Ramp: 10-12 Card Draw: 10 Single Target Removal: 10-12 Board Wipes: 3-4 Lands: 35-38 Standalone (cards that are effective by themselves/with commander): 25 Enhancers (cards that amplify or are amplified by standalones or commander): 10-12 Enablers (covers a weakness or fills a gap in your strategy): 7-8 Cards on your theme: 30(ish) Consider... Overlaps (cards that count in multiple categories) Partials (cards that count as 'half' in a given category. E.g. scry 3 as half a card draw card)
I've been using this formula for figuring out my mana curve for years: *[ **_( Average cmc/7cards in opening hand )*99cards in deck = total lands needed in deck_** ]* Currently I have a deck that seems to needs 44 lands to function. That's 6 lands higher than Jimmy and Josh recommend. Is this formula right, or are they?
Mana Ramp - 10-12 (9:02) Card Draw - 10 (11:29) Single Target Removal - 10-12 (13:39) Board Wipes - 3-4 (14:39) Standalone - a card that works on it's own or in concert with your commander. (25) (28:46) Enhancer - a card that either amplifies or is amplified by your commander or standalone cards. (10-12) (32:55) Enabler - a card that covers a weakness or fills a gap in your strategy. (7-8) (38:49) Reposted comment by @Spottyfriend from the old video because I found it very helpful (updated and with timestamps).
A little late for tips, but if anyone sees this, think about creature board wipes that don't hit your commander. If your commander has only 3 toughness, you might not want to play as many -3/-3 board wipes unless you plan on buffing your commander up. If your commander has high toughness, then use toughness-based board wipes. The reason for doing this is to make your board wipes worthwhile in situations where you're behind and ahead, making them relevant to more games and reducing the times they'll be dead draws. Like what the Josh and Jimmy said about quadrant theory but applied to board wipes.
Deck Building Tip I’ve Learned in the last 7 years of playing Magic: Your deck is never complete. Feel free to change out cards when you realize they don’t work, or they just don’t fit your play style. Commander is so wonderful because everyone builds their deck in a unique way, and everyone changes their deck as time goes on to make them even more unique!
I totally agree, all my decks have an ever growing pile of cards thrown in the box as new sets come out or I acquire good synergy cards. Then when I want to play the deck again I switch it up, and sometimes do a full re-build.
A lot of times, I’ll build a deck. And then I’ll play it a while and realize there are some weird/neat synergies popping up more common than I thought they would or didn’t even think about at all, and I realize I prefer playing the deck that way, so then I go back and change it to work with those more. It’s like I give the deck a basis and then as I play it it starts melding itself to fit my style perfectly.
I would say my biggest deck building "level up" moment would be adding more instant speed interaction to my deck. I usually play very aggressively and proactively, but recently being able to protect my plays and disrupt my opponents has helped me stay more consistent and win more games. Interaction is insanely important.
Oh saaame. Interaction used to infuriate me like “let me resolve my big dudes!” Then when I put interaction in my own decks they suddenly started resolving 🤷♀️ lol
@@CeltiesSin Lmao exactly! Bolt Bend, Deflecting Swat, Blossoming Defense, Heroic Intervention, all those have saved me so many times in my Xenagos deck lmao
Same. I used to play super aggro and ran very few interactions. I’ve been watching more cEDH games on here to learn the importance of interaction and how best to accomplish it.
Ah yes, the art of not playing instants at sorcery speed. Across eras and formats, this is a perennial “level-up moment” for so many MtG players - including me! I think this also goes for “on-board tricks” and mana sinks. Don’t always do them on your own turn, if you can wait and push it. Keep your options open.
Shared this with my EDH play group. We have some highly experienced and competitive players and some newer, more causal players. This is an awesome resource. Thanks guys!
My biggest level up moment was when I realized that my deck, while empowered and focused around my commander, should still be able to function *without* access to them, since the stronger the commander is, the more prone they are to removal or the more they are considered "kill on sight." This has helped me tremendously when looking at how the rest of the deck interacts with itself as well as the board, and helps reveal weak spots in the deck when it doesn't have the commander to rely on as a crutch for a certain aspect.
I had a game where my spell slinger deck was up against another spells linger and I won because I built my deck to work without my commander while he didn't. We both had commanders at 8cmc+ lol
When it comes to Captain N'ghathrod, my first Commander, I've decided to hunt down some other high power Blue and Black creatures that assist to the mill strategy like Mirko Vosk, Fleet Swallower, and other cards that help mill cards quickly so either I can steal them with cards like Extract from Darkness, Captain N'ghathrod, Raise from Dead, etc., swing for serious damage with Guiltfeeder, or exile graveyards with things like Ashiok Dream Render. While also controlling the game with other powerful effects that either eliminate options or help advance my board.
I’ve been referring to that very general term “card draw” as “churn” for a while. Churn can be defined as; effect that allow for more access to spells than you would otherwise have. It encompasses all of the different kinds of draw, pseudo draw, and recursive strategies.
I feel like "card advantage" is really accurate to what they're referring to as draw. Which I think is more valuable than just drawing cards, and fundamentally includes looking at your decks strategy to determine if it give you some form of advantage. At least that's my preferred phrase.
@@ZenelithElm true but his definition includes recursion through eternal witness or graveyard resurrection Edit: and I suppose even scry applies as "churn" but is not considered card advantage but card selection
@@idenpropovad1034 Scry and even self mill in some cases. Though scry doesn’t exactly fit because it doesn’t give access to the card unless you’re running Eligeth or something, but it could. The amount of value from each kind varied from deck to deck. Deadbridge Chant probably isn’t churn in in a Golos control build, but it sure is in Meren.
@@ZenelithElm Fair enough. You’re probably right about that. I feel like card advantage has different connotations but its close to what Im calling churn. Like, even if you have 7 cards in hand and cast Wheel of fortune, there’s no inherent card advantage there but it could get you a lot of potentially more valuable options in a given situation. I dunno that’s just my take. I feel like “card draw” and “card advantage” mean specific things but players tend to have to explain themselves when they want to include other similarly and relevant parts to that descriptor. Churn is my attempt at just covering all the bases without having to define and subsequently expand upon the old ones to make my point.
@@idenpropovad1034 Personally I view card advantage as anything that's allowing you to see more cards than your opponents, scry falling under that, wheels are a bit different as he noted since it's usually symmetrical.
