatures, ninjas, and recycling enter-the-battlefield effects, with around 100 total submissions.
- Amber decks were often budget builds under $150, and black was the most popular background color due to discard synergies.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Polymorph your own background creature to consistently tutor for a key enchantment, as the background can be recast from the command zone.
- Combine Amber with Haunted One and sacrifice-outlet clerics or dwarves to repeatedly trigger their abilities and wheel your hand each combat.
- In a Sneak Attack deck, include flicker spells to permanently keep cheated creatures by blinking them before the end-of-turn sacrifice.
- Include counter-removal cards like I Sand Storm or Retribution to reset +1/+1 counters on undying creatures, enabling multiple deaths and triggers.

**Limitation**
- Allora’s bounce ability is only beneficial when built around ETB reuse or end-of-turn sacrifices; otherwise, it severely weakens board presence.
- Amber’s small 3/3 body makes her reliant on Haunted One’s undying to safely attack and trigger her ability, exposing a vulnerability if the background is removed.

**More quotes**
> A spell-less spellslinger deck was a funny one and a favorite among people on my Discord server.
> The winning deck was a sneak attack deck with Guild Artisan chosen as the partnered background.
> This deck pairs sneak attack with polymorph effects, tutoring out a sneak attack effect by polymorphing its own background [Guild Artisan].
> Flicker cards in the sneak attack deck can flicker a creature put out with sneak attack to keep it around permanently.
> All of my top picks here were less than $150, some a lot less.
> The deck runs an eye-watering nine board wipes, which it can break parity on through Haunted One.
> Amber is a fundamentally janky Commander; she's a draw engine but requires a very scrappy style and doesn't reward that style heavily.
> Dwarves? Yeah, no. Forget about it.
> This deck has an undeniable thematic core, with themes of death and dying riddled throughout.
> The winning deck was a different sort of twiddle storm deck, focused on effects that untap all of your creatures.

## #33. Commander Deckbuilding Without the Letter E  (Jul 2025, 53K views)
*Original title: The No Es Deckbuilding Challenge*
**Category:** Community Challenge
**Tags:** White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Combo, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Mana Base, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We explore a Commander deckbuilding challenge where no card name can contain the letter 'E', eliminating roughly 83% of all Magic cards.
We showcase community submissions that found creative workarounds, such as utilizing the four 'Station' artifacts for an infinite combo and winning with BioVisionary.
The challenge demonstrates how strict restrictions force innovation and reveal underused synergies.

**Principle**
- Strict deckbuilding constraints compel players to find unconventional synergies and hidden gems.
- When a massive portion of the card pool is eliminated, strategies anchored by a small, resilient set of cards become the most viable.

**Evidence**
- The no-E rule eliminates roughly 83% of all Magic cards, according to our analysis.
- Despite the ban, certain card types remain largely intact: half of polymorph cards, all copies of Rat Colony, and about 11 green-producing lands for mono-green decks.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Before committing to a theme, inventory how many of its key pieces contain the banned letter; if the core collapses, pivot to a restriction-proof combo like the Stations.
- For color identities hurt by the loss of basic lands, prioritize nonbasic lands and mana rocks since they statistically have fewer of the restricted letter.

**Limitation**
- The restriction removes premium tutor targets like Darksteel Forge, forcing decks to settle for less powerful but compliant alternatives.
- Excluding Forest makes mono-green decks especially fragile, demanding an aggressive mulligan strategy to find enough colored sources.

**Example**
- One featured deck uses Arcanum Dagsson to sacrifice artifact creatures and fetch Blasting, Grinding, Summoning, and Salvaging Station, which form an infinite combo.
- Another submission pilots Momir Vig to tutor creature copiers like Mockingbird and Sakashima's Will, aiming to assemble four BioVisionaries for the win.

**More quotes**
> A snail never tells.
> It's EDH, but without any E's in the names of cards.
> Not being able to build decks with E's eliminates roughly 83% of all Magic cards.
> Only around half of all polymorph cards were eliminated, leaving a respectable five left for any red-blue decks to enjoy.
> There were four cards printed in Fifth Dawn with station in the name, and it just so happens that none of them have E's.
> Something else you may note about this no E's format is that it excludes a basic land, forests.
> There are something like 11 lands without E's that both produce green and are legal in a mono-green commander deck, and pairing those with a modest number of green-producing mana rocks can get you up to a simple count that's an aggressive mulligan policy away from being adequate, I suppose.
> Kirk was canonically originally named Kerric, and his choice to remove the E from his name meshes nicely with the nature of this challenge.
> Iron Man is actually a great choice to go with this for a couple reasons. For one, treasures. That's an E.
> Artifacts for good? What a laugh.

## #34. What Counts as Card Draw in Commander?  (Jul 2025, 3,260 words in transcript)
*Original title: The Odd Truth About Draw in EDH*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** White, Black, Red, Midrange, Spellslinger, Card Evaluation, Deck Consistency, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that so-called card draw in EDH encompasses a range of effects that either help spend excess mana or locate specific cards.
We explain how mana sinks, impulse draw, recursion, and filtering can substitute for traditional draw based on a deck's needs.
The main lesson is to diagnose a deck's primary bottleneck before deciding what types of 'draw' to include.

**Principle**
- Card advantage and card selection address two distinct deck bottlenecks: unspent mana and missing key cards.

**Evidence**
- X spells and repeatable mana sinks allow battle cruiser decks to convert excess resources into board impact without traditional draw.
- Recursion spells like Seasons Past and evolution witness effectively reuse cards, mimicking draw in decks with graveyard access.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Before adding draw, determine whether your deck primarily wants to turn mana into value or to dig for specific combo or synergy pieces.

**Limitation**
- Recursion engines need self-mill or sacrifice themes to fill the graveyard before they can generate value.
- Impulse draw effects are less effective when a deck contains many situational cards that cannot be played immediately.

**Example**
- An Asheen deck prioritizes creatures with on-attack draw and utility lands over generic X burn spells, because they align with its combat strategy while still functioning as mana outlets.

**More quotes**
> Fundamentally, the source of ambiguity here is that card draw as a concept often gets treated as one singular thing, but it's actually more like a web of overlapping solutions to achieve a handful of different goals.
> The goals of card draw are a little fuzzy, but broadly there are two main ones that decks will be focused on: spending excess mana and finding particular cards.
> Spending more mana than opponents will generally make it easier to defeat them regardless of what else is happening.
> [X spells and mana sinks] aren't exactly draw, and you'd get some weird looks if you tried to call them that, but they absolutely perform some of the same functions as draw in decks mostly focused on spending mana.
> A Steelshaper's Gift that exclusively finds a Skullclamp followed by Sword of the Animist? That's a draw spell. Get it out of that tutor category.
> When I'm deck building on Archidekt, I'll generally put tutors in my draw category in two cases: if they generally find a source of card advantage or if the function of tutors wholly lines up with the function of drawing cards.
> If you're playing a combo deck where the main thing your draw spells accomplish is digging for combo pieces or tutors, then the purpose of your draw is almost exclusively card selection and tutors accomplish.
> We can actually construct a spectrum and place all the types of cards I've mentioned today on it. On one side, we have pure selection effects that are all about seeing extra cards. And on the other side, pure advantage cards that turn mana into value without seeing any cards at all.
> Ledger Shredder: pure filtering. Tutors generally also pure filtering, though a bit flexible depending on what you plan to get.
> Nearing the center of the spectrum, you've got things that generate a decent bit of card advantage, but that also do a bit of extra digging. And this includes my personal favorite draw X card in most decks, Pull from Tomorrow.

## #35. Why cheap staples like Sol Ring warp Commander deckbuilding  (Jul 2024, 330K views)
*Original title: The Problem with "Budget" Cards*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** White, Blue, Green, Ramp, Removal, Counters, Budget, Card Evaluation, Format Health, EDHREC Data

We argue that cheap, powerful staples like Sol Ring warp Commander deckbuilding by discouraging players from considering slightly worse alternatives.
This leads to homogenization and neglect of synergy pieces because the power gap appears too large when sorted by popularity or price.
Despite this, Sol Ring is unlikely to be banned due to its reprint history and format entrenchment.

**Principle**
- The presence of a cheap, format-defining staple causes players to undervalue slightly worse alternatives, leading them to run too few copies of that effect.
- Sorting cards by popularity on sites like EDHREC exacerbates this by visually reinforcing a steep power cliff after the top options.

**Evidence**
- Sol Ring's low price was maintained through constant Commander pre-con reprints, which cemented its ubiquity and discouraged exploration of other mana rocks.
- Wizards included Sol Ring in the original Commander decks under the mistaken belief that its current affordability meant it should be a precon staple, ignoring that format growth would naturally increase its price.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When browsing counterspells on EDHREC, the drop from Counterspell to three-mana options leads players to skip them, even though most blue decks benefit from running at least a couple more.
- In contrast, searching for green creature-cast triggers presents many viable cards without an obvious cutoff, encouraging players to include more of that effect.

**Limitation**
- our opinion that Sol Ring should remain expensive is biased by not having a commercial stake, unlike Wizards, so it may not align with practical incentives.
- The Commander ban list is inconsistent and unlikely to address Sol Ring, reflecting the inherent difficulty of regulating such a diverse format.

**Example**
- Group playtesting often sees cards dismissed as 'worse Sol Ring' or 'worse Lightning Bolt,' a shorthand that obscures nuanced card evaluation.
- The green value engine example shows that without an obvious top dog, players are more willing to run multiple cards like Beast Whisperer and The Great Henge.

**More quotes**
> I think it would have been fine or even advisable to let Soul Ring's price soar as the format size grows, let it be a toy for the power gamers alongside Mana Crypt, Moxen and the like.
> Commander's ban list is, hot take alert, kind of a stupid mess.
> Unless somebody goes around burning every single copy of Soul Ring on Earth released after 2010, a ban would really be the only solution.
> One of the most compelling issues with these cheap powerful cards is that they warp the way players look at other cards.
> A joke in my play group is to respond to 'what does that card do?' with 'oh yeah it's like a worse Soul Ring.'.
> It's like somebody asking how old a person is and you saying 'oh yeah they're younger than Henry Kissinger.'.
> A deck running too much synergistic stuff and not enough general stuff is at risk of getting itself into a bimodal pickle.
> There's an even sneakier type of budget card: the ones that cost zero dollars.
> You should add cards to a deck considering how they'll impact the games you play, even if you own the cards and they're free to add.
> [In my budget equipment deck,] when I played Sword of Forge and Frontier, it felt like a totally different deck.

## #36. Transparent Deckbuilding Avoids Small Bean Syndrome  (Jul 2024, 263K views)
*Original title: The Curse of Smol Bean Syndrome*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Green, Black, Red, Midrange, Voltron, Discard, Table Politics, Deck Consistency, Power Level, Threat Assessment, Social and Politics

We argue that small bean syndrome, verbally downplaying one's board state to avoid attacks, often stems from inconsistent deckbuilding.
Building decks with transparent win conditions and consistent performance through more draw, filtering, and ramp reduces the need for political manipulation.
Examples like the Glissa and Meria decks show how visible threats foster less conflict.

**Principle**
- Small bean syndrome is a political tactic where players downplay their board state to avoid being attacked.
- Transparent deckbuilding reduces the need for small bean syndrome by making a deck's threat level obvious from its board state.

**Evidence**
- Inconsistent decks have a power crater where they underperform a large percentage of the time, making small bean syndrome a rational response.
- Players who conceal their resources and wait for others to use interaction first, playing like a nerd, may accrue social distrust.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Add more low-cost draw, filtering, and interaction spells to smooth out deck performance and reduce non-games.
- For ramp strategies, ensure cheap ramp spells constitute a large enough proportion to reach your desired mana in over 40% of games.

**Limitation**
- At cEDH, bluffing and deception are expected, but at mid-power, transparent decks promote fairer politics.
- Consistently hiding your game state can cause opponents to overestimate unknown threats, leading to misdirected removal.

**Example**
- The Glissa deck is transparent because its power derives from ramp, draw, and creatures, all visible on board.
- The Meria Voltron deck's power is tied to visible equipment, and it runs a known 10% protection spells.

**More quotes**
> I call this Small Bean Syndrome: when a player goes out of their way to paint their deck as being in a bad spot, deserving nothing but mercy.
> I'm not a big fan of most forms of small bean syndrome due to their tendency to discourage attacks and artificially lengthen games.
> An inconsistent deck with explosive cards but no connective tissue will naturally have moments of popping off and moments of the opposite.
> When piloting an all-or-nothing deck, small bean syndrome is a form of power level smoothing, a way of papering over the power crater you made for yourself and bolstering your weakest moments.
> At a CEDH table, downplaying your game state is the norm, as it should be. You have every right to bluff and engage in low-level deception.
> If you're playing a deck whose wins result from weird tech pieces interacting to create unexpected avalanches of value, people might get apprehensive.
> Human beings have a natural tendency to fear the unknown, even if being unknown might feel like the correct play.
> My Glissa deck is a very consistent deck. I call it transparent: you can always approximate how well it's doing by looking at the board state, cards in hand, and land count.
> My Glissa deck is a powerful deck against conventionally built mid-power decks. I call it midrange crusher 5000 for a reason, but the transparency means people worry about it less than they probably should.
> My $25 Rakdos discard deck deletes people's hands and makes them upset, but the rest of the deck is just grindy creatures and a commander to clear the way for a small group of two-twos and three-threes to attack.

## #37. Choosing the Right Ramp Spell for Your Commander Deck  (Jul 2024, 247K views)
*Original title: You're Probably Playing the Wrong Ramp (in EDH)*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Green, Ramp, Aggro, Card Evaluation, Curve, EDHREC Data, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that many EDH players blindly include Cultivate in decks where it is suboptimal.
We explain how to select ramp spells based on a deck's mana curve, color fixing needs, card type synergies, and net mana cost.
Different commanders require different ramp strategies, and a tailored approach improves deck performance.

**Principle**
- Ramp choices should prioritize accelerating to the deck's pivotal mana value over providing redundant fixing.
- The trade-off between speed, vulnerability, and synergy determines whether land ramp, dorks, or rocks are best for a given deck.

**Evidence**
- 60% of Toski and Tovolar decks on EDHREC include Cultivate, suboptimally.
- Toski's innate card draw makes Cultivate's land-to-hand fixing unnecessary, wasting the three-mana slot.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- If your commander costs four mana, avoid three-mana ramp spells.
- In monocolor green decks with high draw, use two-mana ramp or dorks instead of Cultivate.

**Limitation**
- Cultivate shines in budget five-color decks where fixing and a five- or six-mana payoff are critical.

**Example**
- A Glissa deck skips two-mana ramp entirely, using one-mana dorks to power out the three-mana commander on turn two.

