Hello one and all! In this installment, we are going to talk about how to build a better commander deck. I will be doing installments later on how to build a commander deck on a budget, but for this time around let's shoot for the moon and throw caution about card prices out the window. I won't/can't put in things like Moxes , Library of Alexandria or Juzam Djinn. But I will sometimes dabble in the $30-$80 price range. So be forewarned!
First off, what do I mean by better? When considering a deck, if you start looking at decks that will be good in a multi-player environment, good one on one, will take home wins and will be gimmicky, you are looking at building decks the wrong way. You will not be able to do everything at once, so let's keep things simple.
The deck I will be building today is Glissa, The Traitor. This is a deck I have been looking to build in quite some time. Glissa runs one of my favorite colors in commander: Green. This will allow me abuse mana accelerants, as well as using creatures with fantastic abilities. This deck also uses one of the stronger commander colors, but I do not play it very often, and that is black.
One goal I want for the deck is to find a way of getting Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers. This way I can abuse tons of mana all at once. The deck will also have access to Gaea's Cradle. Both the Coffers and Cradle can work in conjunction with Deserted Temple. So, how are we going to gain access to these extremely powerful lands? Well, this is where green really shines. I believe that green has the best titan available in the game and that is Primeval Titan. Even if you just think of Primeval Titan being a 4GG ramp spell, it would still be one of the more powerful cards in the game. By simply playing him, you gain access to any two lands you are going to need. If you have Urborg, go with Coffer and Temple. You have Coffers? Go with Urborg and Temple. Do you have the black combo lands? Go with Cradle and Temple and really give your opponents head aches. Another card that we can abuse is Expedition Map. With the use of our general, we can use the map, get a land of our choice, kill a creature and re-buy the map. Lather, rise, repeat.
Cards that also support this theme that will be going into the deck will be:
Worldly Tutor --Searches out Prime Time
Green Sun's Zenith --See above
Fauna Shaman --And again
Survival of the Fittest -- And again
Demonic Tutor --Aaaand again
Diabolic Tutor (Side note, cool art on the Odyssey Diabolic Tutor!) --Once more
So, you can already see how a deck starts to form if you have a basic concept or goal. I set a goal to abuse a lot of mana, and that is already taking up 8 spell slots and 4 land slots. Including our general, we are already at 13 cards! Where do we go from here? Well, now that we have a lot of cards that support a generous mana base, let's add some cards that are considered staples:
Sol Ring --Going turn one: Land, Sol Ring is the start you always want to have in commander. Accelerating your game by two turns can be unbeatable sometimes
Lightning Greaves -- Protects your creatures, along with getting extra triggers off your titans and other cards that attack
Swiftfoot Boots --See above
Maze of Ith/Mystifying Maze --This card not only protects you, but your opponents attacks are incredibly valuable, so they won't spend it sending their creatures into you while you have either maze out. So this works two fold: It protects you and channels your opponents attacks into other players. Let your opponents do your heavy lifting for you!
Sensei's Divining Top -- Just a great card. Manipulation, card draw....just awesome.
And then just some staples for a dual colored deck:
Bayou -- Mana fixing is essential. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Overgrown Tomb --See above
Verdant Catacombs --This also thins your deck, getting you closer to your action.
Woodland Cemetery --See Bayou.
Gilt-Leaf Palace --See above
Command Tower -- Dual lands are dual lands
Llanowar Wastes -- These sorts of lands are not that bad. You have 40 life to play with. You can spend 5-10 life on helping your mana base. Don't be too skittish about spending life on this.
So! After figuring out a goal for the deck, getting cards to support that goal and staples for your deck, we are now at a healthy 25 cards! Let's go a little deeper into some synergy with our general.
Glissa has the unique ability of recurring artifacts at the expense of your opponents creatures. This can work greatly to our advantage if done correctly. The one thing that some newer players do when building a commander deck is relying to heavily on their generals ability. We can find some cards that not only work with Glissa, but also can help clear the path for some of our larger beaters.
The first card we are going to include is Executioner's Capsule. This card is an all-star for this deck. Because of where the colon is, you can actually sacrifice it, kill a creature and re-buy it with Glissa. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Sure it can only take out nonblack creatures, but you will have enough targets in a multi-player game that you won't have any trouble looking for something nonblack. The next two cards are are from the same cloth, and that is Mind Stone and Dreamstone Hedron. Both of these cards will allow us to draw cards, kill something, and then re-buy to put more gas into our hands. Oh, by they way, they also accelerate us. Winners in my book! The next two cards are also from the same ilk, in fact, they are from the same cycle: Horizon Spellbomb and Nihil Spellbomb. This will allow us to use some utility, along with drawing some cards. So there we go. A nice complement of cards that let us abuse our generals ability, yet not going too deep and letting us use some utility to go with it.
Now that we are at 30 cards in the deck, a bit more than 25%, lets start filling in some gaps and make this a more rounded and finer tuned deck. We are at a bit of a junction with the deck. Do we want this to be a multiplayer deck or a one on one beater? How do we win? Some might think that this two questions are separate, but I consider them quite similar. Winning in a multiplayer environment compared to winning in a one on one environment is quite different. Cards like Mindslaver may seem like a perfect fit for this deck, but I consider that to be a card that in a one v. one game is much different than multiplayer. In this case, we are making a multiplayer deck and Mindslaver is a great card for this. Mindslaver in a one on one format has a lot less tools. First, in a multiplayer game, you can steal an opponents turn and use it to attack your opponents. So, along with throwing a big monkey wrench into the plans of one player, you can also use it as a breather and just not be attacked for a turn.
Right now, this deck is like a nice steak. But that's it. Just a plain steak, sitting on a normal plate. While it is a very nice steak, we want a whole meal. We want the side dishes, a nice wine and some atmosphere. This is what I mean by a more rounded deck. So, to do this, we need to add some unexciting, yet necessary cards. Enter our one drop friends:
Birds of Paradise
Llanowar Elves
Elves of the Deep Shadow
These are the cards that are going to help us get Glissa, the Traitor on turn 2. However, these cards will also be able to help us later on in the game once we have our abusive mana base established. They will be used as blockers or for us to help us use our next card:
Birthing Pod
This card will be able help us turn cards that aren't useful to use anymore into cards that are going to help take over a game in our favor. Further, we can start looking at cards that will be help in this strategy and tie it into our deck as a whole. Here are some great comes into play effects that will help us ramp us up:
Fleshbag Marauder
Acidic Slime
Eternal Witness
Indrik Stomphowler
Grave Titan
Now, I hope that you can see how this strategy also ties in with the Primeval Titan strategy! This is how you get a deck that performs consistently and how you get a deck that will perform the way you designed it. You stock your deck with cards that do relatively the same things. Phew! Now that we have a few basic ideas for the deck, some good side dishes, we can start adding cards that play more to your style. This is a great foundation to a very competitive deck.
Hope this was helpful. Until next time: Trade smart. Trade fair. Trade here.
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