Tip : I keep a track each game when I’ve got a card in my hand that at that time does nothing. If it appears twice in the list from two games I look to remove it.
hm. That seems like insufficient data to me if you really want to determine wether a card is statistically useless more often than not. Remember, in a singleton format with a 100 cards deck, you still want some more or less situational cards to deal with specific things that someone might do in 1 out of 10 games. Obviously, the best thing you can get is flexible cards with a bunch of modes to choose from. I still don't think I would consider cutting a card from my deck just because it hasn't been great/useful in 2 isolated games.
I run a simic leviathan/kraken ramp card draw deck and I can basically put half my deck in my hand by turn 5. I can find out what cards do and don't work fairly quickly! But I still give the card in question 4-5 games just to be sure
Eh, doesn't seem right to me. Not every card can be put in a deck assuming it will be useful at all points in time. E.g. Say I run Ulamog, and have it in my opening hand two games in a row...By your criteria it would be cut.
Would be really nice for episodes and topics like this, to have it in a written format as well so that I can look at it another time without having to scrub through the video trying to find the info I'm looking for. Same for precon upgrade guides as well. Would go a long ways I think.
I agree. You could just put some bullet points, including the template you talk about the whole episode, in the shownotes/description. That's what I came here looking for.
Yeah, a while ago I made up google doc for myself compiling most of what they went over in their previous video, along with some other things I found helpful. I havent updated it in a bit (going to now that I found this episode), but y’all are welcome to use it: docs.google.com/document/d/13dXoEu_VwuZcrjQUPr6DLFYYBNcRl1a4Mwx4EaRuSfc
If you remember keywords you can hit "Show Transcript" in the "..." underneath the video and search through there with Ctrl+F, maybe? Not exactly a good substitute but could help hopefully.
Hi guys. I have watched this 3 times now. Taking better notes every time. And I always catch something that I didn't remember from the time before. Thanks so much for putting this revised version out.
When I first started playing magic I was told 24 lands is a great ratio for a 60 card deck. So I added 12, half of 24, and got 36 lands for an average commander deck, since I wasn't given any advice for EDH just some of the rule changes, played for like half a year before anyone told me about commander damage. Glad to know my weird reasoning gave a pretty good ratio of lands for commander.
My rule of thumb is to start with 40 lands and remove 1 for every 2 ramp sources, only if my average cmc for the deck is 3.00 or lower. If average cmc is greater than 3.00 I remove 1 land for every 3 ramp sources. Works well so far.
I've found that the best place to start shifting the mana value of a deck is with interaction. Taking the 4+ mana value interaction and replacing them with 2-3 cost interaction helps quickly while keeping the feel of the deck theme.
Card draw needs to become card advantage, My Muldrotha deck doesn't run 10 card draw spells, but it never has issues with running out of resources, card draw as a term is to specific.
That's why they included filling the graveyard and impulsive draw as card draw, because it allows you to play more cards. Arterial Flow, for example, is card *advantage*, but not card *draw*.
In decks where I want to fill my graveyard and bring cards back from it in some way, I definitely don't run 10 card draw spells but I like having a handful in case the graveyard plan goes sideways or in cases where my access to the graveyard is too limited.
Normally, I would like to put a link to a timestamp to skip through the ads, but this time Im just gonna say: Seriously, take advantage of the betterhelp offer. Mental health is such an underappreciated facet of living a fulfilling life and so many people either feel stigma about confronting it or have been taught they just need to suck it up and the only thing its doing is hurting us and holding us back. Thanks for getting a sponsorship for something so important on a video you guys knew would see so many eyeballs
Suck it up is actually a odd phrase. Alot of older people (and I mean older than boomer gen) have told me that it doesn't mean literally just deal with it. They explained that it used to mean come to terms with traumas you can't change and heartbreaks you can't mend,. In a way that suits your life goals. And that if something can be changed for the better. Make a plan. And make it happen.
for me the biggest "level up" moment was when I started building my commander decks with one wincon in mind from the beginning. I asked myself "alright, how is this deck gonna win?" before putting the first card into it
ENCHANTMENT RAMP - People playing green so often forget to use the 1-2 CMC enchantment ramp like Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, and Fertile Ground - they're very resilient and they *really* help you ramp early game very well. I've replaced cutlivate / kodama's reach with that sorta ramp in my decks nowadays. And just overall bringing down removal and card draw to 3CMC and below, and ramp to 2 CMC and below is just really nice because it means you can set things up nicely, and have room for your splashier plays to be cards that feed into your strategy and commander.
I knew I leveled up when I had to cut cards I grew very attached to. For me that was Rubblehulk in my Borborygmos Enraged deck. It was my first promo at Gatecrash Prerelease and it's gotten its fair share of gotcha kills. Do any of y'all have a similar experience?
Taking my showcase art brushfire elemental out of my Omnath, Locus of Creation deck was a heart wrencher for sure, especially since every time I kept a starting hand with it, it netted way more damage than it really should have.
Dropping Sol Ring from Marath, Will of the Wild was terrifying. The thing is, Marath doesn't care about +1 mana as much as he cares about ability synergy. The Great Henge was an immediate improvement over Sol Ring that completely changed how the deck functioned fundamentally. Now the deck can Elf-ballfaster than ever by not only paying GG for 2 dorks, but every dork is a cantrip that gets a +1/+1 counter, and Marath gets additional counters whenever he enters the battlefield. He even draws cards when he returns to play while I'm Fireballing the table to death with his ability.
I always want to run the sexy legendary creatures, but they’re always some of the earliest cuts because they just cost too much and don’t fit the theme :/
My big level up moment was realizing I need to cut some of the fun stuff for the utility stuff. It makes it harder building decks because I want to put that big 9 mana card in but intead put in something else that's less splashy and more useful for the majority of the game.
It depends but I usually like the big 8 9 or 10 mana stuff and just find all the ways to cheat them into play. Stuff like artisan ofkozilek and reanimateare great Use cards that send stuff to the graveyard either through discarding or from the library. Make jank work for you
@@LogoMotive11 since it was my very first commander... Koma was the option, I've been playing with several decks built by my boyfriend like Kaalia of the Vast, Niv Mizzet Parun, and Atraxa but when I saw Koma, I told him I wanted it to be another commander deck and he told me it was time for me to build it, of course with a little bit of his help... That's why Koma it's my first Koma-nder ;)
A better term for "single target removal" might be "targeted interaction" so that it covers counter magic, redirects etc. EDIT: Also, for "card draw/advantage", I like "card access". Includes card draw, temporary card draw (impulsive draw), card selection (scrying, looting etc.) and tutors.