**More quotes**
> EDH is especially vulnerable to cycles of overhype about particular cards.
> There will be cards that are regarded in the same lens [as must-plays] but which truly don't belong in all or even most decks.
> I think people tend to gravitate towards certain [ramp spells] that are considered staples even when there are other options that are much better suited to their deck.
> Treat this piece as a guide: how to stop jamming Cultivate into every deck and figure out what your deck actually wants instead.
> When you're adding a ramp spell to a deck you should be asking: what is this ramping toward?
> If the most important mana value you're pushing toward is four, you shouldn't run a bunch of three-mana ramp spells.
> You're playing a monocolor deck and if you play Cultivate you're effectively overpaying for ramp that gives you an upside you don't need.
> Different decks will want different things.
> The best ramp solution isn't going to be one size fits all.
> I think when it comes to the traditionally simpler parts of an EDH deck (the lands, the removal, the ramp), a lot of people have the idea that they can gloss over these things and focus their efforts on the juicy synergies that comprise the spiritual core of the deck, but these parts are what let the core of the deck do its thing smoothly.

## #38. The Homogeneity of cEDH Decks and Why It Happens  (Jul 2024, 230K views)
*Original title: The Problem with cEDH*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** cEDH, Meta Trends, Deck Consistency, Win Conditions, Format Health, Meta Analysis

Competitive EDH decks overlap heavily due to the singleton 100-card constraint, the demand for maximum efficiency, and budgetless mana bases that push decks toward four or five colors.
This homogenization limits the variety of viable strategies, though the format’s social contract reduces pregame friction and salt.

**Evidence**
- The top 10 cEDH decks share 20 cards: 9 lands, 5 mana rocks, 4 counter spells, and 2 draw enchantments.
- Seven of the ten decks run the Thassa's Oracle plus Demonic Consultation combo, and six run Underworld Breach plus Brain Freeze plus Lion's Eye Diamond.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Make your win conditions fast, explosive, consistent, resilient, and compact.

**Limitation**
- The findings are drawn from a static snapshot of the top 10 meta decks and may not capture off-meta brews or a shifting meta.

**Example**
- Kinnan wins via infinite mana into playing the library, and Sisay wins via flicker-based combos tutored by the commander, demonstrating win conditions outside the dominant Thoracle and Breach lines.
- Players use partner pairings like Vial Smasher and Thrasios mainly to add colors and get an extra card, not for the partners' own power.

**More quotes**
> It seemed like all of the cards were the same: the ways they gain mana are the same, the way they draw cards are the same, the ways they end the game are the same, and the ways they stop other people from ending the game are also the same.
> In cEDH, you're already playing the maximum allowed number of your seventh, eighth, and ninth favorite counter spells because you have.
> Ad nauseam is so powerful that it blurs the line between draw spell and one-card win condition.
> When you look at somebody's commander and the colors they're playing, you'll often be able to immediately guess one or more of their win conditions.
> CEDH is an essentially budgetless format which allows for very good mana bases at very little gameplay expense to the player, barring nonbasic hate.
> The partner Commander pairings that people go with are pretty mediocre. They let a player run a commander they actively like, add a couple colors they want, and have an extra playable card in a pinch.
> A lot of meta decks end up being four- to five-color piles of the best cards in the format.
> [In cEDH], the difference between a well-tuned deck and a jumbled goodstuff pile can come down to a small handful of cards that the deck then tutors for, rendering these differences subtle on the scale of a deck list.
> As you climb to the highest power levels of EDH, the range of possible decks you can build and plays you can make contracts further and further.
> My list does not run Thassa's Oracle, so I'm able to win through hate like Hushbringer or Torpor Orb that people commonly play against Oracle decks.

## #39. Effective Mulligan Strategies in Commander  (Jul 2024, 191K views)
*Original title: The Art of the Mulligan*
**Category:** Strategy
**Tags:** Ramp, Card Draw, Deck Consistency, Mana Base, Curve, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain how the London Mulligan and the free first mulligan in Commander allow players to mulligan more aggressively for key cards.
Higher land counts improve the odds of keeping a hand for mana, freeing mulligans to search for impactful non-land spells.
For decks seeking a particular early play, running 10, 12 copies and mulliganing assertively is often more efficient than packing 20 copies and risking duplicates.

**Principle**
- The London Mulligan, especially with Commander's free first mulligan, turns mulligans into a valuable filtering tool that should be used actively.
- A strong commander effectively gives you a guaranteed play, making it safer to mulligan low-resource hands.

**Evidence**
- In a 28-land deck, mulliganing to six cards provides a 95% chance of finding a two-land hand and a two-thirds chance of three or more lands.
- A 30-land deck keeps only 66% of hands by land count, whereas a 40-land deck keeps 76%, allowing the 40-land deck to save mulligans for non-land card quality.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To reliably find a specific early-game card type, include 10, 12 copies and mulligan aggressively, as this offers a better balance than including 20 copies and risking duplicates.
- Adopt land counts that increase the probability of keepable hands, such as the low 40s, to preserve mulligans for filtering non-land cards.

**Limitation**
- Building with an extremely low land count like 28 forces you to spend your mulligans almost entirely on mana, sacrificing the ability to hunt for powerful spells.
- Running too few lands increases the chance that a hand with excellent non-land cards must be thrown away due to insufficient mana.

**Example**
- A Goreclaw deck with a specific curve can run 10, 12 ramp spells and aggressively mulligan anything that lacks ramp, trusting the commander to apply pressure once mana is fixed.

**More quotes**
> If you aren't using that first Mulligan regularly every few games at least, you're actively giving up on a resource the game is handing you.
> Since you get to see a full hand of seven cards with every Mulligan, it's no longer the painful choice it used to be.
> A six or even five card hand with one of the deck's best cards will often be a lot better than your average seven card hand.
> The existence of a commander creature means that decks will have a pre-selected card that's effectively in hand at all times.
> It's literally possible for a hand to have access to no good cards.
> Developing your skill in something as superficially simple as saying yes or no to a given hand will generate you tons of advantage through additional free filtering in the long term.
> If everybody had to keep their first hand every time, I suspect that you'd see way more decks gravitating toward land counts in the low 40s.
> Running fewer lands will lead to a greater frequency of needing to reject hands with desirable non-land play.
> A single power card like Dockside Extortionist or Esper Sentinel might redeem an otherwise painful five card hand.
> It's easy to see your library as a mystical black box to deify it as an entity that will either bless you with wonderful cards or curse you with all the wrong stuff, but it's not.

## #40. How to Make Your Commander Deck More Consistent  (Jul 2024, 185K views)
*Original title: Snail's Guide to Tuning Your Jank*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Ramp, Card Draw, Deck Consistency, Card Evaluation, Table Politics, Interaction, Deckbuilding Principle

We define consistency as a deck that reliably executes its game plan without wild variations in power.
We teach methods to improve consistency, such as solo playtesting, understanding probability thresholds for key card types, and categorizing cards into functions like ramp and draw.
Proper categorization helps avoid filler cards and ensures each slot contributes to the deck's plan.

**Principle**
- A consistent deck offers multiple play avenues that all feel valuable, reducing variance in power level across games.

**Evidence**
- With 10 ramp spells, the chance of having one by turn two is 63%; with 15 spells it rises to 79%, and with 20 to 88%.
- Running 15 ramp spells gives a 69.6% chance in the opening seven, 90.8% after one mulligan, and 97.2% after two.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Categorize your deck into functions like ramp, draw, removal, and protection to ensure you have enough of each.
- Require at least 10 cards of an effect to see it in your opening hand more than half the time.
- Evaluate each card's actual role: for example, Gilded Lotus counts as ramp only if your plan is to cast threats costing 10 or more mana.
- Prefer general purpose draw over conditional draw to avoid falling behind when behind.

**Limitation**
- These probability estimates ignore mulligans, specific land counts, and tutor effects, so they provide rough baselines rather than exact odds.

**Example**
- A Goreclaw deck aiming to cast its commander on turn three needs a piece of ramp by turn two; probability modeling shows the required ramp count to achieve this consistently.

**More quotes**
> A consistent deck is one that consistently does something and whose things it does don't vary all that much in power level.
> People will remember the most powerful moments of your deck. Your spooky pop off win that you can only pull off 10% of the time will be remembered alongside a more consistent deck's solid game plan that it pulls off 75% of the time, making your deck seem disproportionately scary.
> From a fun standpoint, I like to have a deck be doing something every game.
> [Wanting my deck to perform every game] is absolutely an ego thing, but fortunately we all have human brains that do silly human brain things.
> A simple benchmark you can reference is that you need 10 of a card in a deck to have it show up in a given hand more than half the time.
> I think a lot of people tend to underestimate how many cards 100 actually is, and that tends to result in people putting in fewer cards with a particular effect than would be ideal.
> I've been there, and let me tell you, those decks end up turning out way worse than decks where I'm sweating and dying trying to fit everything.
> If a card doesn't fit into one of your key categories, you should be asking yourself what its purpose is, and the answer should be simple and straightforward.
> In my mind, the optimal state of a deck list is one whose components exist in comfortable tension in your mind.
> If you're only running the Two Boots, your odds of drawing protection in your first five draws of the game are a hair under 23%. That's not great.

## #41. Running More Removal Without Diluting Your Deck  (Jul 2024, 159K views)
*Original title: How to Play More Removal (and be happy about it)*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Control, Removal, Deck Consistency, Interaction, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We offer two methods to run more removal without feeling like it eats deck space: use multi-removal spells or removal engines to handle multiple threats with fewer cards, and select removal that synergizes with your deck's theme, such as modal or mechanic-tied cards.
This approach avoids diluting deck focus and leads to more dynamic gameplay.

**Principle**
- The common ‘vegetables’ analogy for removal makes players feel they are sacrificing fun synergy cards for mandatory interaction, which discourages running more removal.
- Reframing removal to integrate with a deck's core strategy can make it feel supportive rather than dilutive.

**Evidence**
- The most popular EDH removal spells are single‑target and low‑cost, spending an entire deck slot to answer one threat, which taxes deck space when multiple threats appear.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Multi‑removal spells like Hull Breach, Soul Shatter, or Windgrace's Judgment destroy several permanents at once, providing card advantage and saving slots.
- Removal engines (e.g., Aura Shards, Royal Assassin, or a pinger with deathtouch) remove one threat per turn repeatedly without using more cards.
- Consider alternatives to loading up on board wipes; they destroy your own creatures and opponents can quickly rebuild, so a multi‑removal spell can be more efficient.
- Pick removal that aligns with deck synergies: Dromoka's Command in a counters deck, Triskelion Predator in an evasive deck, or Lethal Scheme in a go‑wide deck.
- Modal cards and MDFCs like Valorous Stance, Silverback Elder, or Angel of the Ruins let a removal spell double as land or utility, so it never feels like a dead slot.

**Limitation**
- Multi‑removal and engines typically cost more mana than cheap single‑target spells, making them less viable for the most aggressive, lean proactive decks.

**Example**
- A control deck like Astral Slide runs only two board wipes but leverages engines to recycle ETB removal and graveyard recursion for sustained board suppression.

**More quotes**
> I fall firmly in the camp of incessantly telling people to run more removal. I will happily be that annoying guy.
> In conventional EDH deck building, ways to interact with your opponents often end up in the category of vegetables.
> What if you could have all the benefits of running a lot of removal without feeling like it's gobbling up your deck space?
> Your opponents have been through this before; you're not catching some dewy Timmy off guard with the first Wrath of God he's ever seen in his life.
> Player removal is absolutely on the table [for a Voltron deck].
> I run the low cost staples because I don't need to care what's happening on board two turns from now.
> Removal exists to let me stay alive and prevent opponents from winning for some unknown duration of time.
> Make the slots you're already spending on removal do more for you.
> [Blending in removal] allows it to feel less space gobbling even as the number of removal cards in your deck stays high.
> Modal cards allow a deck to pack a lot of removal that can be used when needed but not feel like its deck slots are being actively gobbled up.

## #42. Interaction and Consistency Outweigh Power Level in EDH  (Jul 2024, 158K views)
*Original title: Does Power Level Matter?*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Budget, Deck Consistency, Interaction, Power Level, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that blowout games are usually caused by a lack of interaction and inconsistent deckbuilding rather than power level differences.
Players should include enough removal and counterspells to stop opponents from snowballing and avoid overloading on payoff cards that only work in ideal scenarios.
Decks built with consistency and interaction can compete against higher-power opponents.

**Principle**
- Power level mismatches are often not the root cause of blowouts; what matters is whether decks run enough interaction to check a player who gets ahead.
- A multiplayer dynamic allows multiple opponents to trade cards one-for-one with a leading player, preventing snowballing.

**Evidence**
- A pool of $30 decks built for consistency and interaction remained competitive against decks with higher power levels on paper.
- A Zakara player who overloaded on counter doublers and mana doublers but ran only a single threat was shut down by one removal spell repeatedly.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Run at least 10 to 12 pieces of interaction (removal, counters, or modal spells) rather than the typical mid single digits.
- Cut amplification cards that double resources only when you are already ahead, as they create fragility.
- Cut conversion cards that require having one resource to generate another, as they rely on you already performing well.

**Example**
- The Dimir Rogues list exemplifies the approach: it runs 17 interactive spells and 25 evasive creatures, allowing it to generate value even with a single creature.

**More quotes**
> Do you want to know a secret? In most cases, the relative power levels of the decks aren't even the main issue.
> Decks with varied power levels can work fine in the same pod and avoid blowouts, but this requires decks to run interaction.
> A key table dynamic that keeps powerful decks in check is the ability for multiple players to trade cards one for one with the player who is ahead.
> A lot of decks throw in a handful of removal spells and call it good, spending the rest on engines and synergies, building their deck's ability to function against no opponents.
> If a deck is even a little better at what it does, generating an extra half a card per turn in value, there will be nothing to prevent that advantage from piling up.
> A lot of casual EDH decks put so much emphasis on the ideal pop-off scenario that 25 to 40 percent of the time they fail to perform meaningful game actions.
> Putting in too many payoff cards and not enough building blocks to get there.
> Decks can feel poorly matched and power imbalanced even when they're the exact same power level.
> The funny thing is, despite being built on a low budget, these decks still hold up against decks that are much more powerful on paper.
> A table with relatively consistent interactive decks will feel much more dynamic and balanced regardless of how powerful each of those decks actually.

## #43. Why Board Wipes Polarize Commander Games  (Jul 2024, 145K views)
*Original title: The Problem with Board Wipes (in EDH)*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Child of Alara, White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Control, Midrange, Combo, Interaction, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Power Level, Format Health, Deckbuilding Principle

Board wipes disproportionately crush casual midrange creature decks and fail against combo, aggro, and non-creature strategies.
Overloading on board wipes leads to polarized games where the deck dominates or flails.
Deckbuilders should assess their interaction's weaknesses and make them intentional.

**Principle**
- Board wipes and stax effects are both asymmetric but in opposite directions: board wipes punish creature-based midrange while stax punishes carefully planned burst strategies.

