Originally known as Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH, Commander is a casual multiplayer format that supports 4 players with 100 card decks. Each player starts at 40 life, and each player's deck is headed by a legendary creature designated as that deck's commander. The format has become very popular in recent years, with the release of official pre-con Commander decks and full Commander sets like Commander Legends.
We have constructed this quick guide on how to build your very own commander deck! Check out our top tips down below!Official Rules
The rules for deck building are relatively simple and the deck only differs from a standard deck in a few key areas:
- You must have a commander: a Legendary Creature that starts the game in your command zone.
- your deck must contain exactly 99 cards
- you can only have a maximum of 1 copy
Choose a Commander
The first important set in building a Commander deck is to choose a commander! A commander can be any Legendary Creature, so make sure to choose one that you like or one that will fit in with a theme. Your choice of commander will influence your card choice for the rest of your deck, as you can only include cards that match one of the colours in your Commander's colour identity. For example if you choose a Red-White Legendary Creature as your commander then you can only include Red and White cards in your deck.
Card Ratios
Around a third of your deck should be lands, a good rule of thumb is to include somewhere between 30 and 40 lands. Commander has more players than other formats, so a good amount of removal is definitely recommended. we suggest that you include around 10 cards that destroy, deal damage to cards and counter. The remainder of your deck can then be filled up with other types of card, we recommend that you include a large number of creatures.
Staples
There are a certain number of cards that are so good that they tend to appear in every deck that they can legally be included in. The most obvious of these is Sol Ring, which appears in close to 100% of Commander decks, regardless of the deck's colour. Check out some other staples down below.
Cards that can be included in every deck:
- Sol Ring There isn't a scenario where you should leave Sol Ring out of your deck! As soon as this artefact hits the field, you have extra mana and can ramp up, especially if you draw into it early in the game.
- Command Tower Another great piece of ramp, Command Tower is a card specifically designed for Commander. It lets you add a colour from you Commander's colour identity.
- Arcane Signet Arcane Signet is basically the artefact version of Command Tower and gets you some extra mana to play with.
- Exotic Orchard In a game like commander, Exotic Orchard really hits its stride. with 3 opponents, you can almost guarantee that you can create mana of a useful colour.
- Evolving Wilds Evolving Wilds is a staple in Draft and it also finds a use in commander! It allows you to thin your deck out and get that land that you need. It is especially useful in decks with a multiple colours.
Cards that can be included in White decks:
- Swords to Plowshares Removal doesn't get much better than this. Swords to Plowshares is not only cheap, costing only 1 mana, it has the advantage of being Instant.
- Path to Exile Like Swords to Plowshares, this card is great at removing pesky cards and can be activated on your opponents turn.
- Smothering Tithe This is the ultimate win-win scenario card. Either your opponents sacrifice some mana and slow down or they give you a treasure token. With at least 3 card draws happening outside of your turn, you can rack up a lot of extra mana very quickly.
- Esper Sentinel In a game like commander mana is seldom an issue, but running out of cards to play is. That's why it's great to have some extra drawing power like Esper Sentinel.
- Enlightened Tutor Although this card is limited in what it can search for, it is extremely useful in grabbing that one card you're after.
Cards that can be included in Blue decks:
- Counterspell This list just wouldn't be complete without mentioning the iconic Counterspell. There's not much to say about this classic counter other than it is a classic for a reason.
- Brainstorm Brainstorm is a great spell that gives you an extra card and allows you a little insight into your next couple of draws.
- Cyclonic Rift Cyclonic Rift really hits its stride when you overload it. If you can build up the mana, then Cyclonic Rift can be used to clear the field for an exciting finale.
- Rhystic Study Like Smothering Tithe, this is a card that can get our of hand quickly (see what we did there?) The amount of draw that Rhystic Study can bag you is immense.
- Negate Like Counterspell, Negate is a simple but effective card that can find a place is pretty much any commander deck.
Cards that can be included in Black decks:
- Demonic Tutor Demonic Tutor is another simple but effective spell and can fit into any deck.
- Vampiric Tutor Vampiric Tutor is a slightly less powerful version of Demonic Tutor, but is still highly effective.
- Dark Ritual Dark Ritual is quick and easy way to start ramping up in Black and shouldn't be overlooked.
- Toxic Deluge Not only is this a super useful bit of removal, it can also combo very well with a ton of Black cards that rely on destroying your own creatures.
- Feed the Swarm A great bit of removal, Feed the Swarm doesn't hit as hard in Commander, where your starting life total is higher.
Cards that can be included in Red decks:
- Blasphemous Act Blasphemous act is one of the best mass removal card and it only gets cheaper to cast when the field is filled with creatures.
- Chaos Warp Chaos Warp is a super fun card that can act as removal or with the use of other cards, be used to bring out some big creatures.
- Dockside Extortionist When you're dealing with multiple opponents, cards like Dockside Extortionist can be used to massive effect! For only 2 mana you can end up with an absolute boatload of treasure tokens.
- Faithless Looting Faithless Looting is a great card to cycle some less desirable cards out of our hand.
- Jeska's Will This is a great way to start ramping up: bagging a lot of mana and then adding some extra cards to play with from the top of your deck!
Cards that can be included in Green decks:
- Cultivate Green is infamous for its ability to quickly gain a ton of mana. Cultivate works towards this end whilst ensuring that you can hit a land drop.
- Rampant Growth Another great piece of ramp, this card can fit very comfortably into any deck that plays Green.
- Beast Within Beast Within's greatest asset is that it is an Instant! it is a very fun card to play in Commander, whilst you can slow your opponent down, you also give them something to replace their monster with, which lowers the chance of them coming after you on your turn.
- Kodama's Reach Kodama's Reach is another great example of why Green is the king of ramp!
- Farseek If you didn;t know by now, Green has no shortage of land and access to Mana. Farseek is just another card that allows you to fill your board with a ton of lands.
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