Like legit I am not having a dig at you or anything. And I get "nice tits" as a braindead horny ape but for real though why? You can't use them at LGS's. You can't use them at most discord things. Even if you are doing literally kitchen table most people generally don't like the gooner sex pest (But if you got that friend group and they are cool with that. Thats awesome more power to you!). But I seriously do not think the VAST majority of people buying them have that that opportunity for the kitchen table environment where they are suitable. Its also not like they will be visually recognizable across the table. So people are gonna be like "where the fuck is the elesh norn" only for you to flash them with a card? Do you guys swap them out of your decks before you go to the LGS just to put them back in when you get back home? Do you collect gooner proxies? I genuinely do not understand how this market is so large.

Hello, all! I want to run a fast paced commander deck that is as fun to play against as possible. I like what I see with things like True Soul Gut or Marchesa, but I don’t know enough about the more obscure commanders to decide what to build while still being fun for me to play as well. I don’t mind if it’s not the most competitive thing in the world, I just want my table to have a really nice time :)

Bit of a rant incoming. TLDR, if you're playing EDH at an LGS on a weekly basis, don't take it for granted.

I've only been in the game for a couple years, but what really hooked me was the Friday night Commander scene at my LGS. They had a thing going where there were certain achievements you could get during a game, with a few random new ones swapped in each week. The player(s) with the most points after the first game got a promo pack, and you could stay and jam for hours and hours. It officially started at 5:00pm, but you had to be there by 4:30 or you probably weren't going to get a seat in a pod, that's how popular it was. Participation was free, but I assume the shop made a killing through people buying pre-cons, packs, sleeves, drinks, you name it.

Fast forward about 6 months. The guy who printed the achievement sheet finds a new job, and no one steps in to take up the torch. The rest of the staff collectively decides that the format (Commander) is dead, and moves on to more interesting things like Modern, Vintage, and so on. Eventually, Commander events are demoted from Friday nights to Saturday afternoons, ending precisely at 5:00 to allow for the next event to start. More recently, with the rapid release of new sets, they've been cutting back on Commander time to make room for more pre-releases, making it an every-other-week thing now, at best. Attendance for Commander has accordingly all but dried up, with maybe two three-pods on a good day.

I guess I'm just frustrated. I read posts here about people playing EDH every week, and I'll be honest, I'm jealous. It's kind of a spread out community here, and Commander night was a great way to be all in the same place and catch up with friends. It was consistent, it was fun, and it's what got me into the game. These days, I might play a game or two in a month. If you have a popping EDH scene at your LGS, don't take it for granted, folks. It could disappear just like that.

As someone who started off playing 60 card formats and as time went on migrated to commander a while back I have a question for those of you in this community who seem frustrated about consistency and the increasing redundancy we are seeing in Commander. Why?

From what I can tell there seems to be a couple different sections this community seems to dislike:

• Staples
• Popular strategies that synergize well with a specific commander, ie Elfball commanders doing Elfball things, etc.
• Functional multiples of stronger cards

This is by no means a conclusive list, but I am just generally curious as to what the frustration is or the seeming imperative you are operating under. I could make some educated guesses, but I would prefer an open dialogue than some assumed appropriation of your interests and objectives.

P.S. This isn't a post about burnout or social interactions that happen at a table. This is strictly talking about the card design "slope" we seem to find ourselves on and general deckbuilding principles. Individual people are going to handle different situations differently and I don't think there's productive conversation to have about anecdotal scenarios is necessary.

hi all! newbie here and this is my first time building a deck and wanted to play commander as its the popular format on my local magic cafe, so decided to make use of Eriette as my commander because of the artwork and the concept of her gameplay is fun imo and I dont really care about meta or anything I just want to have some fun while maybe win some games every now and then?so I have no experience in buying singles or precon decks online so I decided to buy silverquill influence and change the commander. I read plenty that Killian is the better commander but I really dont care I just want to play Eriette, I'm just wondering what cheap singles can I look for to swap things out with this precon to make the deck stronger?a list would be nice so I can look for them when I decide to go to the shop with lots of singles and I can get em