**Evidence**
- The child of Alara deck included only two counter spells, leaving it unable to interact with sudden combo or instant-speed wins.
- The Glissa deck, with many board wipes and sorcery-speed removal, was effective against midrange but helpless against combo and countermagic.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When building a deck, identify what your interaction suite is weak against and ensure any holes are intentional.
- Run three to five board wipes with tutors instead of eight to avoid over-committing to a polarizing strategy.

**Limitation**
- Board wipes fail to stop combo wins, aggro life-total pressure, and instant and sorcery value engines.
- A board-wipe-heavy control deck cannot outrun a combo deck in the long game.

**Example**
- The child of Alara gate deck ran 55 lands, sacrifice outlets, and only five interaction slots, creating highly polarized games.
- The Marriott equipment aggro deck intentionally lacks big creature removal, relying on early pressure and politics to compensate.

**More quotes**
> I am a cruel control player at heart.
> Board wipes won't stop combos, they won't prevent aggro decks from abusing your life total, they won't slow down large land counts, and they won't shut down your opponents generating a lot of instant and sorcery based value.
> When I tell you I want a commander that just repetitively board wipes to be a good idea, I mean it. But it's not a good idea.
> This deck will ruin the day of casual synergy decks but against a less board dependent deck it'll putter around and be a mild nuisance before getting ultimately crushed with little to no chance of actually pulling off one of its wincons.
> Board wipes are an asymmetric effect: they impact different players massively differently.
> Years spent as a mono black player forced me into the hard truth that unconditional tutors are bland as hell so I don't play them.
> Ideally it should be well balanced and if there are holes they should be intentional rather than incidental.
> You can build a deck with a bunch of stax effects and a win plan that can outrun a mid-range deck but you can't build a deck full of board wipes with a win plan that can outrun a combo deck.
> If you build a deck that massacres casual mid-range decks but flails around against everything else you're going to be struggling to create interesting and dynamic games.
> There's a reason why running a bunch of stax effects is a better idea than running a bunch of board wipes: the source decks shut down by an Archon of Emeria are generally stronger and more carefully constructed than the source of decks shut down by a Plague Wind.

## #44. How Combo Pieces Make Your Commander a Removal Target  (Jul 2024, 142K views)
*Original title: Stop Turning your Commander into a Combo Piece*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** White, Blue, Black, Green, Combo, Midrange, Threat Assessment, EDHREC Data, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that inserting a powerful combo involving your commander into a deck with a weaker primary strategy causes opponents to treat your commander as a constant threat, leading to excessive removal that derails your gameplan.
This misalignment of power levels creates strategic confusion and an unfun experience for both you and your opponents.
We advise such combos should only be included if they match the deck's overall power level or are the main strategy.

**Principle**
- Decks that mix weak and powerful strategies without consistency cause strategic whiplash for opponents, making threat assessment erratic.
- A commander known for a combo will be treated as a kill-on-sight threat even if the player built a different, weaker theme.
- Including an out-of-place combo in a synergistic deck draws disproportionate removal to the commander, undermining the intended play pattern.

**Evidence**
- EDHrec data shows 46% of Zaxara decks include Freed from the Real, which combos with the commander for infinite mana.
- 72% of Tivit decks run Time Sieve, and even among voting-themed builds, 63% include this one-card combo.
- In a Zaxara deck without the combo, the commander is a moderate value engine; with the combo threat, it becomes a high-priority removal target.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Only include a commander-based combo if it is the deck's primary gameplan, ensuring consistent power throughout.
- If combo pieces naturally align with the deck's strategy and the combo's power is comparable, the risk is reduced.
- Evaluate how opponents will react to your commander based on popular combos, and cut pieces that provoke unwanted removal.

**Limitation**
- This advice does not apply to dedicated combo decks where the commander is intentionally part of the win condition.

**More quotes**
> If you build a deck that's mainly doing one thing but has some other much more powerful thing it can draw into 10 to 20% of the time, that's going to lead to some table whiplash.
> When a deck does a mixture of relatively weak things and wildly powerful things with no rhyme or reason, it's much more difficult for people to conceptualize and strategize around.
> The second you throw some poison counters on your opponents, [your commander] immediately reads: each turn, I get a poison counter for all your opponents, and their removal choices will reflect.
> Poison counter proliferation is about as visible and visceral as setup gets. Your opponents will be kicking and screaming against the lurching inevitability of your game plan, even when it's no stronger on paper than a good old-fashioned tokens plus overrun.
> I'm not trying to give any hard and fast rules here. I'm just trying to make sure that players have their expectations well calibrated.
> If you're prepared to fight ruthlessly to keep your commander in play, that's great. On the contrary, if you're just here for a good time and don't want to fight that battle, don't build your deck in a way that gives other people extra reasons to kill your stuff.
> What you do with your commander will inform how your opponents react to that commander.
> Stretching your commander to fill more roles can be a great way to up your overall efficiency and consistency, but you do need to keep an eye on what exactly those roles are and whether they pose dramatically different threats to your opponents.
> At the end of the day, the main thing that all of this really comes down to is knowing what kind of magic you want to be playing.
> I know exactly how my opponents are going to be feeling, and I'm prepared to say no if they send their removal spells in the most logical direction.

## #45. Gavi, Nest Warden Erased Cycling's Strategic Depth  (Jul 2024, 119K views)
*Original title: How WotC Made Cycling Bland in EDH*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Gavi, Nest Warden, White, Blue, Red, Midrange, Tokens, Card Draw, Design Intent, Format Health

We critique Wizards of the Coast's design of Gavi, Nest Warden, arguing that her free cycling ability removes the strategic resource management that makes cycling decks interesting.
It contrasts her with Astral Slide, which fostered complex decision-making, and laments that Gavi encourages a linear, value-oriented playstyle common among 'designer commanders'.

**Principle**
- Cycling forces players to weigh the immediate utility of a card against the potential of drawing a different card plus a mana cost, creating constant strategic tension.
- The value of a cycling card changes dramatically with game state, making each cycle a meaningful decision with high-impact consequences.

**Evidence**
- Astral Slide cycling decks require players to manage whether to use slide triggers aggressively for small value or conserve them for critical disruption.
- In those decks, mana management becomes a probabilistic exercise where players calculate the odds of drawing additional cycles or answers based on available resources.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Avoid commanders like Gavi that give free cycling, as they eliminate the crucial trade-off between casting a spell and cycling it for a new card.
- Select cycling cards with varied cycling costs, ensuring that the decision to cycle carries a significant mana commitment, to replicate the strategic depth of older cycling builds.

**Limitation**
- Gavi's free cycle each turn encourages a repetitive pattern of exactly one cycle per turn, squandering the mechanic's potential for explosive or reactive sequences.
- Her design leads to decks that default to passive value engines like Astral Drift, resulting in a formulaic midrange playstyle that lacks the nuance of earlier cycling decks.

**Example**
- Decree of Annihilation cycled with Gavi exemplifies the failure: it resets mana but the Gavi deck lacks a quick win condition, prolonging games without strategic payoff.
- Decree of Silence as a free counter with Gavi reduces meaningful interaction to a thoughtless safety net, stripping away the tension of resource planning.

**More quotes**
> Cycling is a beautifully simple mechanic: you can pay an alternate cost on a card and discard it to draw a card.
> Astral Slide decks have a super interesting play style that revolves heavily around strategic resource management, in a way that feels very in line with the fundamental nature of the mechanic.
> Free cycles on each turn removes an entire dimension of the cycling mechanic.
> Gaby destroys most of the cool strategic decision making generally involved with playing a cycling deck and replaces it with yet another do the thing value pile mid range deck.
> [With Gavi,] this cool mechanic with a rich history and tons of synergy potential is reduced down to yet another value pile Commander.
> I hate it because it's a total betrayal of one of my favorite mechanics.
> Wizards has a habit of printing designer commanders that take a particular mechanic and fully dedicate themselves to it, dictating a very specific and often very boring type of deck.
> A popular format for this sort of Commander is one with two lines of text: one that says whenever X happens Y happens, and another that says whenever enough Ys happen a Z happens. This is a template that builds its own deck.
> Gaby into decree of annihilation, while certainly unusual, still kind of fails to be interesting.
> My deck ended up with a foundation that includes the commander but doesn't wholly consist of the commander.

## #46. When to Stop Upgrading Your Commander Deck  (Jul 2024, 116K views)
*Original title: When (not) to Upgrade Your Decks*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Blink, Voltron, Combo, Budget, Power Level, Deck Consistency, Upgrades, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that after reaching a smooth middling power level, further upgrades can backfire due to natural bottlenecks, cost inefficiency, or unwanted play patterns.
We advise assessing whether a deck's core concept is fundamentally weak or strong before investing in better cards, and using card quality upgrades strategically to match your desired power level.
The goal is to enjoy the deck without forcing it into a role that undermines your fun.

**Principle**
- Card quality upgrades alone cannot fix decks with natural bottlenecks, such as heavy reliance on an expensive commander or a graveyard dependent strategy.

**Evidence**
- our Astral Slide deck is not upgraded because it is vulnerable to enchantment removal, artifact wipes, and graveyard hate, which become more common at higher power levels.
- Feather, the Redeemed decks struggle to improve past a certain point because they already run the best cheap instants; replacing them with generic value cards weakens the commander synergy.
- We keep Gisa at a middling power level to preserve battlecruiser wins through board superiority rather than adopting combo finishes or explosive spells.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Before upgrading, check if a single piece of hate (like Rest in Peace or Drannith Magistrate) can cripple your deck's primary plan.
- Ask whether raising the power level will push you into unenjoyable play patterns, such as consistent turn four combos or stax suppression.
- Use card quality upgrades to lift a janky premise to a playable mid power level, but expect diminishing returns if the core idea is inherently limited.

**Limitation**
- The advice does not apply to commanders with scalable, efficient engines like Yuriko, the Tiger Shadow, which can be upgraded smoothly without hitting early bottlenecks.

**Example**
- Feather, the Redeemed depends on cheap instants that are already optimal; swapping them for generic staples provides negligible improvement and weakens the deck's focus.

**More quotes**
> I understand this impulse: you've got your baby and you want it to fly.
> Some decks have natural bottlenecks in their functionality that make it difficult to give them a cohesive upgrade.
> Trying to improve a deck with a bottleneck will generally lead to some very good games but much worse consistency.
> The cheap deck is a deck that works pretty well at low budgets but is very logarithmic in terms of how it translates additional budget to additional power.
> In a Feather deck, one to two mana instants and sorceries that target creatures are cheap, so you're already running the best ones.
> You also might need to slip combos into your deck instead of winning in ways that play more to your deck strengths, which a lot of players might not find satisfying.
> With my Gissa deck, I play to do beefy battle cruiser things and become the big bad of the table, not to pull off a sneaky win when my opponents aren't looking.
> We as Magic players tend to overwhelmingly focus on card quality when we think about a deck's power level.
> Upgrading your deck's card quality is a tool for obtaining the deck's desired power level.
> There's a culture among a lot of EDH players of higher powered decks being considered cooler or more interesting, which leads to a rat race of chasing generic staples.

## #47. Self-Balancing a $25 Commander Deck Pool Over Two Years  (Jul 2024, 113K views)
*Original title: I Spent Two Years Playing EDH With a Pool of $25 Decks*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Aggro, Control, Combo, Budget, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Meta Trends, Power Level, Budget Building

We describe a two-year experiment of building and maintaining a pool of ten $25 Commander decks.
By tracking win rates and making iterative adjustments, we achieved a balanced metagame where most decks had win rates between 18-33%.
The process showed that aggressive decks require slower decks to include early blockers and life gain, and that combo decks suffer if they lack defensive speed.

**Principle**
- Iterative tuning based on win-rate data enables a self-correcting metagame even under strict budget limits.

**Evidence**
- The Orzhov control deck had a 54% win rate initially, but after meta adjustments it won zero games in the next period.
- The Selesnya cats aggro deck reached 42% win rate, prompting other decks to add early defensive tools.
- In the final 86-game sample, win rates ranged from 18% to 33%, showing substantial balance.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Add cheap creatures and board wipes to combat-oriented decks when a fast aggro deck threatens balance.
- Ensure combo decks include enough early interaction or blockers to survive until they can go off.

**Limitation**
- The pool's metagame was shaped entirely by iterative play within a closed group, so results may not transfer to random playgroups or broader formats.

**Example**
- The Dimir Lazav deck exploited infect via Vector Asp but eventually underperformed as opponents learned to pressure it early and disrupt the combo.

**More quotes**
> The Orzhov deck garnered an eye-watering 54% win rate.
> The pool began with two control decks; that factor shouldn't be overlooked.
> A lot of the decks just felt kind of flat and lifeless, generic mid-range decks doing generic mid-range things.
> The Cats deck ended up being a truly ruthless aggro deck, putting on heavy pressure as early as turn two.
> A meaningful metagame had been developed where lacking ways to hold off creature-based aggression would cause a deck to win fewer games.
> This process of building decks formulated a lot of my understanding of the commander format.
> I had a rude awakening where most of the games I played were way less dynamic and interesting than the games with these $25 decks.
> The decks ended up grouping into three clusters in terms of win rate.
> [The Lazav deck] had become what it had tried and failed to survive against.
> If you build a set of decks like this, don't let any of them be overly weak or overly boring, and have the courage to dismantle a deck you like if it ends up being one of these things.

## #48. How to Fit Pet Cards Into Commander Decks  (Jul 2024, 1,796 words in transcript)
*Original title: Your Pet Cards Deserve a Better Home*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Midrange, Control, Tokens, Pet Cards, Budget, Synergy, Power Level, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain that players often want to include favorite 'pet cards' in many decks, but this isn't always optimal.
It categorizes pet cards into three types and suggests two main strategies: building a dedicated deck around a pet card, or using a flexible deck shell that can house multiple niche cards.
For moderately powerful but specific pet cards, finding the right home can make them more enjoyable.

**Principle**
- The act of building a deck that a pet card fully belongs in is the greatest act of love for that card.

**Evidence**
- Cards like Shigeki feel useful in any green deck because its instant-speed uncounterable recursion is always relevant.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Before adding pet cards, ensure the deck has a solid core of lands, ramp, and draw to function smoothly.
- For a single niche pet card, build the entire deck around supporting that card's unique ability.

**Limitation**
- Highly focused decks, such as Voltron or dedicated combo, cannot include random pet cards without losing consistency.

**Example**
- Astral slide, Maze's End, and Time Sieve each got a dedicated deck where they shine.
- The Skeleton Ship proliferate control deck runs quirky pet cards like Overwhelming Intellect and storage lands.