I do like your suggestion of targeted interaction but I think tutors should be left out of any individual category. Since they can usually represent anything from removal, to mana, to card advantage etc, they are best suited to include after you've made your category quotas close to these suggested numbers. For example you might have 9 interactive spells, 9 card draw spells and then add a mystical tutor to effectively bring both of those categories to 10.
@@jayjayhooksch1 Thanks for the response. I agree with you on some level. The way I see card draw is a way to get to your other cards, which is why I think tutors are the same kind of thing. Usually when you're wanting to draw cards, you're wanting some kind of thing, e.g. a board wipe or creature, so tutors are another means to that end :)
@@ubbychubbs4238 3285 decks currently planned out over moxfield tapped out edhrec and 31 notebooks, 6 currently build in budget form 1 built properly. I think I have to agree
I feel you may be able to lower the amount of a category by 1 or 2 depending on if you have cards that tutor up a card of the category, like playing Selesnya and using Open the Armory to get to stuff like Kenrith’s Transformation, Skull Clamp, or Sword of the Animist.
The Command Zone: this tips are for decks in general, of course there are going to be exceptions, It also depends on your commander, play style, etc People in the commants: NO BUT IN ***MY*** DECK...
Wow, idk if I missed this video or maybe I forgot I watched it when it first came out because all that was going on in the world but it's nice to see some *boom-boom-boom* stats in the first 5 minutes.
I've been playing MTG since 2012 but I've done most of my growing in the last 2yrs thanks to channels like the command zone (thank you), My inner circle of magic friends and the awesome homebrew tournaments we would run every other month.
Unless you have a good chunk of your mana base be green, burnished hart being colorless is a lifesaver. Sure the deck has access to green but if you mostly play grixis or esper you have less green mana available to even be able to cast those good ramp spells in the first place. My 5 color decks don’t use burnished hart because it focuses on green, but my 4 color decks that have green are usually just splashing it and use burnished hart because of that
"Think of Demonic Tutor. What is it? Well, it's a card draw card, a ramp card, a board wipe, it is a single target removal spell, it's a standalone card..." You forgot LAND. It can be a land to get you out of that mana screw. It's sad, but if you never had to do it, count your blessings
keep in mind its all of these cards... while being 2 mana more. Thats why tutors are always shit in draft or in general when you have to play "fair" magic, no card is still good if you pay 2 mana and another card for it.
@@ich3730 "Fair magic", as in dealing a quarter million combat damage by turn 6? I have no clue about draft, but never ever would I refer to tutors as being bad even in "fair" magic. Which for me means winning exclusive by non-infinite means but otherwise mostly unrestricted deckbuilding. That isn't to say infinite combos are unfair, but if you're playing tutors AND infinite combos, you might as well play actual cEDH decks.
One of the main reasons I keep Dryad Arbor in my Meren deck is because it's a land I can Fauna Shaman or Fiend Artist for and I actually have been in situations where I needed to do that to get a third land.
The first video I've ever watched from the command zone was the first deck template 4 years ago. I was on a losing streak and I Googled how to build a commander deck and that's how I found you guys
My big (recent) level up was diversification. For example: don’t make all your ramp mana dorks, or rocks, or sorceries that ramp basics. Make your ramp a mix of different modalities so no one form of removal or control blows you out. Similarly, with spot removal: sometimes people will have protection from a color on an important permanent. Have answers in different colors and modalities. Not just all blue counterspells or all white instants. This approach upgrades your deck because it makes it more versatile, resilient, and functional.
I HIGHLY recommend mtg forge! You can play several formats against AI. They're kinda dumb, and aren't a perfect simile, but you can really feel out your deck then! Much better than goldfishing imo.
Since I starting building my own decks in January 2018, which I thank you guys for all the advice over the years, was definitely when I learned to not run as many cards that don't do anything on their own. There's a lot of great cards that don't do a lot on their own but are bonkers in tandem with other cards, but I learned you really need to have cards you can play and have an impact right away
I usually watch the old episode before I start throwing a deck together. So I'm on my lunch break thinking about an Obzedat Ghost Council and lo and behold! Thanks for the update!
Thank you for the UPDATE! I've only been playing EDH for a few months and have hit some setbacks on my first few decks. Your guidance and advice for building playable decks is something I look forward to doing now and NOT dreading. Also, I enjoy your advice for fixing pre-con Commander decks as well. Keep up the great work! So Say We All...
"Ramping up to something big" is a common term even outside of Magic. I.e. "That band's bar-room gigs that everyone THOUGHT were bombastic were really just ramping up to what their stadium tours would become." - I think Rampant Growth was just coincidentally named, and is kinda a false etymology for where the term came from inside even Magic itself.
I wanted to point out that I really appreciate how you guys do your own ads- makes it feel really congruent and I don't feel brutally interrupted by them like other channels that cram in generic UA-cam ads
Once I figure out the themes/packages I want to play around in the deck it becomes pretty easy to build it. I think the difficulty comes when you have to cut/substitute cards. Future episode for knowing which cards to cut/sub?
Came back to this video to see if I missed anything and I have built a ton of decks since then. The biggest thing that has helped me is as I am building a deck I have the sleeves for it available. When I put it into the deck I sleeve it up and put it to the side; I do not mess with a card once I sleeve it until I have a really really good reason to or I have played the deck.
Thanks Jimmy and Josh! I'm a new player and I've been watching Command Zone pretty much every night for a month! Tonight I actually did stuff (first time was mana screwed) and won! Yay Command Zone!
Good way to go about checking your numbers is to build your deck in manabox and then tag cards with their roles (e.g. card draw, ramp, etc) Then you can sort by tags and it'll tell you how many cards are in each tag, and they'll appear under everything they were tagged with
Holy crap! Thank you for dropping that dime piece of info! Iv been using that app for a while and I didn't even think about that. 🫡 iv putting that to use Fer sure. Cheers!!