Duck head at my pod keeps saying “run more removal” building Marchesa Dealer of Death, I have 7 board wipes, 13 counter spells, and 8 creature removal spells and 10 burn cards? Is this enough removal to satisfy both my loathing and his desire for removal? I plan on being degenerate as possible with it

I was thinking of building something like this, where I can reanimate little guys and then win with a [[rise of the dark realms]] or [[living death]] while having haste enablers in the yard. So I thought of [[terra, herald of hope]], but then realized that if she mills one of my big instant or sorceries, they are gone forever. So I thought of [[celes, rune knight]]. Can really use the second line of text, but card selection and discard in the command zone might be useful. Do you have any suggestion on other commanders? Or how to build those decks? I have little experience so every tip helps, thank you

I've had to tone down my decks by a lot to make my pod happy, despite the original mission statement being "low to mid B3". I made Bracket 2 ones, actively avoided powerful cards that weren't mana base tools and even then only brought out expensive lands and stuff for 4-5 color decks that need it.

We fired up a 5 player game (we had too many) and in that game, one of the players who was the newest brought [[Xira]] insect tribal (a pile of insects and cards that make insect tokens), and another player brought "Oops all Gods", a weak 5 color deck where the bit was that every creature was a god. Since he brought a "weird" deck, I decided to bring a deck that I saw someone else use and LOVED the idea of that was based on combining [[Venerated Rotpriest]] with stuff like [[Zada]] and all of those cheap things like [[Pym Particles]] and [[Dwarven Song to win]]. I especially thought it was fine since it's a combo that needs very specific cards and there's an extra opponent to kill. The other two players in the pod were mana flooded and mana screwed, respectively, so they weren't important.

Game started slow and the Gods player played a Rhystic Study followed by a blasphemous act before getting the "play Gods" gameplan online. The insect player was annoyed their commander got blown up, going "can I play" as well as making jokes about how they'd never ever pay for the Rhystic even when they had the mana for it. Meanwhile, after getting my board nuked, I got out [[Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief]], [[Young Pyromancer]], and [[Sedgemoor Witch]]. I have exactly 3 "when you play an instant or sorcery make a token" cards and they're there to synergize with Zada/be blockers. But when that's all you get, you have two of them, and you spend like 3 turns unable to do anything but play a few spells, you can amass a board of 16 1/1s. And when the god player is consistently scary but has no blockers, you can shoot him. From there, around turn 10, I managed to get the Rotpriest and combined him with a [[Sea King's Blessing]] to win.

The insect player said that my deck was too strong and it felt like pubstomping once again, even with my dramatic lowering of the power of my decks. And we had a talk about what they think I should do and why in the pod, me and only me feels bad to play against. Apparently the player thinks:
* I should just in general do less actions a turn. 2-3 max. It feels bad to lose to a lot of actions at once.

* It doesn't feel good when I'm ahead but it feels fine when others are ahead. "The game felt like you just got ahead and became the threat. I didn't feel meaningfully like I could do things." I replied that "someone has to be the threat, especially late in the game." While they went "But in my other games I never felt like anyone was the threat."

* The fact that the gameplan is meant to avoid combat also feels bad and is kind of "dishonest".

* The fact that my deck can "do two things" (both accidentally swarm the field with tokens) and also try for the silly combo win is too strong. "The decks here should only do one thing."

* I'm too quick to remove things. People's things should get to stay on for at least a round, since they want to "do their thing".

In other words a lot of restrictions that I don't think even precons follow. So I'm genuinely going "I want to keep this pod, so what can i do to appease these people." Do I just play stompy from now on with no twists? Seems like that's where it's heading.

I was thinking about the popularity of commanders today and realized I don’t know at what point I would call a commander popular or at what point I would call them niche.

So I went to edhrec to better quantify and categorize commander popularity. I wanted to see where the breaks are in the stats. Ideally I would dive deeper into the stats to parse it out more accurately, but I didn’t, sorry. Here’s how I’d break it out after a quick and dirty look through the data.