**More quotes**
> The act of building a deck that a pet card fully belongs in is the greatest act of love you can show your favorite piece of cardboard.
> You can throw these sorts of cards into any old deck whose color identity they fit, but this doesn't necessarily mean they'll feel satisfying.
> These sorts of cards won't reach their full potential if you're playing them in a deck they only tangentially connect.
> At the worst, you might gradually grow resentment for them if you keep drawing them rather than a card that is more useful.
> The more generic a deck's general game plan is, the more niche and varied the specific card choices can be.
> It may be tempting to disregard [interaction, protection, and removal], but if you're making a funny deck, how well-rounded it is may determine whether it ends up being a deck you want to keep playing with or whether it ends up getting set aside as that gimmick deck that was fun for a little while.
> I could throw $500 at a fancy deck, but for that same amount I could build a half dozen decks at lower budget points that can also serve the interests of different gameplay styles and different cards I love.
> If I'm throwing together a $50 list based on a card I really like or a funny premise, I can just order that sucker with no second thoughts, knowing that if I get half a dozen fun games out of it I'll be happy.
> Exercising a bit of discretion in where these cards are played can lead to them being more enjoyable.
> Building a deck around a single card or building a deck that's general enough to fit a number of these specific cards are two options for fitting them into decks.

## #49. Analyzing a $20 Zyrus Buff Spells Commander Deck  (Jul 2024, 2,466 words in transcript)
*Original title: My Playgroup's Best Deck is $20*
**Category:** Strategy
**Tags:** Xyris, the Writhing Storm, Blue, Red, Green, Group Hug, Voltron, Tokens, Budget, Table Politics, Threat Assessment, Synergy, Social and Politics

A budget Zyrus the Writhing Storm deck uses buff spells to win via commander damage while appearing friendly by giving cards to opponents.
The transparent game plan and cheap cards cause opponents to underestimate its snowballing resources.
Snake tokens from Zyrus compound the threat and make combat tactically difficult for others.

**Principle**
- A commander that provides mutual card draw can mask an aggressive game plan, allowing a stealth snowball strategy.

**Evidence**
- In practice, opponents will protect the Zyrus player, even countering removal aimed at Zyrus, to continue drawing extra cards.
- The deck's consistent card draw leads to hands filled with multiple protection and buff spells, making it hard to disrupt.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To consistently draw into interaction, dedicate about 20% of your nonland cards to buff spells and another 10% to protection.
- Keep the average mana value low to hold up multiple spells during combat and maintain unpredictability.

**Limitation**
- The deck is vulnerable to board wipes, which bypass most of its single-target protection spells.
- Forcing the deck to use buff spells defensively instead of offensively delays its critical turn and reduces its threat.

**Example**
- A mana-screwed player once countered a removal spell on Zyrus just to keep receiving three cards per turn.

**More quotes**
> I need to make a buff spells deck now.
> The deck is friendly and unassuming, right up until the point where it starts deciding to stop being those things and start murdering players.
> Because fun fact: letting you and an opponent each draw 15 cards is great when that opponent simultaneously dies to commander damage.
> This deck gets underestimated game after game, and by people who have lost to it half a dozen or more times.
> The deck's lack of spicy plays and absolute transparency in what it's trying to do in a given game play to its strengths.
> The threat profile of the deck typically lags behind its actual power at any given moment.
> Do I look like somebody who throws my threats in the garbage?
> The deck gains piles and piles of potential attackers and blockers that could get larger and gain all manner of potentially problematic keywords at any moment.
> This deck doesn't seem very good, and that perception is exactly what makes it so good.
> Discarding to hand size is the final dynamic that causes people to underestimate the deck.

## #50. Channel Updates and Commander Q&A  (Jul 2024, 2,103 words in transcript)
*Original title: Some channel updates + Q&A*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Control, Lifegain, Removal, Rule Zero, Power Level, Format Health, Social and Politics

We outline a new weekly posting schedule and plan for patron deck reviews.
In a community Q&A, they discuss the importance of rule zero conversations to align deck power and fun expectations.
They also argue that the EDH ban list faces tension between competitive balance and casual fun, advocating for social communication over heavy-handed bans.

**Principle**
- Before a game, verify that all decks operate at comparable power levels by discussing their speed and primary strategy.
- For casual tables, also ask each player about strategies or cards they find unfun to avoid, such as heavy stax or combos.

**Evidence**
- The EDH ban list must serve two conflicting goals: banning competitively overpowered cards like Dockside Extortionist and banning casually unfun cards like Armageddon, leading to tension.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- If you build a particularly oppressive or 'mean' deck, expect it to see less playtime because it can reduce others' enjoyment.

**Limitation**
- You cannot demand that opponents remove every card or strategy your deck is weak against; such requests are unfair and undermine the spirit of compromise.

**Example**
- We regularly ask a friend not to play a specific Turrid deck, showing how targeted deck exclusions can be negotiated in a friendly playgroup.

**More quotes**
> I had the idea to do a 10K Q&A when I was at 9,000 subscribers, and somehow I'm now creeping up on 15K.
> I needed a username for some website, and my two second on the spot smash together of words was salubria snail.
> My first deck was a sort of black life gain deck. It ran a fair amount of removal because that's just who I am as a player.
> Mark Rosewater gave a career day presentation at my middle school and handed out starter decks from M12.
> My favorite Magic card is [Ashiok, Weaver]. I'm a big horror fan, and the idea of an unknowable otherworldly entity weaponizing the fears of its foes to destroy them is just incredible.
> If I had to ban one card for very petty personal reasons, it would be farewell. I hate the card. I think it's very lazy design.
> The EDH ban list is tricky because it's really trying to be two different things: it's trying to dictate what's too strong for cEDH and it's also trying to dictate what's not fun for casual.
> I actually really like explicitly political cards. Council's dilemma and will of the council are both cool mechanics with a lot of cool design space.
> The most memorable deck I've played against was a Tymna Jeska tribal Ball Lightning deck, and that deck's vision is splendid to me.
> I have a friend who has a Tergrid deck, and three nights out of four I don't want to play against.

## #51. Deck Focus: Winning Commander with Cohesive Plans  (Jul 2024, 3,945 words in transcript)
*Original title: Snail's Guide to Winning an EDH Game*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Midrange, Tokens, Win Conditions, Deck Consistency, Synergy, Card Evaluation, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that categorizing specific cards as win conditions is less useful than ensuring every card contributes to a focused plan.
It introduces a framework of inputs and outputs to analyze deck cohesion, identifying unfocused inputs and outputs as common pitfalls.
The solution is to evaluate each card's function, reliability, and contribution to a cohesive strategy.

**Principle**
- A constructive way to evaluate an EDH deck is through its inputs (conditions to meet) and outputs (results that advance the plan), rather than focusing on individual win condition cards.

**Evidence**
- Unfocused inputs in a deck lead to a high number of dead draws and inconsistent board states.
- Unfocused outputs cause a deck to generate generic value without a clear, reliable path to ending the game.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- For each card in your deck, determine its role, its failure rate, and whether it directly supports your deck's unified strategy.

**Limitation**
- Decks that pivot between multiple plans can succeed, but they require careful construction to ensure the different components connect meaningfully.

**Example**
- The Missy deck illustrates unfocused inputs: it contained artifact creature, face-down creature, and narrow sub-synergy packages that did not connect well.
- Gavi, Nest Warden decks often suffer from unfocused outputs, generating tokens, removal, and damage without a dedicated way to win.
- Moon Shaker Cavalry demonstrates a focused output for Gavi, turning a wide board of tokens into a lethal attack.

**More quotes**
> The important question is what cards in my deck are the ones that don't win the game.
> Anything can win a game if your opponents play no cards; a 1/1 squirrel is a quality win condition if your opponents are playing nothing but archers and bears.
> The number one criticism I have for people when they ask me to look at their deck is 'this looks unfocused.'.
> Most decks involve a system of inputs and outputs, with inputs being conditions that need to be met and outputs being the results of those inputs that contribute to the deck's game plan.
> The goal of a parity breaker should be to turn a game state that's not quite winning into one that wins, but some cards will only win with a board state that was probably already about to win.
> If something is a dead card two-thirds of the time, that other third had better be really good.
> Mass calcify is the best evasion spell.
> If your opponents are playing nothing but archers and bears, a single Siege Dragon is a great win condition.
> Conventional EDH wisdom might have you gesturing at various things as a win condition: Craterhoof Behemoth is a win condition, Torment of Hailfire is a win condition, Purphoros, God of the Forge is a win condition, Sanguine Bond is a win condition.
> It's a generally toothless type of deck that will struggle to win against decks that have more refined win plans, even if those decks generate a smaller quantity of total resources.

## #52. How to Decode EDHRec Synergy Data  (Jul 2024, 2,190 words in transcript)
*Original title: The Hidden Lore of an EDHRec Page*
**Category:** Meta Commentary
**Tags:** Blue, Black, Green, Combo, Midrange, Counters, EDHREC Data, Power Level, Synergy, Budget, Meta Analysis

We argue that EDHRec's percentage display hides how cards are grouped into archetypes.
By selecting indicator cards from high synergy lists and using filters, you can estimate the sizes and overlaps of different deck types.
Three commanders are analyzed to reveal distinct player groups, helping builders understand card inclusion and power level.

**Principle**
- EDHRec's percentage inclusion flattens the relationship between cards, hiding whether they appear in the same or different decks.
- High synergy cards that are disproportionately played can serve as indicator cards for distinct archetypes.

**Evidence**
- Francisco/Malcolm decks: 58% run Thoracle combo, 36% run midrange pirates, and only 7% run both.
- Skeleton Ship decks split into commander-ability, proliferate, and skeleton tribal, with the tribal group being most distinct.
- Aros Lagoon Mystic page lacks clear clusters, showing many small strategies like turtles and untap, making interpretation difficult.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Select a high-synergy card from each suspected archetype and filter for decks containing both to calculate overlap.
- Use the filter tool to exclude indicator cards and discover unexpected themes like pirates in Skeleton Ship.

**Limitation**
- The method depends on choosing representative indicator cards, which can miss smaller archetypes.
- Overlap percentages are only estimates based on the chosen cards and may not reflect true deck distributions.

**Example**
- In Skeleton Ship, excluding the main indicator cards revealed a hidden theme of pirates and ship-themed cards.

**More quotes**
> EDH Rec is a fascinating tool that has grown to monolithic stature eclipsing most other resources in the EDH ecosystem.
> Displaying cards by percent inclusion in decks flattens a lot of information about the decks they're played.
> Almost 60% of Francisco Malcolm decks run Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation, an instant win combo requiring a mere two cards and three mana.
> Ramirez and Hostage Taker are both fun cards but they're decidedly not mana well spent in a cEDH Thoracle deck.
> The skeleton ship page was fascinating for the opposite reason as the Francisco Malcolm one. This EDH Rec page looks something like a tour of low power EDH.
> The process of making this piece and returning to the glorious EDH Rec page has only increased my amount of love for all my bone homies out there living their best skeleton ship lives.
> EDH Rec is a good tool but it's not one you can go on autopilot.
> No matter how snappy the UI is, the stuff you're seeing isn't magical. It's just data slurry.
> One of the biggest pitfalls I've seen EDH Rec users fall into is when they add cards that look good without thinking about what deck those cards belong in or how many of a single card type belong in a deck. This results in decks which have some amount of synergy in theory but which in practice feel disjointed and clunky, containing a Frankenstein-like mishmash of components from various decks.
> I'd advocate spending an extra moment trying to parse what specific types of deck are actually being built with the different cards.

## #53. Optimal Land Counts for Commander Decks  (Jul 2024, 2,996 words in transcript)
*Original title: Your Manabase Deserves Better*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Mana Base, Deck Consistency, Curve, Budget, Deckbuilding Principle

Many Commander players treat lands as a necessary evil and run too few.
Frank Karsten's simulation model suggests 37 to 42 lands for optimal curve consistency.
High-cost draw commanders and multicolor decks require even higher land counts unless using expensive mana bases.

**Principle**
- Many players treat lands as a necessary evil and aim to run the minimum possible, which leads to deck-building mistakes.

**Evidence**
- Frank Karsten's EDH-specific simulation model recommends 37 to 42 lands for a smooth curve.
- The model assumes the commander is an extra non-land card always available and optimizes for cast mana values across turns.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Commanders that draw cards, especially those costing four or more mana, require higher land counts to ensure they can be cast reliably.
- Multicolor decks need more lands if not using expensive fetch and shock lands to consistently hit color requirements.
- Medium-to-large draw spells can support higher land densities because the draw helps find action cards.

**Limitation**
- Karsten's model treats all cards as identical apart from mana value, ignoring unique effects that could influence land needs.
- Players often struggle to cut non-land cards, leading them to accept suboptimal low land counts.

**Example**
- A Rona deck with many cheap legendary creatures can run fewer black sources and slightly fewer lands if it can guarantee casting Rona on turn two.
- We run few fetches and shock due to budget and compensates by running more lands.

**More quotes**
> If your hand was missing something else you find vital to your game plan, an artifact, a creature, a piece of ramp, you wouldn't say 'Wow, this opening hand would be great if it had an artifact in it' because that's a silly statement to make.
> I think a lot of people have a mindset of lands being a sort of necessary evil, a card type that dilutes the gas of a deck and one that should be played in the lowest quantity that a player can get away.
> I suspect the reason a lot of people end up running low land counts isn't because they've done a lot of field testing and decided that they need to be drawing more gas. It's because they get finished adding cards to the deck and feel attached to the non-land stuff they put.
> If your commander costs four or more and draws cards, not only should you not run less lands than you otherwise would, you actually should run more.
> That's a draw spell you'll have every single game, and your only barrier between yourself and those sweet, sweet cards is drawing enough lands or ramp to get there.
> The annoying truth is if you want to run a lot of colors and you don't want to run a whole lot of tap lands in order to actually get the colors you need, you either need to spend hundreds of dollars on a mana base full of fetches and shocks or you need to run a lot of lands.
> If you're willing to spend money you can run a lot of colors with basically no downside, and if you aren't willing to spend money you can't do.
> I don't run many fetches and shocks in my decks due to their cost, and I honestly find the effectiveness of them to be a little upsetting.
> 30 symbols in your mana base will give you great access to all but the most symbol intensive cards. 25 symbols will give you great access to single symbol cards and decent access to double symbol cards. 20 will give you decent access to single symbol cards and mediocre access to more symbols.
> If you're like me and you can't justify that purchase, you should either play fewer colors or run more lands.

## #54. Slot Compression: Fitting More Functions into Fewer Cards  (Jul 2024, 1,072 words in transcript)
*Original title: The Way to Fit More Cards into your Cards*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Midrange, Combo, Stax, Deck Consistency, Mana Base, Win Conditions, Card Evaluation, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain slot compression, the practice of choosing cards that fulfill multiple roles to fit more tools into a deck without sacrificing essential functions.
It shows how this applies across midrange, combo, and synergistic strategies, and recommends using MDFC lands to boost land counts.
The key caution is that smoothness should not replace substantive win conditions.

**Principle**
- Aim for each non-land card to serve at least two distinct purposes, such as draw, removal, or board presence, to maximize slot efficiency.