@@cloroxbleach9847no worries! I've also been doing a lot of deckbuilding in moxfield lately and it's great because I can add all the cards to a maybeboard, tag them, then drag and drop them into the main deck
So I'm rewatching these because I'm getting ready to build a Damian discard deck. Lots of good tips for someone that hasn't built a deck in a few years.
When they talked about the change of the manacurve of their decks to lower cmc I thought: off course you play a lower curve because in 2021 a 2 cmc creature makes your Opponents unable to play their commander and a 3 cmc creature makes them unable to draw extra cards. Actually these things are from 2020.
Damn, I haven't played in a while, but a 3 cmc creature that stops your opponents from drawing cards? Damn. I guess at least it's a creature, not like an instant or something.
There's Leovold (banned), Narset parter of veils (not a creature, tho), and Hullbreacher which not only prevents extra card draw for your opponents but it even has an upside. Oh and it has flash too.
Don't forget about OP Agent shutting down all tutor effects better than Aven Mindcensor or T3feri turning off counterspells, or Oko elking someone's commander for eternity, or Dockside Extortionist making between 3 and 12 treasures on turn 2, and a billion other cards that sped up your win conditions.
I mean, there are older 3 cmc cards that prevent extra card draw and 2 cmc cards that prevent casting your commander, these aren't new things. It's just that now there are more of them.
Thanks y’all! I’m in the middle of a move and all of my cards are in storage. I’m made a Tatsunari deck with a bundle box and a precon zendikar deck today with this guide that was so fun to play. I also love the 101 video abut play styles. Magic should be fun. Ten years ago it was gate kept. Magic is for everyone. Love y’all for what you do.
I also had way a lot of lands and mana rocks that I maybe didn’t need, but I learned by playing it that it should be honed with less ramp and more enchantments/mana/draw.
It's hard to not spoil things when you're in the public eye, you're better off just slipping into a coma for a few years. Just call that foreshadowing.
My deck building level up moment was when I decided to do no more mana rocks that are above 2 CMC unless they are particularly synergistic (I.e. Pendant of Prosperity in my Inniaz deck since I can just pass it back to myself and then it becomes insane), and when I started eliminating lands that do not have the ability to enter untapped unless they are particularly synergistic, such as Field of the Dead in any deck that cares about lands, or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in a mono red deck.
Thank you for this I am getting into magic after over a decade it is super fun I got the velociramptor ixalan deck and I wanted to try and make my own! 😊
I organize all my commander decks into categories. My category names, which mostly align with yours, are: Land, Ramp, Interaction (Instead of Removal or Board Wipes), Card Advantage (instead of Draw), Tutor (Includes regrowth effects), and The Meat is a slew of deck-specific categories.
This helped me alot. I just started playing commander after 25 years where i started magic on the Age of 7 :D i just build an Isshin deck because i liked so much how lady danger played it out. That inspired me and i fixed it with more card draws and ramps and cut the number of synergy commander cards. It feels lot stronger now, thank you very much Guys!!
I know that this is an exception to the general guidelines regarding mana curves, but in a deck like Jodah, Archmage Eternal, you're actually probably going to want to be high-mana-curve-centric. Generally you want to be able to do more things faster, but also always consider how your mana curve is going to be affected by your commander (which Josh and JImmy DID touch on). In some cases it's more than "where does my commander fit in my curve?"; it's also "can my commander ENABLE a higher curve?" Good examples of (but not limited to) this other than Jodah, Archmage Eternal are: Golos (pre-ban), Yidris (to an extent), Jodah the Unifier, Horde of Notions (probably), Jeleva, Narset, etc.
Yea, a green selvala deck is just going to have a ton of mana. Not just cause of the ramp, but because big creatures enable huge card draw in green and it takes over a game when you go, 1 drop, 3 drop, 5 drop and draw a card by turn 3.
My big level up moment was when I started taking into account my own player experience into the deckbuilding process, adding cards that are potentially less optimal but make for much more memorable games!
When I played type 1 back in the day, it was normal to see a lot of creatures being played with no abilities. They were good due to P/T vs mana cost ratio for example... Coming back 20 years later and building decks now, ..., no one plays ability-less creatures anymore because overlap is so easy to obtain with all the cards printed since then and so fundamental to the combos/themes people play. (One exception I've seen, bear decks :) )
One thing I would add to the template is we are seeing more 5 and lower cmc/mana value commanders. Not to say you can't have higher-cost commanders but 5 and lower seems to be a sweet spot to recast your commander if it's removed a couple times. Games are faster as you guys mentioned so having a 7 cmc commander that costs 9 the next cast really isn't very efficient.
Haven't had an opportunity to play games for a good while, but have been having fun brewing new decks or tuning my older ones. This episode was a lot of fun and gave me a little urge to go back through my older decks and be more critical.
For me, it was when I created my Kess wheels deck. My first approach was to do a Grixis Storm/combo strategy, but often I lose focus while deck building. So, I changed directions. I separated everything by wheels, and wheel payoffs along with Mana rocks and card draw. Keeping a simple strategy led to bigger plays, and better game play experience, plus the deck was more enjoyable to pilot. Kess is also an underrated Wheels Commander IMO.
I recently started just adding some neat little lore references or just things that make me chuckle, because of the way the art goes together, all in a way that is either stricly better or at least replaces a card without decreasing the quality of the deck.
Mana curve changes make me sad. The reason I loved and got into commander was that you can play big splashy cards which are pretty bad in other smaller formats and they work. Now everyone has brought the curve down it just isn't viable anymore which just makes decks all seem more samey and not so different to those older formats.
Just have the conversation about power creep.... if a few want to build cEDH decks do it so theres matchups to be had. My play groups solution was for everyone to build a "low power" / "budget" deck or two. Gives us all an option at the dork store when there's new / young players around. I built a $44 eddrik deck because I like him but did NOT want to be the high powered eddrik stereotype.
@@jamesoakley9333 that doesn't solve power creep affecting mana curve at all. If I want to go and sit down at a table with randoms and play that means I either have to play a more tuned and samey deck with a lower mana curve and not much big splashy stuff, or play a weak deck that likely stands no chance because people want to play with the decks they've made which is completely fair. In random match ups it just makes it way less likely you're going to get to play with your favourite deck and still have a chance. 'Have a conversation' is fine to a degree, it can solve individual games if you make sacrifices to what you want to play, but it isn't the solution to the bigger problem and just allows the game to keep creeping further and further
Dont be afraid to tell someone "hey-im not here to sit here and watch you turn 3 the table." If you are playing locally you can choose who you play pick up games with.