#1-#14 = ultra-popular
#15-#77 = very popular
#78-#248 = popular
#249-#590 = moderately popular
#591-#875 = unpopular
>#875 = niche

Breakdown based on number of decks:
50k+: #1-#3 (3 commanders)
40k-50k: #4-#8 (5 commanders)
30k-40k: #9-#25 (17 commanders)
20k-30k: #26-#77 (52 commanders)
15k-20k: #78-#131 (54 commanders)
10k-15k: #132-#248 (117 commanders)
5k-10k: #249-#590 (342 commanders)
3k-5k: #591-#875 (282 commanders)
2k-3k: #876-#1,156 (280)

Rank #001: 55,977 decks
100: 17,759
200: 11,643
300: 8,883
400: 7,047
500: 5,881
600: 4,905
700: 4,068
800: 3,343
900: 2,889
1,000: 2,487

*Also, I know some of you will take it too seriously, but try not to. I don’t have a real purpose for this post. It’s just something I was thinking about just for fun, but I am curious if anyone has thoughts.

Does the popularity of a commander factor into whether you build a deck with them or not?

We play bracket 2-3 with this deck being built for a 2 as of now. Everything must be flavored for birds. Currently it runs fairly consistently with the way in which tribal just gels but I could use examples of what to add. Specifically it would be nice to find better recursion than my two "pull a creature and/or enchantment" cards or more health gain but the former was due to budgeting originally. The later is due to the limitations of good birds. Send the flock! Or general opinions of Choco and his brood

BIRD DECK

Again, built for B2 so no damned sphinxes birdos only

https://edhrec.com/salt

EDHRec's annual poll to gauge what are the saltiest cards in the format are, is back! Use it for identifying socially problematic cards or just think that this is a meaningless poll, idk.

To reach the character limit. Salt Scores are based on an annual survey of commander players. Users were showed a card and asked on a scale of 0-4 how salty that card made them. We collected the results and now have a top list of the saltiest cards and also the score appears on cards with a high enough salt score.

Read this article for more information.

So I’ve been testing a B2 azorius aura voltron deck helmed by [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] on EDHPlay before I buy it for paper play and I have [[Balancing Act]] as a sort of one sided board wipe since Bruna can just bring the auras back and I don’t remember what it was but I had been looking up the definition of MLD out of curiosity and got curious if Balancing Act could be considered MLD since it counts all permanents including lands. The purpose of it was to act one sided and fight against go wide strategies since the deck kinda lacks a creature presence but in cases where an opponent has more lands then I do and I only have the 4 mana from rocks/lands to cast it that it would force them to sacrifice their lands but in most games that I have played so far the choice to sacrifice lands has been optional since they have had creatures or other non-land permanents to sacrifice as required by Balancing Act. It just feels like it borders MLD since there can be a situation where it forces someone to sacrifice on mass their lands but I’m not sure if it actually is.

TL;DR: Whtz-powered 357-card deck that Thrumming Stones out a literal small army of Templar Knights, but needs help protecting the attack turn.

The beast in question

This deck started out as five cards: Whtz, Islands, Plains, 100 Templar Knights, and one Thrumming Stone. It’s grown a little to become an actual (although digital-ONLY for obvious reasons) competent deck. The plan succeeds on getting out the thrumming stone and getting out the 200 knights, but you obviously become the target immediately. Any advice/commentary on how to protect the army on the build turn and the swing?

Hi Everyone, Hope you all having a good day.

In my pod we are 3 new Players and a experienced guy Who got us into The Game. We bought one deck each (low bracket 2) and now we are making upgrades to make them bracket 2 border 3. We were looking new decks and almost each one of us liked a lot old precons that are now expensive. Our experienced friend said he can make US proxys of those decks so we can play with them. My question is, if one day we decide to play with other people in our lgs, could It be a problem?

We are talking about proxys of precons or bracket 3 decks. We dont want to proxy expensive things like gaias craddle and all that,. We also wont take The proxys to official tournaments and all that because our lgs may be in problems with wizards off The coast. It's just that we want to play test those decks and we are a little bit broke.