**Evidence**
- Decks using slot compression can include more interaction and lands, leading to fewer non-games and increased consistency.
- Multi-role creatures in midrange and combo decks provide both threat density and utility, reducing the need for dedicated spell slots.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Swap basic lands for MDFCs to raise your functional land count without cutting spells, aiming for 35 to 40 total lands depending on curve.
- In tribal or power-matters decks, ensure your draw and removal sources share the relevant type to free slots for more synergy pieces.

**Limitation**
- A deck that maximizes slot compression may still fail without enough explicit win conditions; after building, verify you have multiple reliable ways to end the game.

**Example**
- In the Rose deck, creatures that draw cards or force discards serve as the draw engine, and Blood Artist effects on finishers deter board wipes.
- The Gly deck relies on high-cost creatures that are removal spells and draw engines, eliminating the need for separate wincon cards.

**More quotes**
> The idea of slot compression is basically this: you can fit more stuff into your deck, more things of each category like finishers or draw or removal, if you pick out and play cards that do multiple things.
> My deck cashes in a hefty 20 or so slots up front for ramp, but it is rewarded for this with a creature base consisting of powerful removal and draw spells stapled to 5/5s and 8/8s and 10/10s, which means that the deck ends up being able to win games without a single dedicated wincon slot.
> By running stax effects that are also creatures, these decks are able to heavily oppress their opponents' game plans while still having a board state to block and pressure life totals.
> If you can make cards needed for your combo also valuable in their own right in the deck, the combo will feel much less space-gobbling.
> If you're building a Goreclaw deck and your deck's draw and removal mostly consists of creatures with power four or greater, suddenly you can fit a whole lot more beef into the deck while still having it feel smooth and well-rounded.
> I sometimes see people run land counts in the low 30s in decks that aren't that low-curved, and while I appreciate the desire to draw gas, I echo Interesting Failures' thinking here: at least do yourself a favor and throw in some MDFC or utility lands to bring your count up to 35 or 36.
> This goes for high-curved decks running 36 lands as well; don't be afraid to MDFC your way up to 38 or 39, or even break into the 40s.
> Lands are good and people often don't play enough of them in casual EDH.
> At its core your deck still needs to do a thing that wins.
> Playing smoothly and having interaction isn't a substitute for having a good way to end the game.

## #55. How Aggro Works in Commander: Life Pressure and Commander Damage  (Jul 2024, 1,466 words in transcript)
*Original title: Aggro Ideology: A Guide to Spee-DH*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** Aggro, Voltron, Stax, Resilience, Threat Assessment, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Strategy

We explain how aggro strategies must adapt to Commander's 40-life format.
It promotes 'aggro ideology,' the practice of pressuring opponents by lowering their life totals to force conservative play.
We emphasize Commander damage as a powerful tool that effectively reduces the needed damage to 21 per opponent.
We categorize aggro decks into Voltron, pseudo-Voltron, and disruptive aggro, and offer practical tips on evasion, board wipe resilience, and target prioritization.

**Principle**
- The core 'aggro ideology' is to keep threatening opponents at or below 15 life, where they must play conservatively and cannot safely commit to setup turns.

**Evidence**
- In a 40-life format, players often neglect blockers and rely on life as a cushion, but aggressive attacks expose this vulnerability and make value engines like Phyrexian Arena detrimental.
- Life-payment cards such as fetchlands and Dismember are nearly costless until opponents start attacking; afterward, they become risky.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Add Selfless Spirit to white aggro decks as a permanent-based answer to board wipes.
- Run Blood Artist variants in black aggro to convert board wipes into direct damage, punishing opponents and preserving your aggression.
- Ensure your creatures have built-in evasion or use equipment and enchantments like Wonder to bypass blockers.

**Limitation**
- Aggro decks often face a social stigma in casual groups because eliminating a player early can lead to a long wait, potentially discouraging this playstyle.
- Balancing speed and resilience is difficult: including protection spells slows the deck, but a lack of protection leaves it vulnerable to board wipes.

**Example**
- A budget deck using Malagor as a commander showcases an alternative to evasion by using discard to clear blockers before attacking.

**More quotes**
> A mere 39 lightning bolts are needed, presuming each player shocks themselves with a land. Or 39 swings with a Delver of Secrets, if you prefer. Or 13 swings with an elite squad of three Delvers. Perplexing. The answer is that it doesn't work.
> Paying one life for one card is an even more delicious bargain than usual. These effects, worthwhile but noticeably painful in a 20-health format, are now nearly painless.
> Blocking isn't as necessary. decks are empowered to constantly use tap abilities, swing in for value with a Bident of Thassa effect, and eat 5 to 10 damage hits rather than blocking with an important creature.
> Suddenly, that Phyrexian Arena is a liability. That Dismember is close to regaining its status as a three-mana black card. Your commander might need to be a blocker.
> Spending a turn playing setup cards for an approaching big turn goes from an exciting proposition to a terrifying one when you might be the one to get knocked out if you skimp on blockers.
> Your hands are tied, your knees are quivering, and your deck was decidedly not built for this situation.
> My mantra in a game where somebody has a deck that is concerning and unpredictable but not necessarily totally dominant is that they should be at 15 life.
> When somebody is at 15 life, they have to play much more conservatively. Having safe setup turns isn't a given, and they're generally one round of attacks away from death if they start doing concerning things.
> Aggro ideology: this is not the beginning and end of what aggro means in EDH, but simply a phrase I use to gesture at the benefits of having opponents who are scared about their life total.
> If your deck is commander-based, you're playing a 21-health format instead of the much more challenging 40-health format. Neat.

## #56. Building Combo Decks for Commander  (Jul 2024, 2,653 words in transcript)
*Original title: EDH’s Combo Conundrum*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** Combo, Win Conditions, Interaction, Format Health, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

Combo decks are a healthy part of Commander metas because they can check greedy value strategies.
Pure combo decks that rely on a single combo are often too fragile and uninteractive for multiplayer.
We advise building combo decks with alternate win conditions and ensuring combos blend naturally with the deck's overall game plan.

**Principle**
- Combo decks break conventional Magic rules by winning regardless of board or life, which can police slow value decks.
- EDH's multiplayer nature and 120 life total make pure combo decks more vulnerable to interaction than in 1v1.

**Evidence**
- The cEDH Dargo/Thrasios deck runs multiple combo lines and a combat damage plan to beat heavy stax.
- The casual Vohdro deck integrates combos through its natural mutate and equipment synergies.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- When a combo is central, build redundancy and protection to consistently execute it against light resistance.
- When a combo is an add on, use cards the deck already wants to tutor for or play.

**Limitation**
- A sudden infinite combo in an otherwise fair deck creates jarring gameplay and frustrates opponents.

**Example**
- The modern Splinter Twin deck adapted for EDH often fails because it lacks backup plans after disruption.

**More quotes**
> Combo holds an interesting position within the landscape of Magic: The Gathering. Is it a type of deck? A type of win condition? A flavor of play style? Yes, it is indeed these things and probably many more.
> The spooky scary version is a two or three card combo that wins on the spot, such as Splinter Twin Pestermite.
> A lot of players have a negative association with it, and I think it's useful to explore why that might be.
> It's pretty common for combo decks to feel uninteractive and like they win out of nowhere.
> You can be doing your own game plan and watching with dread as your opponent spends very little resources on board state and interaction, instead relentlessly digging their way toward a one turn win.
> A lot of combo decks break the rules of the game as understood by most players. They throw this playbook in the toilet.
> The fact that Commander is a format with 40 health per player and three opponents rather than one encourages some styles of play which are too risky in 20 health 1v1 formats.
> A game where everyone always has big piles of value generating permanents and where turns involve five minutes of abilities and triggers with little movement or strategy or actual action isn't one I enjoy finding myself.
> Pure combo actually works better in conventional formats, and it is indeed very common for combo decks in these formats to have no other win conditions.
> If you put a two card infinite combo in your low power midrange deck, your deck is going to be a low power midrange deck 90% of the time and an unprotected infinite combo deck 10% of the time. That's going to give your playgroup some serious whiplash.

## #57. Build Midrange Decks Around a Commander Solving a Weakness  (Jul 2024, 917 words in transcript)
*Original title: A Weird Trick to Make Cool Midrange Decks*
**Category:** Deckbuilding
**Tags:** White, Black, Green, Midrange, Stax, Design Intent, Budget, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue for an underrated deckbuilding approach where the commander is chosen to solve a glaring weakness, allowing the rest of the deck to focus on its strengths.
By using the commander to cover a specific deficiency, like early blocking or finishing power, the deck can be built greedier and more consistently.
Examples include a Glissa Sunslayer battlecruiser deck and a Liesa, Shroud of Dusk hatebear deck.

**Principle**
- A commander can be used to patch a specific deck weakness, enabling the rest of the deck to be built more focused or greedy.
- This approach differs from the conventional method of building a deck purely around a commander's synergies.

**Evidence**
- The commander is a card you will have every single game, providing a reliable solution to the deck's identified hole.
- The singleton nature of the format creates high variability; a commander that fixes a weakness reduces that inconsistency.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Identify a gap in your midrange deck, such as early defense or a way to end the game, and pick a commander that directly addresses it.
- Free up deck slots by letting the commander handle a key function instead of dedicating many cards to it.
- Use the commander's guaranteed availability to avoid agonizing over how to consistently fulfill a role that the commander can cover.

**Example**
- A Glissa Sunslayer deck was built as a battlecruiser with ramp, removal, and massive threats, relying on Glissa for blocking and card draw.
- A Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck used hatebears to slow opponents, with Liesa serving as the recurring beater to break stalled boards.

**More quotes**
> You're building a 99-card singleton deck, something with a naturally high degree of variability, but you have an ace up your sleeve: a card that you will always have, every single game.
> However, my favorite form of this relationship is where the commander does the exact opposite of the thing that the rest of the deck is trying to do.
> Basically, you pick out a commander and then you build a mid-rangey deck with a glaring weakness solved by that commander.
> I have a top-notch blocker that's also a draw engine every single game, and that lets me use my deck slots to focus on being the greedy [deck I] truly want to be deep inside.
> I built a hate bear stack. I crammed as many hate bears as I possibly could into the deck, just truly an upsetting wall of little guys trying to ruin the day of my poor opponents.
> The cards in the deck chip in damage, prevent damage coming at me, and generally hinder my opponents in all sorts of ways, and then [Liesa] cuts through the resulting board quagmire to reduce my opponents to a paste-like homogeneous [mass].
> By design, it's a deck with roughly a [Liesa]-shaped hole, and I'm able to play [Liesa] for five mana anytime I want in any game I want.
> Running a commander that covers a particular element of the deck allows a player to build a deck that puts that element on the back burner, instead focusing all its effort on the things it knows it can succeed.
> This way, you can effectively just solve the problem that you know your deck will have ahead of time, instead of agonizing over how many deck slots to devote.
> Mid-range is often something that people look down on for being boring or bland, but with some creative usage of the rules of the format, you can build a really fun deck that exists within the mid-range realm.

## #58. EDHRec's Data Feedback Loops Distort Deckbuilding  (Jul 2023, 226K views)
*Original title: The EDHRec Effect*
**Category:** Format Theory
**Tags:** EDHREC Data, Card Evaluation, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that EDHRec's decklist aggregation creates a feedback loop where decks built using its recommendations are scraped back as new data, artificially inflating the popularity of already-common cards and burying less-played ones.
This makes the metagame sluggish and especially amplifies questionable 'win-more' cards that rely on a commander staying on the battlefield.

**Principle**
- When players build decks using EDHRec and then post those decks, EDHRec scrapes its own aggregated data, creating a feedback loop that skews card popularity.
- EDHRec treats all scraped decks equally, so decks built largely from its own recommendations are treated as independent data, further entrenching the loop.

**Evidence**
- A player building an Arcades deck with EDHRec might include Overgrown Battlements (95% inclusion) and post the list, which then reinforces that card's dominance in EDHRec's data.
- Decks built using EDHRec are faster to construct, so their proportion among posted decklists balloons over time, accelerating the feedback loop.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Question any card recommended in the 10, 50% range that assumes your commander will remain on the battlefield; consider whether it performs well even without the commander.
- Actively scroll past the top recommendations to find cards with lower play rates, as they may be overlooked gems suppressed by the feedback loop.

**Limitation**
- EDHRec's feedback loop mainly distorts the status of cards in the 10, 50% inclusion range; top-staple cards are still largely reliable picks.

**Example**
- In the Arcades, the Strategist example, cards like Overgrown Battlements and Shield Wall Sentinel appear prominently because they fit the defender theme, and their high percentages are self-reinforcing through the loop.

**More quotes**
> It's also a video about Magic: The Gathering, although hopefully I've made it somewhat accessible to people who haven't made the terrible mistake of playing this game.
> In theory, a website that aggregates deck lists allows sorting through a ton of potential card choices very efficiently. We aren't trusting the card analysis of just a single person, but rather the analysis of the collective, thereby reducing the risk of bias.
> Instead of getting data from independently operating deck builders, EDH Rec is receiving a regurgitation of its own aggregated data.
> You could also call this a win more card: a card that's bad when a player is behind or when a game is tight, but strong when a player is already ahead.
> Cards that didn't quite make it into the EDH Rec list or which are lower on the page get artificially tanked further.
> The cards already high up in the EDH Rec recommendations are bolstered regardless of how useful they actually.
> EDH Rec can tell people what cards are being played, but it can't tell them why or what they contribute towards a well-rounded deck.
> A lot of players add [interaction] cards out of a sense of obligation rather than any clear vision.
> Casual EDH decks don't run nearly enough of two key things: pressure and removal.
> Large sections of the casual Commander format become akin to multiplayer solitaire, with each player racing toward their own win plan and just praying that they can outrun their opponent.

## #59. Lorehold Precon Issues and Deckbuilding Fixes  (May 2026, 80K views)
*Original title: The New Lorehold Precon Has a Bit of an Issue*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Quintorius, History Chaser, Red, White, Midrange, Tokens, Mana Base, Deck Consistency, Synergy, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

The Lorehold precon relies heavily on its planeswalker commander for graveyard filling and value, leaving it vulnerable when the commander is removed.
Its low land count of 37 causes frequent mana screw, and its value engines are too slow or conditional.
To improve the deck, players should add more lands and early graveyard enablers while delaying the commander until they can protect it.

**Principle**
- Planeswalker commanders in multiplayer EDH are more vulnerable than in 1v1 because multiple opponents can attack them without spending resources, making board protection essential.

**Evidence**
- In 20 test games, 5 missed early land drops because the deck runs only 37 lands and lacks early draw or filtering.
- Only 5 of the 99 cards are effective graveyard enablers, putting a heavy burden on the commander to stock the graveyard.
- Seven of the twelve value generating cards cost five or more mana, require setup, or depend on the commander staying in play.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Raise the land count to at least 39 to reduce the chance of mana screw in the early game.
- Delay casting the commander until you have blockers or synergy pieces to generate immediate value and protect them.
- Add cheaper graveyard enablers to lessen reliance on the commander's plus one ability.