I found in Gitrog 45 lands to work perfectly with allowing three of those lands to be some combination of the non-mana lands (Maze of Ith, Dark Depths, Glacial Chasm....)
I think as a deck builder myself, I tend to not really care about the deck being extremely powerful over being flavorful. I will still try to make them the best I can within the given constraint (squirrels for example) but the flavor of the deck is far more important to me than winning anymore.
@Nick Fanchette I agree, I personally like the collecting aspect and don’t use proxies for cards I don’t own, but I don’t mind if others do. I’ve watched / played a fair amount of cEDH in our local meta and command fest Seattle, and it just felt to similar to vintage / legacy. It was a personal choice to strip away the hyper competitive for me and just get back to 93-94. My high school years and enjoy fun / jank brews...
@James Black In my meta we have folks running T&T, Najeela, and many actual cEDH builds. I run coin flip, Toski squirrel tribal, or Yarok Energy. I did say that I build them the best that I can, primarily because my group runs such high power level that they actually want a match, not just someone watching them goldfish. I like EDH because I can attempt to build the best version of something starting as underpowered. I rarely win in my group, but that's not what its about for me. It's for when I can actually make all of my squirrels into druids with Maskwood Nexus, and tap them all using Gilt-Leaf Archdruids ability and get the upper-hand on actual cEDH lists. BTW, coin flip is fun when you have scepter combo and you activate Goblin Festival a thousand times for a flippy version of Walking Ballista...
Ramp is very nuanced. It's worth thinking about how much ramp is dedicated to helping you hit your 3 drops early vs. helping you make your 7/8 drops early. Some late game ramp is totally worth it.
To the listeners - I had two things, first, stop cutting lands to make room for new spice, and second, if you think 8, or 10, or 12 interaction spells is enough, play two to three more.
@Bo Kuen Tao disagree, without enough interaction it becomes “who draws their big must answer threat or value engine first” which isn’t really a choice and studies show more meaningful decision points make more fun
@Bo Kuen Tao again completely disagree, if everyone isn’t playing 12-15 pieces of interaction then odds are people don’t draw it, and games become “who can top deck an answer or we all lose” instead of meaningful choices like should I play my seven drop and hope the turn gets around to me or just scoop to the guy who got lucky because the one card he played shuts off my deck so I have to sit there while the other two people try and find the answer cause I don’t have it in my deck
My most aha moment in commander was easily utility lands that also count as mana. Kor Haven, Memorial to Genuis etc. Going from like 2 or so to at least 6 has given me a ton of outs I would never have had otherwise.
Absolutely fantastic video, chock full of the advice you need to get into this format... thank you, seriously, for putting it all out there in plain, simple terms... Invaluable advice...
For sure been one of the best helpful guides to building EDH I've ever seen. Although personally I really needed the episode on card draw as well. I play a blue deck that has a lot of different creatures that allow you to draw one card one time and have a hard time balancing that
Josh and Jimmy. great show. the only thing i struggle on is not 7+ cmc spells, i usually only have a couple. its 4 and 5 cmc spells as all the good stuff seems to be in that and i always end up wondering if i have two many 5 drops.
10-12 ramp 10 draw 10-12 targeted removal 3-4 wipes 25 standalone (cards that are just good, or synergise with your commander - what your deck wants to do) 10-12 enhancers (additional synergies - cards that aren't necessarily good by themselves but make other cards in your deck even more powerful. For example, Panharmonicon in a flicker deck) 7-8 enablers (cards that cover holes or weaknesses in your strategy. For example, board wipe protection in go-wide decks) All of these number are subject to change to fit the specific needs of your deck. For example, a dedicated ramp deck should probably have more than 12 ramp cards.
I love all the episodes your whole crew does you are all very knowledgeable on all aspects of Magic The Gathering thank you all so much for your time and effort you all put into all these episodes
This makes me kinda sad. I'm in kitchen table meta, all decks are tier 6 tops. Most of us have decks under 80€ and none is above 100, mostly for flavor with cards we've collected over the years. It's really hard to bring players from outside, without him becoming archenemy, if he is playing with newish cards.
@@101Shifty and that's a fun way to play too ... hopefully someone from outside the group could find it a relief to be able to play some card other than all the usual staples and superoptimized and expensive one.
yeah ... Commander is actually turning into multiplayer singleton legacy. I immediately fell in love with EDH when I got back into Magic in 2016, but now to be honest even when the pandmic will be over I don't really feel motivated to play Commander at LGS or GP pods where people are just as competitive at all costs as in Modern or Legacy. Not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that, it is just not my thing personally.
This channel has helped me a lot in building commander decks. Thanks Josh and Jimmy for doing this for years now. Always helpful and I always learn something new. Where was this class in school. Perhaps a extracurricular class???
Ramp: 10-12
Card Draw: 10
Single Target Removal: 10-12
Board Wipes: 3-4
Lands: 35-38
Standalone (cards that are effective by themselves/with commander): 25
Enhancers (cards that amplify or are amplified by standalones or commander): 10-12
Enablers (covers a weakness or fills a gap in your strategy): 7-8
Cards on your theme: 30(ish)
Consider...
Overlaps (cards that count in multiple categories)
Partials (cards that count as 'half' in a given category. E.g. scry 3 as half a card draw card)
Thanks for this! Mystified why it's not in the shownotes. Wouldn't be that hard for the host to copy+paste from their script/notes they're using.
Bump
Thank you, kind friend.
Thanks friend. listened to podcast while driving and didnt want to listen again with a notpad!
I've been using this formula for figuring out my mana curve for years: *[ **_( Average cmc/7cards in opening hand )*99cards in deck = total lands needed in deck_** ]*
Currently I have a deck that seems to needs 44 lands to function. That's 6 lands higher than Jimmy and Josh recommend. Is this formula right, or are they?
Im just gonna assume ramp stands for rapid artificial mana production
Word!
I like this :)
“”Ramp”ant Growth”... lol
Wizards: WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN!!!