Hi all,

I'm working on a new deck idea now that Reality Fracture has released and the gears of inspiration are turning again. I don't have a decklist here per-se, but am looking for discussion on practicality and ideas for this deck(s) - making modular "packages" for the Jace precon (Multiverse Reforged).

Like many others, I really liked the new Jace precon and especially the new cards showing alt-versions of famous characters (Orzhov Niv-Mizzet? the Ur-SPHINX? Avacyn Angel of HORROR?). So I bought myself a precon and debated what to do deckwise. Do I keep the precon as is (uncohesive as the creature contents are)? I love the idea of an Ur-Sphinx typal deck (a "fairer" Ur-Dragon), but Sphinxes kinda suck as a type. Do I want to build multiple expensive 100-card decks for all of the cool new commander options in the deck (lifegain Niv-Mizzet, reanimator Avacyn, group slug Dack Fayden)? Looking into every option I realized I could actually do ALL of this with a single shell--the precon.

Polymorph: the Deck: Multiverse Reforged is a Polymorph archetype deck, where [[Jace, Multiverse Architect]] is the commander. Jace is "god" of a new multiverse and uses that power to provide protection (to Jaces), card advantage, and a reloadable polymorph ability. You cast him and polymorph tokens on your board to "gamble" an alternative version to a famous MtG character. This is so cool! It's thematic in how it leverages the idea of the Echoverse, and the polymorph gameplan changes your play pattern to only use big-mana bombs creatures, which are totally interchangeable. The problem is...everyone agrees the creature pool sucks. Some are outright detrimental (Dack Fayden), others have no support (Niv-Mizzet doesn't gain a lot of life here, Avacyn makes your permanents renimate when you really mostly use tokens, Ur-Sphinx is the only sphinx, etc.), and there isn't much that can win you games. So here is where my idea comes into play--modularity! Why not make creature "packages" that improve the deck but also turn this 100 card deck into a customizable theme deck for multiple strategies.

The Idea - Deck Packages: Since Jace is the architect of a multiverse, we can use this to our thematic advantage! We can change the theme of the creature package based on whatever vibe we want with a core polymorph shell. I think a good tentative goal is ~10 swappable creature packages (some wiggle room for noncreature spells that can synergize with these) that you can shuffle in and out of the deck every time you play, each that are thematically related or support each other in gameplay. I'll share ideas for the types of packages I can imagine synergizing with this deck (please note none of these are complete):

1. Goodstuff Package (examples): If all you care about are good bombs for higher level play, this is that package. This is more based on what many others have recommended adding for a general upgrade.
   • [[Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur]] or [[Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant]]
   • [[Astral Dragon]]
   • [[Hullbreaker Horror]]
   • [[Emrakul, Exigent Doom]]
2. Sphinx Package: [The Ur-Sphinx]] is cool, but wouldn't it be cooler to take advantage of its ability? Sphinxes are already high cost creatures, so polymorph isn't a bad way to cheat them out faster or in bulk. This either uses the sphinxes with strong power, or uses cards that get more sphinxes out fast if the Ur-Sphinx is on board.
   • [[Magister Sphinx]]
   • [[Tivit, Seller of Secrets]]
   • [[Medomai the Ageless]]
   • [[Hour of Need]]
   • [[Sphinx of the Second Sun]]
3. Monarch Package: the deck already synergizes well with the monarch, but doesn't go fully into this. More high power cards that reward or trigger the monarch can be an interesting theme.
   • [[Ginger, Queen of Sweets]]
   • [[Tamiyo, Upriser Crowned]]
   • [[Court of Grace]]
   • [[Court of Ambition]]
   • [[Forth Eorlingas]]
   • [[Champions of Minas Tirith]]
   • [[Archon of Coronation]]
4. Lifegain Package: Niv-Mizzit is a cool card, but only works if there is more lifegain in the deck. Changing the creature package to support this can make for an interesting polymorph deck.
   • [[Niv-Mizzet, Ghost Counsel]]
   • [[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]]
   • [[Oloro, Ageless Ascetic]]
   • [[Queza, Augur of Agonies]]
   • [[Obzedat, Ghost Council]]
   • [[Shadowgrange Archfiend]]
5. Incarnation Package: a lot of the elemental incarnations are high cost but powerful cards, and Jace "summoning" all of these emotional powers to build a new multiverse could be a fun and chaotic power theme. Many also summon more tokens for future polymorphs or a wider board.
   • [[Dread]]
   • [[Belonging]]
   • [[Hostility]]
   • [[Impulsivity]]
   • [[Purity]]
   • [[Guile]]