**Limitation**
- The mana base has high colored mana symbol counts, making it harder to consistently meet casting costs.
- Without the commander in play, the deck's value engines and overall game plan feel clunky and conditional.

**Example**
- An opponent uses removal on a blocker and then attacks the now unprotected planeswalker, turning the removal into a two for one against the Lorehold player.

**More quotes**
> This is definitely one of the weaker precons I've reviewed.
> In Commander, attacking a planeswalker can mean eliminating an opposing threat without needing to spend a card.
> I've also been in a lot of situations where an opponent will use a removal spell on a chunky creature I have in play to block for my planeswalker, which then ends up making that removal spell a two-for-one since it lets my opponents collectively thwack my planeswalker to death as well.
> I honestly don't understand why we're still getting precons with fewer than 39 lands. It seems like we're just dooming newer players to have unnecessary mana screw games.
> There are some baffling inclusions like Mistveil Plains, Study Hall, and Lotus Field that add to the awkwardness.
> This mana base is honestly the most disappointing precon mana base I've reviewed since Blame Game.
> If you're going to have a phantom in your deck, you could at least have the decency to pair it with an indestructible land and try to convince me it's ramp.
> The average synergy core the deck had put together by the end of turn five was actually better than it was for the blight curse precon I reviewed a couple months ago, even if the number of total dud games was a bit higher here.
> This deck broadly seems designed to be grindy and increase in power over the course of a game, but graveyard hate will also increase in frequency as opponents access more of their libraries.
> This version of Quintorius is much more powerful than the previous creature iterations if you can keep him around on board.

## #60. Why Sol Ring Should Not Be Banned in Commander  (Mar 2026, 71K views)
*Original title: A Lukewarm Defense of Sol Ring*
**Category:** Card Analysis
**Tags:** Card Evaluation, Format Health, Power Level, Threat Assessment

We defend Sol Ring's legality by arguing its play pattern is less problematic than other powerful cards.
Its impact fades if not drawn early, allowing opponents time to collaborate against the accelerated player.
While it can cause blowouts, these are not the norm, and the card does not warp the format like banned cards such as Primeval Titan.

**Principle**
- A card should be banned only when it has both a high power level and a bothersome play pattern.

**Evidence**
- Sol Ring is most powerful when played early, but its impact diminishes rapidly if drawn later in the game.
- Late game bombs like Bolas's Citadel are harder to answer through social means because they can win the game immediately upon resolution.
- Many players who keep a hand solely for a fast Sol Ring lack a follow-up and fizzle after a few turns.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Always pair Sol Ring in your opening hand with a clear plan to convert the early mana into a sustained advantage.

**Limitation**
- Sol Ring can still lead to non-games when combined with the strongest deck at the table or when opponents stumble, though this is not typical.

**Example**
- Bolas's Citadel exemplifies a card that, once resolved, often makes social tools useless because it threatens victory the same turn or after one untap.
- Banned cards like Primeval Titan and Prophet of Kruphix warped games around their resolution, a level of dominance Sol Ring does not reach.

**More quotes**
> I find the play pattern of Sol Ring less bothersome than that of Rhystic Study.
> Sol Ring is strongest when it comes earliest in the pipeline toward victory, but it falls off fast compared to a lot of other especially powerful cards.
> If a Bolas's Citadel hits the table, the game will usually be over if its controller is allowed to untap with it, and it might even be over the same turn it was played with the right setup.
> [Because Bolas's Citadel can end the game so quickly,] the social tools of the EDH format, the fact that you have two other opponents in the game, aren't very useful at dealing.
> Sol Ring is humble and task-oriented. It enables a player's game plan early on, but the card lacks any sort of identity or scaling, so after a few turns, it often slips into the background.
> To me, getting to be the big bad is one of the defining experiences of playing EDH, and it's an experience that everybody deserves access.
> Increased variance won't necessarily create fairer games, nor is fairness a particularly good metric for analyzing Commander games in the first place.
> Being strong early means [Sol Ring] can be considered strategically right from the outset of a game, and this feature also offers plenty of time for players to collaborate in dealing with a Sol Ring fueled game plan.
> A deck that drew Sol Ring will usually feel much faster, but it will still feel like a version of itself, rather than transforming into a combo deck or something.
> The biggest remaining issue with Sol Ring is that sometimes the strongest deck at the table will get it, and that deck will then wipe the floor in a way it might not have otherwise.

## #61. Why Rhystic Study Deserves a Ban in Commander  (Feb 2026, 95K views)
*Original title: Rhystic Study and the Dark Side of EDH*
**Category:** Card Analysis
**Tags:** Rhystic Study, Blue, Card Draw, Stax, Card Evaluation, Format Health, Power Level, Table Politics

We argue that Rhystic Study should be banned in EDH because it combines a high power level with frustrating play patterns.
We explain that the card is powerful even when opponents play optimally, and its taxing effect creates negative social dynamics.
The widespread play and high salt scores make it a frequent source of bad experiences, meeting the criteria for a ban.

**Principle**
- For a card to warrant a ban in casual EDH, it must be both powerful enough to see widespread play and create frustrating experiences that degrade game quality.

**Evidence**
- Rhystic Study is a staple in cEDH, demonstrating its power even against skilled opponents.
- Opponents often cannot pay the one mana tax when casting pivotal spells or interaction, leading to unavoidable card draw for the Rhystic Study player.
- The card taxes removal spells and incentivizes counter wars that generate even more card advantage.
- EDHREC salt polls rank Rhystic Study as the second most hated blue card, reflecting its negative impact on play experience.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- To minimize Rhystic Study's advantage, run one-mana instant-speed removal so you can answer it without giving the opponent a card.

**Limitation**
- In lower-power brackets, decks often have more spare mana and cast fewer spells per turn, which can somewhat reduce the volume of cards Rhystic Study draws.

**Example**
- Banned cards like Hullbreacher, Leovold, and Mana Crypt share the problematic combination of high efficiency and gameplay patterns that frustrate opponents.

**More quotes**
> At the end of the day, Rhystic Study's power level is certainly quite high, but the destructive social dynamics it creates are the more pernicious element of the card, and these two factors combine to make it a card that absolutely warrants a ban.
> People will inevitably end up giving the studying player cards for any number of reasons. Just pay the one can be a sensible strategy when a deck features high quality plays at multiple mana values, but if your deck has a wider spread of mana values and card effects, paying the one could keep you away from a critical play that you really need on a particular turn.
> Anyone who misses land drops or fumbles their setup turns is going to be much less able to spare mana for Rhystic Study, and being pressured to do so on a critical turn might, in one fell swoop, destroy any chance they had of catching back up.
> The players most harmed by needing to pay an extra one for their spells will be on average the less experienced players piloting the less powerful decks and getting less lucky.
> In a weird way, arguments in defense of Rhystic Study often end up very similar to conservative economic arguments in favor of the status quo.
> [The Rhystic Study defender's] implied message is that there is something wrong with the people who are currently poor, that they are less deserving, that they have been given opportunities and squandered them, that they have earned their shaken life.
> It is an argument in favor of human suffering based on the idea that those people have earned that suffering and no longer deserve our consideration. [Applied to Rhystic Study, it suggests players who feed the draw deserve the consequences.].
> When somebody says Rhystic Study isn't that good, people just need to pay the one, they're making a very similar argument, if a less consequential one.
> Rhystic Study would be an extremely powerful Magic card if it was a one-sided Sphere of Resistance, but it is not.
> Just remove it is a strategy you can employ, just as making somebody the archenemy is a strategy you can employ, but neither of these things are arguments to keep a card legal on the scale of a formatwide ban list.

## #62. Why Yuriko's Commander Ninjutsu Frustrates Players  (Nov 2025, 61K views)
*Original title: A Tale of Two Commander Tax Evaders*
**Category:** Card Analysis
**Tags:** Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, Blue, Black, cEDH, Format Health, Power Level, Design Intent, Card Evaluation

We examine why Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, feels uniquely frustrating in Commander.
We argue that her commander ninjutsu avoids commander tax while offering immense card draw and burn for two mana.
Other tax-evading commanders like Hogaak and Liesa still impose scaling costs or perform a gesture of tax, which Yuriko lacks, making her feel like a design oversight.

**Principle**
- Tax evasion on commanders only feels fair when accompanied by a scaling cost that acknowledges repeated recasts.

**Evidence**
- Yuriko draws a card and deals roughly two damage to each opponent per ninja connection, providing high value for her static two-mana cost.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Include instant-speed exile removal like Swords to Plowshares to permanently answer graveyard-recurring commanders and enforce commander tax.

**Limitation**
- Even a trivial scaling cost like Liesa's life payment can preserve the feeling of fairness by performing the gesture of a tax.

**Example**
- Derevi's flash ability costs four mana, which is a notable increase from her three-mana base, making her repeated casts less offensive than Yuriko's two mana.
- Hogaak uses convoke and delve to bypass mana payments, but still spends resources from the graveyard and board, which scales with game state.

**More quotes**
> Yuriko has been singled out as a design mistake, including by Gavin Verhey, who worked on the original card.
> The fact that commander tax wasn't a part of commander ninjutsu seems like an obvious oversight in retrospect.
> Broadly, there are two things that contribute to Yuriko having a uniquely frustrating play pattern: her vibes and her power level.
> A big part of what makes Yuriko frustrating is that it feels like the Yuriko player is exempted from a core rule of the commander format.
> It's not significant, but it's something: an acknowledgement that my commander has died, and this is not the first time I'm casting.
> Derevi's four-mana ability doesn't perform the gesture, and it does kind of totally cheat command tax.
> Four is a lot more than two. Paying two mana for a commander repeatedly is quite inherently powerful.
> Yuriko's text box does such a large amount for two mana that it's almost absurd.
> A whole lot of tribes would swoon at receiving [Tovolar's] level of utility from the command zone.
> Power is still strongly felt in how upsetting a card design is; a lot of designs that are unobjectionable now would become extremely objectionable with a single tweak.

## #63. Optimizing a Multi-Subtheme Glissa Deck for Bracket 2  (Sep 2025, 39K views)
*Original title: Why I Built a Deck With Way Too Many Subthemes*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Glissa, Herald of Predation, Green, Black, Tokens, Counters, Reanimator, Power Level, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Design Intent, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

We build a Bracket 2 Commander deck around Glissa, Herald of Predation by intentionally including many subthemes, similar to preconstructed decks, and then optimizing the list.
The deck combines incubate tokens, artifact synergies, +1/+1 counters, token copying, and graveyard recursion.
Despite the overloaded themes, careful card selection creates cohesive interactions and a satisfying, lower-power deck.

**Current status (verified Jul 2026):**
- Under the official bracket definitions, Bracket 2 is the Core tier. Brackets 1 and 2 exclude Game Changers and Bracket 3 allows up to three. The current Bracket 2 description sets no fixed tutor count and no longer ties the tier to any specific preconstructed deck (source: magic.wizards.com/en/formats/commander).

**Principle**
- Deliberately including an excessive number of subthemes, like precons but taken further, can cap a deck's power at Bracket 2 even when individual cards are optimized.

**Evidence**
- The Glissa deck's subthemes interact: incubate tokens are artifacts that carry counters, enabling multiple payoffs simultaneously.
- Clock of Omens demonstrated the potential for explosive turns by untapping mana rocks with counters, turning artifact tokens into a resource engine.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Pair graveyard payoffs like Dollhouse of Horrors with incidental self-mill from Millikin or Sarinth Steelseeker to ensure consistency.
- Use Liquid Metal Torque or Phyrexian Scriptures to convert non-artifact creatures into artifacts, allowing them to benefit from artifact untap synergies.

**Limitation**
- Early versions struggled when Dollhouse of Horrors had too few creatures in the graveyard, showing that payoffs need dedicated enablers.
- The deck's focus on artifacts can leave non-artifact tap abilities without support unless specially addressed.

**Example**
- Glissa, Herald of Predation generates two incubator tokens per combat, which are non-creature artifacts with +1/+1 counters, feeding both artifact and counter themes.
- Nexus of Becoming and Dollhouse of Horrors produce token copies that are artifact creatures, which can then be copied by populate effects like Esika's Chariot.

**More quotes**
> What sort of idea is so inherently mediocre that optimizing it ends up at the power level of a precon?
> What if I built a deck with way too many sub themes, like a truly irresponsible number of sub themes, and then tried my hardest to optimize it into a workable deck list?
> The fact that such an absurdly complex and multifaceted deck typically wins by swinging in with a bunch of vanilla 6/6s is a pretty juicy morsel of irony.
> I have not once had a win with this deck that didn't heavily involve Glissa, and that puts a natural cap on things.
> As long as [Glissa's] out, I get two incubators per turn, but that's all I get. I can make them bigger, but I'm still going to be winning the game with a fairly ordinary and extremely predictable number of most likely vanilla creatures.
> A deck that tries to cram in as many sub themes as possible is naturally going to struggle with dead cards when the cards intended to work with those cards decide not to show up.
> The only deck I have that comes even close to this one in terms of complexity is my [Sharuum] deck. That deck is a toolbox deck that runs 11 conditional tutors to help it piece together engines, whereas this deck has two tutors.
> I really like the process of tightening up a deck's cohesion, of finding the perfect cards for its mechanical needs. I like to play decks that feel like they're performing the role I want them to perform as well as they can.
> Immediately, this is a bit of a conflict. This preference for optimization works fine for bracket 3, but bracket 2 is harder.
> Once [Glissa's] up and chugging, I can just focus on cobbling together whatever stupid little engine I have the tools to create.

## #64. World Shaper Precon Review: Land Sacrifice Engine Breakdown  (Aug 2025, 85K views)
*Original title: This Land Sacrifice Precon is Great Aside From One Thing*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Hearthhull, the Worldseed, Black, Red, Green, Landfall, Aristocrats, Ramp, Card Evaluation, Mana Base, Upgrades, Win Conditions

We review the World Shaper Commander precon from Edge of Eternity, explaining its land sacrifice and recursion engine.
We highlight the deck's strong mana base with many fetch lands and duals, consistent land graveyard filling, and powerful payoffs from landfall and sacrifice triggers.
The deck can ramp explosively and generate significant value, but we note an unspecified weakness.

**Principle**
- A land-sacrifice deck thrives when it combines a commander that turns land sacrifice into card draw and extra land plays with mass land recursion and multiple payoff types like landfall and sacrifice triggers.

**Evidence**
- The precon runs 42 lands, which is high but justified by the commander's land-sacrifice and extra-land abilities, ensuring consistent land drops and recursion targets.
- It includes 10 budget fetch lands and 13 cards that sacrifice lands, consistently filling the graveyard with lands for recursion.
- Six cards can recur multiple lands, with three providing mass recursion that can easily grab four or more lands, even early in the game.
- The payoff suite comprises four landfall cards, nine permanent sacrifice payoffs, and four cards that scale with the number of lands in graveyards, offering diverse routes to capitalize on the engine.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Incorporate a suite of fetch lands and typed duals to maximize synergy with land recursion spells that return lands tapped, as these lands still trigger landfall and sacrifice payoffs.
- Include multiple mass land recursion spells to convert graveyard lands into explosive ramp, and ensure a mix of payoff types that trigger off lands entering or being sacrificed.