Probably additional instead of artificial
Mana Ramp - 10-12 (9:02)
Card Draw - 10 (11:29)
Single Target Removal - 10-12 (13:39)
Board Wipes - 3-4 (14:39)
Standalone - a card that works on it's own or in concert with your commander. (25) (28:46)
Enhancer - a card that either amplifies or is amplified by your commander or standalone cards. (10-12) (32:55)
Enabler - a card that covers a weakness or fills a gap in your strategy. (7-8) (38:49)
Reposted comment by @Spottyfriend from the old video because I found it very helpful (updated and with timestamps).
thank you
You forgot lands.. 34-38
@@TheCarter117Gaming Ah yes. The comment on the old video didn't have the land count so I didn't add it to this one. Thanks though!
A little late for tips, but if anyone sees this, think about creature board wipes that don't hit your commander. If your commander has only 3 toughness, you might not want to play as many -3/-3 board wipes unless you plan on buffing your commander up. If your commander has high toughness, then use toughness-based board wipes.
The reason for doing this is to make your board wipes worthwhile in situations where you're behind and ahead, making them relevant to more games and reducing the times they'll be dead draws. Like what the Josh and Jimmy said about quadrant theory but applied to board wipes.
Deck Building Tip I’ve Learned in the last 7 years of playing Magic: Your deck is never complete. Feel free to change out cards when you realize they don’t work, or they just don’t fit your play style. Commander is so wonderful because everyone builds their deck in a unique way, and everyone changes their deck as time goes on to make them even more unique!
Half the fun of new sets coming out, is figuring out where the new cards might fit into my old commander decks!
Its been interesting to see what people come up with sometimes. I love how decks can reflect a player’s personality.
I totally agree, all my decks have an ever growing pile of cards thrown in the box as new sets come out or I acquire good synergy cards. Then when I want to play the deck again I switch it up, and sometimes do a full re-build.
This. I do the exact same thing
A lot of times, I’ll build a deck. And then I’ll play it a while and realize there are some weird/neat synergies popping up more common than I thought they would or didn’t even think about at all, and I realize I prefer playing the deck that way, so then I go back and change it to work with those more. It’s like I give the deck a basis and then as I play it it starts melding itself to fit my style perfectly.
I would say my biggest deck building "level up" moment would be adding more instant speed interaction to my deck. I usually play very aggressively and proactively, but recently being able to protect my plays and disrupt my opponents has helped me stay more consistent and win more games. Interaction is insanely important.
Oh saaame. Interaction used to infuriate me like “let me resolve my big dudes!” Then when I put interaction in my own decks they suddenly started resolving 🤷♀️ lol
@@CeltiesSin Lmao exactly! Bolt Bend, Deflecting Swat, Blossoming Defense, Heroic Intervention, all those have saved me so many times in my Xenagos deck lmao
Same. I used to play super aggro and ran very few interactions. I’ve been watching more cEDH games on here to learn the importance of interaction and how best to accomplish it.
Ah yes, the art of not playing instants at sorcery speed. Across eras and formats, this is a perennial “level-up moment” for so many MtG players - including me!
I think this also goes for “on-board tricks” and mana sinks. Don’t always do them on your own turn, if you can wait and push it. Keep your options open.
100% agree. Being able to affect the game and play spells on other peoples turns def changes the game
Shared this with my EDH play group. We have some highly experienced and competitive players and some newer, more causal players. This is an awesome resource. Thanks guys!
My biggest level up moment was when I realized that my deck, while empowered and focused around my commander, should still be able to function *without* access to them, since the stronger the commander is, the more prone they are to removal or the more they are considered "kill on sight." This has helped me tremendously when looking at how the rest of the deck interacts with itself as well as the board, and helps reveal weak spots in the deck when it doesn't have the commander to rely on as a crutch for a certain aspect.
my drana kalstria bloodchief has a few strong creatures and and an ob nixilis reignited to help with commander hate.
Secret commander. Where your deck can run with either.
I had a game where my spell slinger deck was up against another spells linger and I won because I built my deck to work without my commander while he didn't. We both had commanders at 8cmc+ lol
And that's why I like Nevinyrral, urborg Tyrant. You kill him, he kills you back
When it comes to Captain N'ghathrod, my first Commander, I've decided to hunt down some other high power Blue and Black creatures that assist to the mill strategy like Mirko Vosk, Fleet Swallower, and other cards that help mill cards quickly so either I can steal them with cards like Extract from Darkness, Captain N'ghathrod, Raise from Dead, etc., swing for serious damage with Guiltfeeder, or exile graveyards with things like Ashiok Dream Render. While also controlling the game with other powerful effects that either eliminate options or help advance my board.
I’ve been referring to that very general term “card draw” as “churn” for a while. Churn can be defined as; effect that allow for more access to spells than you would otherwise have. It encompasses all of the different kinds of draw, pseudo draw, and recursive strategies.
I feel like "card advantage" is really accurate to what they're referring to as draw. Which I think is more valuable than just drawing cards, and fundamentally includes looking at your decks strategy to determine if it give you some form of advantage. At least that's my preferred phrase.
@@ZenelithElm true but his definition includes recursion through eternal witness or graveyard resurrection
Edit: and I suppose even scry applies as "churn" but is not considered card advantage but card selection
@@idenpropovad1034 Scry and even self mill in some cases. Though scry doesn’t exactly fit because it doesn’t give access to the card unless you’re running Eligeth or something, but it could. The amount of value from each kind varied from deck to deck. Deadbridge Chant probably isn’t churn in in a Golos control build, but it sure is in Meren.
@@ZenelithElm Fair enough. You’re probably right about that. I feel like card advantage has different connotations but its close to what Im calling churn. Like, even if you have 7 cards in hand and cast Wheel of fortune, there’s no inherent card advantage there but it could get you a lot of potentially more valuable options in a given situation. I dunno that’s just my take. I feel like “card draw” and “card advantage” mean specific things but players tend to have to explain themselves when they want to include other similarly and relevant parts to that descriptor. Churn is my attempt at just covering all the bases without having to define and subsequently expand upon the old ones to make my point.
@@idenpropovad1034 Personally I view card advantage as anything that's allowing you to see more cards than your opponents, scry falling under that, wheels are a bit different as he noted since it's usually symmetrical.