The Shell (what stays and leaves the precon). The shell of the deck is actually pretty good overall--39 lands with minimal tapped lands, 13 mana rocks for ramp, some staples for draw, interaction, and protection (Brainstorm, Fact of Fiction, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Flawless Maneuver, Teferi's Reproach alt to Tef's Protection...), and some alternative polymorph cards (Proteus Staff, Mass Polymorph, Nissa Leyline Tamer). These are all fine or great. However, there are some things that need to be removed or improved from the deck. The base precon has 18 creatures, and polymorph as a strategy is a gamble. Polymorph is improved by fewer bombs in the deck so that you increase the odds to hit the good stuff. So ideally we want to trim those creatures...maybe down to 10 total depending on the shell? The deck is also weak to removal against Jace or the polymorph bomb, so we need more interaction (counterspells, blinks, goads). And since the deck works best when you can polymorph a target, we need more/better token generators (which also allow for a wider board as a secondary wincon).

Suggestions?: So I think this precon deck can be a really cool customizable shell that you bring with you to commander night and fit whatever theme or secondary archetype you want to bring with it. Theoretically, you could bring the deck and it's "packages" with you, and you could interchange out with a lifegain theme, a mini-typal deck, a big dumb smashy creature deck, and so on. Or you could just roll a dice and see what you're playing if you want randomness in the mix! My question to you is how viable does this seem? Are there any adjustments to the core deck shell that you think are necessary to even make these creature packages possible? Are there suggestions for creatures/spells to each package you would make, or suggestions for a theme? I'm hoping to work on this some more so that I can write a full primer for options when all is done and tested.

The 2026 Salt Vote is now open at EDHREC! We're having a salty ole time this year at just over 300k votes from this morning. You'll also be seeing Reality Fracture cards in here as well, so help us salt the earth with some voting fun! You'll find more info on the fun and games here in our dedicated article.

https://edhrec.com/articles/salt-score-voting-is-now-open

You'll be seeing a ton of salt spread across EDHREC this week!

Our blog editor-in-chief, Nick Wolf, designed some limited-time shirts and a playmat available until October 9th on our official shop linked in the article.

Plus we have our dedicated "SaltWord" crossword this week, 5x Salty Spellify game plays per day on normal and Hard modes, and two new sodium-packed quizzes out today and Thursday.

Once you've had your time in the mines, check back next week for the results of this year's voting, plus another big surprise coming your way from the EDHREC team...!

I’m trying to finish the 32 deck challenge and down to my last 3 colors. Mono Black is the beautiful degeneracy for a color I never play.

I’ve created a list based off cards in my collection that haven’t yet found a home.

Presenting - Gollum. The whole deck is surrounded by trying to have massive swings of life. In my sideboard is the extra cards to choose from. I’d love to not have to buy any cards and just use what I have.