**Example**
- Tireless Tracker is a standout landfall value engine in the precon, creating Clue tokens as lands enter to maintain card velocity and pressure.

**More quotes**
> I was nothing short of electrified to see this sort of effect printed in a precon in the first place.
> You want to give newer players the chance to pop off and be the big bad sometimes, but you also want their deck to chug along and make them feel like they're getting to play, even if they're not having some sort of big gamer turn.
> This deck is obviously a big Mayhem Devil dub, but I also love Windgrace's Judgment and Pest Infestation.
> I'll admit that I was a little skeptical of the two tapped fetches and especially the three Capenna fetches here, but these start to make a lot more sense when you remember that the four most powerful land recursion spells in the deck return the lands to play tapped, which isn't a downside for any of these five.
> I ran a number of play tests with this deck out to the end of turn five, and there were a surprising number of them where I finished with 10 or even 12 lands in play, which can set the deck up for some serious midgame shenanigans.
> The commander team at Wizards is continuing in their quest to flesh out dual land cycles in precons, and I'm super here.
> It lacks early game utility plays and it has too much land sacrifice and sacrifice payoff, especially considering that the commander is both of these things already.
> Sacrificing lands to perform various effects before spitting those sacrificed lands back out into play.
> Landfall is a great tool because it doesn't even require much setup.
> Lone Crafter Fawn: unless you just want an outlet to discard lands, which I don't think this deck really wants, the two requirements to make the ETB good won't be lining up often enough.

## #65. Building a Discard-Focused Aggro Deck for Commander  (Jul 2025, 331K views)
*Original title: I Built a Deck That Turns EDH Games into Hellbent Cagefights*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Malfegor, Black, Red, Aggro, Discard, Budget, Resilience, Design Intent, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Principle

This deck tech explains how to build an EDH deck that creates low-resource cagefights using heavy discard and scrappy creatures.
We emphasize compact card choices where creatures also provide draw or removal, and selects Malfegor as a commander to clear blockers and exploit opponents' empty hands.
The deck runs 20 discard spells for consistency and avoids cards that rely on specific board states.

**Principle**
- Compactness is key: use cards that serve multiple purposes, like creatures that also discard or draw, to efficiently spend deck slots.
- Resilience is essential; the deck must function with few cards in hand and recover easily from discarding its own hand.

**Evidence**
- The deck runs 20 discard spells (11 creatures), 14 draw spells (11 creatures), and 14 removal spells (5 creatures), demonstrating compactness.
- A count of 20 discard spells gives a 75% chance of drawing two within the first five draws.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Choose a 'counterweight' commander like Malfegor that covers your strategy's weaknesses, such as clearing blockers for an aggro-discard deck.
- Run many utility spells as creatures to maintain a high creature count for pressure and synergy.

**Limitation**
- Avoid non-compact cards like anthems, protection spells, and temporary ramp, as they are unreliable without specific board states or follow-up.

**Example**
- Malfegor discards your hand on entry and forces opponents to sacrifice creatures, turning discard pressure into board control and enabling your small attackers.

**More quotes**
> What if I played a pile of little scrappy dudes and then dragged the rest of the table down to their level?
> Discard doesn't say yes or no; it strips away resources, forcing opponents to pick and choose what to keep, disproportionately hindering synergistic or complicated decks.
> Compactness means decks should use their slots as efficiently as possible, not overcommitting resources to accomplish tasks.
> [Malagor] is a counterweight commander: he subverts the weaknesses of a discard deck full of grindy creatures, doing the opposite of what the deck does.
> This deck takes a baseball bat to its own kneecaps: over a third of the discard spells affect me, and the commander makes me discard my hand.
> Nobody at the table is allowed to keep cards in hand, not even me. We're all getting dragged down into the mud for some rough and dirty Magic gameplay.
> Most of the draw spells are discrete engines: they don't rely on other cards to generate card advantage, and they provide cards over time.
> I frequently get a visceral sense of mixed feelings from opponents: they wish I was the unambiguous threat, but I'm often barely ahead.
> What do you do with a player who isn't an imminent threat, isn't comboing, and isn't scaling up to an overwhelming late game?
> [Malagor] is the key to turning games from an epic wizard duel into a knife fight in four-inch deep mud.

## #66. Building a Toolbox Astral Slide Cycling Deck  (Jul 2025, 173K views)
*Original title: How I Built My Most Difficult Deck*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Sharuum the Hegemon, White, Blue, Black, Blink, Reanimator, Control, Synergy, Deck Consistency, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain how they built an Esper cycling deck around Astral Slide, requiring a high density of cycling cards and creatures.
They use a network of conditional tutors to form a toolbox that finds key enchantments and artifacts, making the deck flexible and consistent.
This approach pushed their deckbuilding beyond normal comfort zones, emphasizing cards that serve multiple roles.

**Principle**
- High-synergy decks require maximizing card utility by ensuring each piece contributes to multiple overlapping needs, especially when slot space is limited by mandatory card counts.

**Evidence**
- The deck needed at least 30 creatures, over 30 cycling cards, and seven enablers for graveyard filling, leaving under 40 flexible slots.
- A network of conditional tutors lets a player access any of the three Astral Slide effects via six other cards or find Fluctuator/Oversold Cemetery via five.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Include enough cycling cards (high 30s) and creatures (≥30) to reliably trigger synergies every game.
- Build a toolbox by including cards with abilities like wizardcycling or transmute that can fetch specific subsets of your core pieces.

**Limitation**
- The interconnected nature makes the deck resistant to easy modification; swapping cards without analyzing the tutor web can break key lines of play.

**Example**
- Vedalken Aethermage cycles to find tutors like Zur or spell disruption, itself an instant-speed tutor that counts as cycling for Astral Slide triggers.

**More quotes**
> Every card was meticulously chosen to perform hyperspecific roles and mesh with as many other cards as possible.
> I actually left the deck unchanged for about a year starting in mid to late 2023 purely because it was functioning okay and I was terrified that any changes I haphazardly made would lead to the deck falling apart.
> The deck needs a lot of cycling cards for purposes of reliable Astral Slide triggers. I ended up deciding that a high 30s count was about right.
> This deck ended up being easily my most difficult deck to build, thrusting me well outside my normal comfort zone of deck building.
> There's nothing like the rush of tutoring to find a tutor to find a tutor to find an Astral Slide.
> This deck is a control deck through and through. You might not be able to tell this by looking at the deck.
> My ideal game is one where all of my energy can go into building up my own engine of ETB creatures and cycling spells as well as neutralizing opposing engines and threats early in their lifespan.
> Threat evaluation is key to keeping opponents in check without losing too much momentum.
> As with most control decks, this deck is trying to reach a state of stability where it has a lot of agency over the state of the game.
> A big part of this deck's game plan is repeating value generation and removal, and that repeated removal can be some heavy duty hate over the course of multiple turn cycles.

## #67. Endless Punishment Commander Deck Review  (Jul 2025, 84K views)
*Original title: Snail Reviews a Slug Deck (+ some ban opinions)*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls, Red, Black, Midrange, Upgrades, Deck Consistency, Mana Base, Synergy, Deckbuilding Principle

Reviewing the Endless Punishment Commander precon, a Rakdos group slug deck, we explain how Valgavoth's ability demands a high density of enablers that cause opponents to lose life on their turns.
The deck provides 11 consistent triggers and 15 occasional ones, with a strong removal suite and mana base.
We recommend minor upgrades to increase speed and diversify triggers.

**Principle**
- A group slug deck aiming to abuse Valgavoth must incorporate a diverse range of life-loss enablers rather than stacking only repetitive pings, to avoid becoming a linear and easily disrupted archenemy.

**Evidence**
- The precon contains 11 cards that reliably cause opponents to lose life on each of their turns, yielding a 78% chance of having at least one by turn five, but only four of these cost three mana or less.
- It also includes 15 cards that trigger life loss occasionally, such as Blood Artist effects and removal spells, providing backup triggers and utility.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Build your deck with a balance of consistent every-turn damage sources and versatile cards that can trigger life loss incidentally through removal or creature deaths.
- Include a robust removal package, ideally seven or more targeted removal spells and four board wipes, to manage threats while your slug effects drain opponents.

**Limitation**
- The precon's limited number of low-cost enablers (four at three mana or less) may delay explosive starts, as faster decks could outpace the value engine.
- Blood Artist-style triggers can be inconsistent without dedicated sacrifice outlets, so consider adding sacrifice synergies or replacing them with more reliable pings.

**Example**
- Sulfuric Vortex and Underworld Dreams represent the ideal every-turn damage sources that consistently trigger Valgavoth.
- Blood Artist is a classic example of a creature that can trigger life loss on opponents' turns through removal or combat, showcasing the value of incidental enablers.

**More quotes**
> Pro tip: doubling your opponent's mana is generally not recommended.
> Star Athlete commits the cardinal sin of giving opponents choices.
> If you think you can bribe opponents to be nice to you with cards, I think you're underestimating how much your opponents hate seeing their life total spiral downward, especially if it's in tandem with you drawing cards.
> This deck will make opponents square the hell up.
> Cramming as many every-turn pings as possible into one deck flattens the play pattern into one that is predictably brutal for opponents.
> There's a reason why my Rakdos group slug deck does exactly the opposite of giving opponents cards.
> Vial Smasher's ability doesn't deal enough damage to make up for his otherwise meager body.
> Treasonous Ogre is a reasonably popular card, and our Gremlin friend here gives a three times better rate for our opponents to translate life into additional mana.
> You don't want to be giving your opponents resources to fight you with because you will be attracting the eye of the whole table.
> Enchanter's Bane is theoretically an enchantment hate option but in practice it seems undertuned and gives opponents way too many ways to get around being harmed.

## #68. Commander Deck: Sibsig Ceremony, Aether Vial, Birthing Ritual  (Jul 2025, 2,737 words in transcript)
*Original title: I Was Given Three Perplexing Cards to Build a Deck With*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Iname as One, Black, Green, Aristocrats, Reanimator, Midrange, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Synergy, Resilience, Curve, Deckbuilding Principle

We explain how to build an EDH deck around Sibsig Ceremony, Aether Vial, and Birthing Ritual.
It uses Iname as One to cheat spirits into play and sacrifice them for value before Sibsig Ceremony destroys them.
The deck leverages sacrifice outlets, spirit synergies, and a lands package to win.

**Principle**
- Cards that put creatures into play without casting them, like Aether Vial and Birthing Ritual, can circumvent negative triggered abilities from cards like Sibsig Ceremony.

**Evidence**
- Birthing Ritual provides card selection by looking at the top seven cards and replacing a sacrificed creature without casting.
- The deck uses 10 sacrifice outlets to convert Sibsig Ceremony's destruction into card draw, mana, or discard pressure.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Run a high creature count and a low average mana cost to maximize Aether Vial's impact.
- Include indestructible commanders or regeneration effects to play around Sibsig Ceremony's destruction.

**Limitation**
- Aether Vial does nothing the turn it is played and needs multiple turns to accumulate counters, making it slow in a format where early impact is crucial.
- Sibsig Ceremony makes it difficult to recast your commander if it dies, so backup plans like graveyard recursion are necessary.

**Example**
- With Sibsig Ceremony out, casting Iname as One tutors Iname, Death Aspect, which fills the graveyard, and the commander's death trigger reanimates a spirit like Iname, Life Aspect to repeat the loop.

**More quotes**
> The most challenging thing here is definitely the Sibsig Ceremony, and that's because it comes with a fat downside.
> Your creatures literally get destroyed as soon as they enter.
> What if your commander wants to die? This brings me to my choice of champion, Ename.
> In some sense, this game plan may seem like a combo, but in truth, having as many of its spirits in hand as it wants does not win the game.
> No, instead, this deck is a patchwork of different payoffs and win cons that align with the central pillars of this deck.
> There's a perfectly adequate spirits mid-range plan.
> The final option is Aether Vial. Though this deck doesn't fit the conventional mana curve of an Aether Vial deck, it is at least somewhat predictable in what spirits it will have available and can plan ahead.
> The other major option for a win con here is the lands package. And this actually came about quite organically.
> Field of the Dead can get us even more zombies. Dark Depths can do its dark and depthy things.
> My amount of interaction is already lower than I'd like. So, the only way to make more space would be to cut spirits, which would weaken my spirit synergy cards.

## #69. $100 Malcolm Francisco Time Sieve Combo Deck  (Jul 2024, 253K views)
*Original title: How I Built My Most Powerful Deck (for $100)*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator // Francisco, Foul Marauder, Blue, Black, Red, Combo, Budget, Deck Consistency, Win Conditions, Synergy, Budget Building

We explain how to build a high-power Commander deck on a $100 budget using Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and Francisco, Foul Marauder as partners.
It focuses on assembling a consistent turn-five combo with Time Sieve by generating treasures and extra artifacts through cards like Academy Manufactor and Worldwalker Helm.

**Principle**
- Choose a commander pairing that generates both mana and card advantage to support a compact combo.

**Evidence**
- The Malcolm and Francisco duo provides a turn-three engine of treasure generation and card filtering, enabling a turn-five combo with Time Sieve.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Include ten one-cost pirates to maximize early treasure production from Malcolm.
- Use artifact-specific tutors like Fabricate, Reshape, and Whir of Invention to reliably find Time Sieve.
- Add combat damage-based draw effects such as Bident of Thassa and Curiosity effects to supplement Francisco's filtering.

**Limitation**
- The combo speed is limited by Malcolm's maximum of three treasures per turn, requiring setup turns or extra artifact generators.

**Example**
- Storm Fleet Negotiator attacks to create map tokens, which Academy Manufactor converts into additional artifacts to help pay for Time Sieve.

**More quotes**
> Malcolm hopefully creates three Treasures per turn and Time Sieve spends five artifacts to grant an extra turn. Something you may notice is that these two numbers, three and five, aren't very far apart.
> With two additional artifacts per turn we can just keep on taking turns indefinitely.
> [The deck's game plan is a] five turn map. Turns one to three in a conventional game consist of a one cost pirate turn one, Francisco turn two, and Malcolm turn three.
> Turn four is the setup turn where I play any other cards that might assist in my combo. Turn five is the combo turn.
> Francisco's filtering is lovely but I found that if I don't already have what I need to combo in hand I'm generally using that filtering to aggressively dig for tutors and combo pieces, passing up potentially useful cards.
> I added an alternative wincon: Haunted One. This card pumps my team's power by four if both commanders swing, which can turn a handful of evasive Pirates into a veritable player killing machine.
> My deck is running 13 counter spells, a number that may strike a lot of casual EDH players as mildly obscene.
> A great thing about Treasures is that they're never wasted mana due to their one-time use nature. The fact that they serve this dual purpose of being both stored mana and also artifact tokens for Time Sieve is quite good.
> I want untapped colored mana as often as possible. Following from this goal every single land in the deck can theoretically play a pirate turn one.
> The deck can often sacrifice a couple treasures and still combo off on time, and even when it does need to spend enough Treasures to delay its combo by a turn, that's still not too bad for me as it forces my opponents to spend mana and lets me avoid needing to cop up the mana to recast Malcolm.