Tip : I keep a track each game when I’ve got a card in my hand that at that time does nothing. If it appears twice in the list from two games I look to remove it.
hm. That seems like insufficient data to me if you really want to determine wether a card is statistically useless more often than not. Remember, in a singleton format with a 100 cards deck, you still want some more or less situational cards to deal with specific things that someone might do in 1 out of 10 games. Obviously, the best thing you can get is flexible cards with a bunch of modes to choose from. I still don't think I would consider cutting a card from my deck just because it hasn't been great/useful in 2 isolated games.
That is not a bad idea. But I agree with oogaBooga, maybe say four times
I give these cards 4 or 5 chances.
I run a simic leviathan/kraken ramp card draw deck and I can basically put half my deck in my hand by turn 5. I can find out what cards do and don't work fairly quickly! But I still give the card in question 4-5 games just to be sure
Eh, doesn't seem right to me. Not every card can be put in a deck assuming it will be useful at all points in time.
E.g. Say I run Ulamog, and have it in my opening hand two games in a row...By your criteria it would be cut.
Would be really nice for episodes and topics like this, to have it in a written format as well so that I can look at it another time without having to scrub through the video trying to find the info I'm looking for. Same for precon upgrade guides as well. Would go a long ways I think.
I agree. You could just put some bullet points, including the template you talk about the whole episode, in the shownotes/description. That's what I came here looking for.
Yeah, a while ago I made up google doc for myself compiling most of what they went over in their previous video, along with some other things I found helpful. I havent updated it in a bit (going to now that I found this episode), but y’all are welcome to use it: docs.google.com/document/d/13dXoEu_VwuZcrjQUPr6DLFYYBNcRl1a4Mwx4EaRuSfc
@@NazoPureChaos Thanks the doc is really great
This is done on purpose so you have to watch the video.
If you remember keywords you can hit "Show Transcript" in the "..." underneath the video and search through there with Ctrl+F, maybe? Not exactly a good substitute but could help hopefully.
Hi guys. I have watched this 3 times now. Taking better notes every time. And I always catch something that I didn't remember from the time before. Thanks so much for putting this revised version out.
When I first started playing magic I was told 24 lands is a great ratio for a 60 card deck. So I added 12, half of 24, and got 36 lands for an average commander deck, since I wasn't given any advice for EDH just some of the rule changes, played for like half a year before anyone told me about commander damage. Glad to know my weird reasoning gave a pretty good ratio of lands for commander.
My rule of thumb is to start with 40 lands and remove 1 for every 2 ramp sources, only if my average cmc for the deck is 3.00 or lower. If average cmc is greater than 3.00 I remove 1 land for every 3 ramp sources. Works well so far.
I've found that the best place to start shifting the mana value of a deck is with interaction. Taking the 4+ mana value interaction and replacing them with 2-3 cost interaction helps quickly while keeping the feel of the deck theme.
Card draw needs to become card advantage, My Muldrotha deck doesn't run 10 card draw spells, but it never has issues with running out of resources, card draw as a term is to specific.
That's why they included filling the graveyard and impulsive draw as card draw, because it allows you to play more cards. Arterial Flow, for example, is card *advantage*, but not card *draw*.
Agree completely
12:05 they call it card draw, but the loose definition Josh gives is card advantage I'm some way
@@mikeottavia saw that, of course I had already commented
In decks where I want to fill my graveyard and bring cards back from it in some way, I definitely don't run 10 card draw spells but I like having a handful in case the graveyard plan goes sideways or in cases where my access to the graveyard is too limited.
Normally, I would like to put a link to a timestamp to skip through the ads, but this time Im just gonna say: Seriously, take advantage of the betterhelp offer. Mental health is such an underappreciated facet of living a fulfilling life and so many people either feel stigma about confronting it or have been taught they just need to suck it up and the only thing its doing is hurting us and holding us back.
Thanks for getting a sponsorship for something so important on a video you guys knew would see so many eyeballs
Suck it up is actually a odd phrase. Alot of older people (and I mean older than boomer gen) have told me that it doesn't mean literally just deal with it. They explained that it used to mean come to terms with traumas you can't change and heartbreaks you can't mend,. In a way that suits your life goals. And that if something can be changed for the better. Make a plan. And make it happen.
for me the biggest "level up" moment was when I started building my commander decks with one wincon in mind from the beginning. I asked myself "alright, how is this deck gonna win?" before putting the first card into it
Still happening to me
Now its has been 3 years. New one pls ❤❤❤
ENCHANTMENT RAMP - People playing green so often forget to use the 1-2 CMC enchantment ramp like Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, and Fertile Ground - they're very resilient and they *really* help you ramp early game very well. I've replaced cutlivate / kodama's reach with that sorta ramp in my decks nowadays. And just overall bringing down removal and card draw to 3CMC and below, and ramp to 2 CMC and below is just really nice because it means you can set things up nicely, and have room for your splashier plays to be cards that feed into your strategy and commander.
Well, wild growth and utopia sprawl are staples in green splash cedh deck actually... Any thrasios/ikra usually have it on their decklist
These are so underrated, and are incredibly valuable in a Tuvasa deck (Ramp + Card draw + Tuvasa buff)
I knew I leveled up when I had to cut cards I grew very attached to. For me that was Rubblehulk in my Borborygmos Enraged deck. It was my first promo at Gatecrash Prerelease and it's gotten its fair share of gotcha kills. Do any of y'all have a similar experience?
Taking my showcase art brushfire elemental out of my Omnath, Locus of Creation deck was a heart wrencher for sure, especially since every time I kept a starting hand with it, it netted way more damage than it really should have.
Dropping Sol Ring from Marath, Will of the Wild was terrifying. The thing is, Marath doesn't care about +1 mana as much as he cares about ability synergy. The Great Henge was an immediate improvement over Sol Ring that completely changed how the deck functioned fundamentally. Now the deck can Elf-ballfaster than ever by not only paying GG for 2 dorks, but every dork is a cantrip that gets a +1/+1 counter, and Marath gets additional counters whenever he enters the battlefield. He even draws cards when he returns to play while I'm Fireballing the table to death with his ability.