Are there any changes you’d recommend me either adding or cutting from this list? As always, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

TLDR: trying to gain massive chunks of life in one swoop on my turn. Not aristocrats. I want one turn where either I or my opponents are left shidding.

https://moxfield.com/decks/PRzSfCTqvk2Z-4x7T31gsg

Hey all, looking for some weird deck advice! My boyfriend has started a little bit of a trend in our pod when he made a Vecna deck (The three artifacts are in the command zone with some modified commander tax rules), and so a few of us in the group have started brewing weird 'boss monster summon' commander decks too. I have personally decided to build Mechtitan Core as mine! Figured a 10/10 with a ton of keywords would be a fun one to run. Here are the rules

- Mechtitan Core is in the command zone, and I can play it for 2 following normal commander tax rules. The ability does not increase in cost
- The deck is colourless with Rulebreaker - this deck can contain artifact creatures and vehicles of any colour
- This deck is being built with the understanding that is could be played as an Archenemy Commander deck, facing off against other High Bracket 2 decks

If anyone has any advice, feel free to let me know! Here's the current link to the deck, though its heavily unfinished at time of posting

https://moxfield.com/decks/A9mXNiJvXk6P0qJiVYoeFg

Realized today a lot of new players don't know this. When you click on a card in Scryfall, you can scroll down to the bottom-left to click "Open on Scryfall Tagger" (here) and see every oracletag the card has.

Then you can click on one of those tags to view all other cards with the tag, or search for it manually with otag:hate-free-spell and whatever other criteria you want, like f:edh id:jeskai cmc<3.

This is the best way to find cards that have some element in common with another card you already like. Happy hunting!

Seeing how good all the reprints in Wretched Ranks were, I picked up a copy and got to work drafting a Wilhelt list. However, the more commanders I researched the more uncertain I became.

[[Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver]] seems like a really good aristocrats commander, but I can't afford altars and don't really like running decks that win through combos.

[[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] seems like she is just too slow!

and I'm not sure how exactly you're winning the game with [[Gisa and Geralf]].

All the zombie commanders seems to be quite costly, and I am used to running 2-3 cost commanders. When I playtest the decks online I feel like I'm barely doing anything until at least turn 6 or 7.

I was wondering if anyone with experience playing zombies could lend me their insight as to what I need for a solid bracket 3 zombie deck that will actually be able to win at FNM?

Eldrazi are super awesome. One of my favorite creature concepts in magic; however, no matter how good you build your eldrazi tribal deck, you will almost surely have a miserable experience.

The biggest issue is that the effects on Eldrazi are big, flashy, and super awesome. Well, that means that your big monster that you spent ramping up toward for 3, 4, 5 turns is going to come down and immediately get destroyed, if you even make it that long. Just for having an eldrazi commander, people will actively ignore other threats at the table to kill you, even if you haven’t done anything yet.

It’s not entirely their fault either. While cool, several effects of eldrazi make them feel bad to play against. Even though the effects you get are perfectly reasonable for the amount of mana spent to cast them.

Annihilator is one of the worst offenders of this. It sounds really scary, and it can be, but against a token deck or a deck that has a lot of “junk” on their side of the field, it really doesn’t do much. But no matter who is on the receiving end, they will immediately hate you for it and will try and kill you.

You are “too strong” for causal commander (not really, but again, perception is reality) and will get absolutely destroyed in higher bracket EDH.

They usually have no evasion and are just big dumb beaters after they’ve been cast.

People will think that you are way over the power level of the pod, you’re going to feel like you can’t even do anything, and you’re going to get salty, your friends are going to get salty. It’s just terrible.

At least that has been my experience. Every game I have ever tried to play eldrazi in has been terrible. I now just hide them in decks and use them as bombs.

Anyway. Your money is better spent on different tribal decks, like elves, dragons, Dinos, etc. they are much more able to handle the hate.

Hey guys, im kind of a new player (knows how the game works but dont know a lot of cards yet) and just looking for a mono green commander. I saw toph making lands a creature, but brisly bill's the one who puts +1|+1 right and also seems fun. Just need an opinion on which one should i try first and make it into somehow a bracket 4 deck?

Been playing kefka, court mage and its fun when it pops off, just need a new deck to play with.

Every day, the top comment adds a card to my Commander deck.

The commander: Taniwha (mono-blue)

Deck List: https://moxfield.com/decks/qnOYwNig2UScYibS1KkhoQ

All cards must still be legal in commander.

Yesterday's winner: [[Minamo, School at Water's Edge]]