## #70. Build a Greedy High Curve EDH Deck  (Jul 2024, 229K views)
*Original title: How to be a Greedy Bastard in EDH (and get away with it)*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Radha, Heir to Keld, Red, Green, Ramp, Midrange, Budget, Deck Consistency, Curve, Design Intent, Deckbuilding Principle

We argue that using a low-cost commander as a consistent early mana dork allows a deck to skip cheap ramp spells, filling the 99 with high-cost ramp and large creatures.
This structure guarantees powerful cascade hits by avoiding low-mana cards and keeps topdecks relevant.
By ramping on turn three into six- and seven-drops, the deck plays as a resilient battlecruiser that can withstand board wipes.
Budget constraints and high-curve synergies lead to unique card choices like Screamer-Killer and Emergent Woodworm.

**Principle**
- A commander that provides early mana lets you eschew low-cost ramp in the 99, enabling a higher curve and better topdecks.
- Eliminating spells costing less than four mana guarantees that cascade and discover triggers always find ramp or impactful plays.

**Evidence**
- In a test deck with 19 turn-three ramp spells, the probability of drawing one in the opening hand is 79 percent, enough to consistently cast a six-drop on turn four.
- When cascading for four or less, there is an 85 percent chance to hit a ramp spell due to the high density of four-mana ramp, making cascade outcomes predictable.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Run at least 19 cards that can ramp on turn three and zero cards that cost less than four mana, excluding the commander, to maximize cascade reliability.
- Fill the top end with six- and seven-mana creatures that stay relevant as late-game topdecks and pair well with massive land ramp.
- On a budget, opt for underplayed synergy cards like Screamer-Killer and Emergent Woodworm instead of expensive staples.

**Limitation**
- This approach is vulnerable to board wipes, so the ramp suite should prioritize land-based ramp over mana dorks to preserve resources after a wipe.

**Example**
- The commander R ada acts as a guaranteed two-drop mana dork, enabling a turn-three four-mana ramp spell like Explosive Vegetation into a turn-four six-drop like Kogla or Etali, Primal Storm.

**More quotes**
> I like making decks that make people question their preconceptions about deck building and about the EDH format as a whole.
> This deck plays a shitload of removal to disrupt opposing game plans.
> People get annoyed if I spend too much time as the final boss.
> What sucks to draw in the late game? Low-cost ramp spells.
> Running a lot of low-cost ramp leads to beautiful curve outs and buttery smooth early to mid games, but it also leads to running out of cards faster and worsens the quality of later game top decks.
> What if there was a way to do the inverse of what was done in the Goreclaw deck? To have the commander cover the low-cost ramp and then run a massive pile of four-cost ramp?
> I run all ten of these [Explosive Vegetation] effects that exist, as well as Blighted Woodland.
> I eventually decided on literally none at all [for low-cost cards], and this is for one key reason: cascade.
> Even though the deck gets massive land counts, since roughly a third of the deck is creatures that cost five or more mana, it often stocks up a handful of large threats earlier in the game.
> For one, it lacks basically any instant speed interaction. If I'm being generous, it has a grand total of four instant speed removal cards and one instant speed protection card.

## #71. How a Budget Boros Deck Uses Board Wipes as Sac Outlets  (Jul 2024, 145K views)
*Original title: The Most Complicated Deck I've Ever Played*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero, Red, White, Combo, Midrange, Aristocrats, Budget, Deckbuilding Restrictions, Synergy, Interaction, Deckbuilding Principle

A budget Boros artifacts deck in Commander uses Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero for Second Sunrise effects.
Lacking expensive cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks, it substitutes board wipes as single-use sacrifice outlets.
This allows a midrange gameplan that controls aggressive opponents before comboing off with Reckless Fireweaver.

**Principle**
- Budget constraints often force deckbuilders to find creative alternatives to expensive staple cards.
- Board wipes can serve multiple roles: as sacrifice outlets, control tools, and enablers for combo decks.

**Evidence**
- The deck supplemented its five sacrifice outlets with eight board wipes to ensure consistent artifact recursion.
- In play, board wipes were used to clear aggressive boards while simultaneously triggering Gerrard's ability to recur artifacts.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- If you cannot afford KCI or Altars, run at least eight board wipes that destroy artifacts and creatures.
- Adopt a midrange gameplan: use early board wipes to generate incremental value before committing to the combo turn.

**Limitation**
- Without fast mana from KCI, the deck needs more permanents in play to become mana-positive during loops.
- The Boros color identity lacks tutors, making it harder to find critical pieces like sacrifice outlets.

**Example**
- Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero provides a built-in Second Sunrise effect when he dies, key to the Eggs loop.
- Reckless Fireweaver turns every artifact entry into damage, serving as the deck's primary win condition.

**More quotes**
> It's an immensely complex and layered deck that defies a lot of conventional wisdom about deck building.
> The deck's convoluted nature is an emergent factor from a number of pressures that existed during the deck building process.
> Board wipes function as a single-use sack outlet for all nonland permanence, allowing a full refresh of the artifacts and creatures that the deck has on board.
> Without [Krark-Clan Iron Works], the deck needs to develop a lot more permanence that can generate mana before its loops with Gerrard can become mana positive.
> The budget constraint results in a slower deck that inherently needs to play more reactively.
> A common play pattern for the deck is to perform one or more isolated loops prior to its big turn, wiping the board with Gerrard in play in order to slow down opponents and generate a handful of cards off of a developing board of eggs.
> The deck blend of mid-range control and storm elements means that a player must simultaneously balance a whole host of strategic factors.
> A pilot of the deck needs to consider the merits of a number of different play paths, but each of those play paths involves dozens of different decisions along with a number of probabilistic factors.
> Finding its way to a win can feel like threading the needle where there are countless factors to balance and where a single tiny mistake can doom the deck to failure.
> [Hans,] the resident combo player and the person who built the deck, had a 28% win rate with it, while all other players had a collective 19% win rate.

## #72. Grand Larceny Precon Deck Analysis and Upgrades  (Jul 2024, 3,460 words in transcript)
*Original title: Is Gonti Confused or am I Confused?*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Gonti, Canny Inquisitor, Blue, Black, Red, Aggro, Mana Base, Synergy, Curve, Upgrades, Deckbuilding Principle

We analyze the Grand Larceny Commander precon, highlighting its combination of theft and evasive creatures.
We argue the deck lacks sufficient low-cost evasive creatures to reliably trigger Gonti’s ability.
The mana base and removal are praised, but the overall cohesion is criticized.
Suggestions include adding cheaper evaders and cutting non-synergistic theft cards.

**Principle**
- Theft decks need a dedicated win condition beyond stealing opponents’ bombs.
- Linking theft to combat damage forces deckbuilders to include evasive creatures that can win games.

**Evidence**
- The precon has only 12 evasive creatures below five mana, which is too few to reliably trigger Gonti each turn.
- The mana base is solid, with few colorless utility lands and a variety of dual lands.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Add more cheap evasive creatures to start triggering Gonti’s theft ability early.
- Cut theft spells that don’t reduce casting cost or don’t benefit from Gonti’s discount.

**Limitation**
- Gonti’s one-mana discount is modest, so failing to trigger him consistently causes you to fall behind.
- Many evasive creatures in the precon are overcosted, delaying the commander synergy without additional ramp.

**Example**
- Ramirez DePietro Pillager is a similar commander that combines theft and cost reduction, illustrating the design pattern.

**More quotes**
> I classify Gonti as a soft payoff: a payoff that is pretty easy to get some value off of, but which scales only modestly with additional inputs.
> Wizards, please just put things to tap for colored mana in your precons. Just do it, I know you can.
> Wizards of the Coast seems to have made the choice to give this precon a $30 mana base rather than give one or two powerful cards to justify the precon price, and I honestly fully support this. New players need good lands a lot more than they need a Trouble in Pairs.
> This deck reminds me a lot of older precons in terms of the cohesiveness of its vision, or lack thereof.
> The current suite of evasive creatures just doesn't work for me. This deck wants three Gonti triggers a turn and that's just not going to be consistently fulfilled by this selection.
> Cunning Rhetoric is a mixture of a defense card and a theft card, but it doesn't actually accomplish either task.
> The average non-land card in an EDH deck is like 3.5 mana, so you're getting less value than the amount of mana you paid [with Stolen Goods].
> Running either of these cards when the deck doesn't even have enough evasive creatures to consistently get its triggers each turn feels wrong on a pretty fundamental level.
> High cost counter spells with added bonuses do work, but mostly only in draw-go style control decks.
> Plasm Capture is also very symbol dense, so I'd cut it for a lower cost counter spell like Negate.

## #73. Gruul Control Deck Analysis with Erinis and Street Urchin  (Jul 2024, 2,415 words in transcript)
*Original title: Can Gruul Control?  |  Patron deck breakdown*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Erinis, Gloom Stalker, Green, Red, Control, Voltron, Landfall, Deck Consistency, Power Level, Upgrades, Mana Base, Deckbuilding Principle

We analyze a Gruul control deck pairing Erinis, Gloom Stalker with Street Urchin.
It uses land recursion and sacrifice-based removal to control the board, then wins with commander damage or big creatures.
The deck is highly consistent but can frustrate opponents at mid-power, and upgrading it for higher-power tables is challenging.

**Principle**
- Control decks can win games with less powerful finishers than mid-range decks because they generally have more time and less onboard resistance.

**Evidence**
- The deck has 19 token generators and 11 other sacrificial artifacts or creatures to fuel the removal engine.
- The only non-synergistic ramp is Sol Ring, enabling a consistent curve that plays Erinis on turn 3 and Street Urchin on turn 2 or 4.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Prioritize ramp like Harrow effects and sacrifice lands that directly support your commander.
- Include protection spells for a commander-reliant deck, but also leverage the commander’s low cost and built-in ramp to make recasting less punishing.
- Use artifact lands and treasure generators as dual-purpose cards for mana and sacrifice fodder.

**Limitation**
- The deck’s creature removal efficiency can create social friction at mid-power tables where opponents expect to develop a board.
- Adding faster generic ramp like mana dorks reduces the density of synergy enablers, making the deck harder to upgrade to higher power levels.

**Example**
- Canan of Calamity creates Myriad tokens that can be sacrificed for removal after dealing damage.
- Humble Defector can be sacrificed in response to its ability for free removal.

**More quotes**
> The removal engine in the command zone is pretty fearsome: at any point in time you can pay one and sacrifice an artifact or creature to kill an opposing creature.
> This is a decidedly mid-power deck in terms of its speed and how it wins the game, but for a mid-power deck it's brutally effective at killing creatures.
> There will naturally be players at that power who aren't thrilled to have their board kept empty of meaningful threats the whole game.
> The deck's choice not to run ramp that doesn't support the command zone is part of what lets it jump into its core game plan with such a high degree of consistency.
> If you start replacing Harrow effects and treasure generators with ramp that lets you get out Erinis on turn two, you'll get Erinis triggers earlier but you'll have on average fewer lands in the graveyard and fewer tokens to sacrifice, negating some of that increase in speed.
> I don't think it's worth it to make major changes to this deck, and even the handful of additions and cuts I would make are subjective choices and still maintain the middling power level of this deck.
> The deck's conundrum where upgrading is hard but playing at mid power can feel weird is one I find familiar.
> A Child of Alara and Maze's End deck will likely perform decently at a midrangey mid power table, but it's a deck that will fall on its face in a handful of matchups while creating a miserable table experience in all the other ones.
> As long as people know what the deck is capable of and to expect their creatures to get yeeted, it can play into a flexible archenemy dynamic.
> This deck's game plan should be to outgrind, not outrun. Generating resources and stabilizing the board state should be your focus, not rushing to find combo pieces.

## #74. Fixing the Blame Game Precon's Mana and Defense Issues  (Jul 2024, 1,944 words in transcript)
*Original title: What is going on with Blame Game?*
**Category:** Deck Tech
**Tags:** Nelly Borca, White, Red, Midrange, Control, Group Hug, Mana Base, Curve, Table Politics, Upgrades, Deckbuilding Principle

The Blame Game precon has a fun goad-focused commander and decent mid-game plan, but its mana base relies too heavily on colorless utility lands and it includes too many narrow defensive cards.
We recommend cutting about a quarter of those defensive cards, improving colored mana sources, and adding haste enablers to keep the goad engine active.
These changes smooth out the curve and increase consistency.

**Principle**
- A goad deck should balance defense with proactive threats and reliable colored mana, avoiding overreliance on reactive enchantments.

**Evidence**
- The precon's manabase contains 11 colorless utility lands, leaving only 17 red sources far below the 26 needed for double-red cards like Vengeful Ancestor.
- Playtesting revealed a lack of early drops and only a handful of good three-drops, forcing aggressive mulligans to find a decent curve.
- The deck's 33 defensive cards often became dead draws when opponents developed non-combat win conditions.

**Deckbuilding Application**
- Cut approximately eight of the most narrow or expensive defensive cards.
- Add haste enablers such as Anger to re-enable Nelly's goad ability after removal.
- Replace several colorless utility lands with colored sources to improve mana consistency.

**Limitation**
- The deck's late-game finishing power relies on Nelly having drawn extra cards through her attack trigger.

**Example**
- Vengeful Ancestor is a double-red card that requires 26 red sources, but the stock precon provides only 17.
- Cards like Ghostly Prison and Disrupt Decorum are defensive, but the deck runs too many similar effects, cluttering hands.

**More quotes**
> I've never owned a precon. Wizards of the Coast has been releasing preconstructed Commander decks ever since I started playing in 2011 and with increasing frequency, and I've just kept on ignoring them.
> I didn't start playing Commander until 2014 at which point I felt like a skilled enough player to build my own mono removal pile to piss off my friends.
> 33 slots is way too many for a task that won't win or prevent our opponents from winning on its own.
> Wizards, please just put things that tap for colored mana in your precons. Just do it, I know you can. Thank you.
> You need 26 red sources to consistently cast a Vengeful Ancestor on curve and yet here we are with 17.
> This 37 land and six rock two-color manabase has symbol numbers that are similar to those of the budget 30 land 4-color manabase from my lands video.
> The deck has only a handful of good three-drops and basically no two-drops other than rocks.
> The ideal scenario is that you'll have key opposing creatures being tossed around wildly with opposing game plans and life totals crumbling before our very eyes, but how often will this actually happen?
> Temple of the False God is weird and very bad if you're running less than like 43 other lands.
> I'd also cut Relic Tower and Thought Vessel; this deck doesn't draw insane numbers of cards and it also doesn't need to hold up a bunch of interaction and niche tech pieces.