I always want to run the sexy legendary creatures, but they’re always some of the earliest cuts because they just cost too much and don’t fit the theme :/
My big level up moment was realizing I need to cut some of the fun stuff for the utility stuff. It makes it harder building decks because I want to put that big 9 mana card in but intead put in something else that's less splashy and more useful for the majority of the game.
It depends but I usually like the big 8 9 or 10 mana stuff and just find all the ways to cheat them into play. Stuff like artisan ofkozilek and reanimateare great
Use cards that send stuff to the graveyard either through discarding or from the library. Make jank work for you
Yeah, my constraint has now become more that utility cards are expensive and stupid jank is cheap :v
I needed this episode last week, when I was building my very first commander deck... Now I can see where I went wrong...
That’s where you have fun. Build a deck > Aww it’s suck > improve it > it’s work!! It’s satisfying
Welcome to commander! Who did you build?
My first commander deck was mono white angels. It was really bad but I loved playing it
@@LogoMotive11 since it was my very first commander... Koma was the option, I've been playing with several decks built by my boyfriend like Kaalia of the Vast, Niv Mizzet Parun, and Atraxa but when I saw Koma, I told him I wanted it to be another commander deck and he told me it was time for me to build it, of course with a little bit of his help... That's why Koma it's my first Koma-nder ;)
Please do another commander deck LIVE, where you apply this template :D
A better term for "single target removal" might be "targeted interaction" so that it covers counter magic, redirects etc.
EDIT: Also, for "card draw/advantage", I like "card access". Includes card draw, temporary card draw (impulsive draw), card selection (scrying, looting etc.) and tutors.
very nice
I do like your suggestion of targeted interaction but I think tutors should be left out of any individual category. Since they can usually represent anything from removal, to mana, to card advantage etc, they are best suited to include after you've made your category quotas close to these suggested numbers. For example you might have 9 interactive spells, 9 card draw spells and then add a mystical tutor to effectively bring both of those categories to 10.
@@jayjayhooksch1 Thanks for the response. I agree with you on some level. The way I see card draw is a way to get to your other cards, which is why I think tutors are the same kind of thing. Usually when you're wanting to draw cards, you're wanting some kind of thing, e.g. a board wipe or creature, so tutors are another means to that end :)
I just call it "Interaction", and "Card Advantage", respectively.
What a timing, I was just building a new EDH deck. On the other hand, is there ever a time I am not working on a new deck 😅
I think i have more fun brewing as than I do playing the decks I brew...
@@madscientist2621 Really? I find p...... (looks at the 100+ decks on archidekt, moxfield, and tappedout). I agree
Same, designing 5 building 3 currently.
@@ubbychubbs4238 3285 decks currently planned out over moxfield tapped out edhrec and 31 notebooks, 6 currently build in budget form 1 built properly. I think I have to agree
@@alexbevan2183 Are you high? Lol. That's a lot of decks!
"You could call a creature do-nothing if it was, like, a 2-mana 2/2"
_sad Ayula noises_
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I feel you may be able to lower the amount of a category by 1 or 2 depending on if you have cards that tutor up a card of the category, like playing Selesnya and using Open the Armory to get to stuff like Kenrith’s Transformation, Skull Clamp, or Sword of the Animist.
They mentioned that tutors count as every category they can find.
Jimmy: "Where are my artifact equipment creatures?"
Kaldheim Gods: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."
lets also not forget living weapons :)
@@joshuadempsey5281 Thank you!
My illegal ugin deck: “sup?”
Neon Dynasty reconfigure creatures: Hello there
Been waiting a hot 4 years for this update
@@stevendefeo8424 damn bro you right, fuck me for rounding up
@@fellennar So you’ve been waiting 3 years then? Honestly I didn’t find their old template so bad I’ve been waiting for an update at all.
I've been doin it wrong all this time...
Same
@@stevendefeo8424 dafuq
So much info in your vids. I havent played mtg in 20 years but commander brought me back! You’re the best Jimmy & Josh!!
Best overlap card ever. Ugin the ineffable. Ramp, card draw, and removal
I like Freyalise in any elf deck aswell - Ramp, Interaction, potential Card draw
Urza. Ramp, card advantage, token generation.
Particularly in blink decks. When I put Urza in my Brago deck it was wildly better than I'd expected.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury. Can be your commander
Also its colorless.
On the other hand... six-drop.
I really appreciate you you handled advertising for the BETTERHELP service. Jimmy's honesty about seeking a counselor is a much appreciated dialog.
The Command Zone: this tips are for decks in general, of course there are going to be exceptions, It also depends on your commander, play style, etc
People in the commants: NO BUT IN ***MY*** DECK...
All Maelstrom Wanderer needs is half land and land-ramp, and half big payoffs with CMC
In my deck, Royal Herbalist is worth it.
Wow, idk if I missed this video or maybe I forgot I watched it when it first came out because all that was going on in the world but it's nice to see some *boom-boom-boom* stats in the first 5 minutes.
I've been playing MTG since 2012 but I've done most of my growing in the last 2yrs thanks to channels like the command zone (thank you), My inner circle of magic friends and the awesome homebrew tournaments we would run every other month.
My friend sent me this and said "Why isnt burnished hart in your 5 color deck"
Because I have access to green fam.
I didnt have it in mine either... but it actually does help.
Unless you have a good chunk of your mana base be green, burnished hart being colorless is a lifesaver. Sure the deck has access to green but if you mostly play grixis or esper you have less green mana available to even be able to cast those good ramp spells in the first place. My 5 color decks don’t use burnished hart because it focuses on green, but my 4 color decks that have green are usually just splashing it and use burnished hart because of that
"Think of Demonic Tutor. What is it? Well, it's a card draw card, a ramp card, a board wipe, it is a single target removal spell, it's a standalone card..."
You forgot LAND. It can be a land to get you out of that mana screw. It's sad, but if you never had to do it, count your blessings
keep in mind its all of these cards... while being 2 mana more. Thats why tutors are always shit in draft or in general when you have to play "fair" magic, no card is still good if you pay 2 mana and another card for it.
@@ich3730 "Fair magic", as in dealing a quarter million combat damage by turn 6? I have no clue about draft, but never ever would I refer to tutors as being bad even in "fair" magic. Which for me means winning exclusive by non-infinite means but otherwise mostly unrestricted deckbuilding. That isn't to say infinite combos are unfair, but if you're playing tutors AND infinite combos, you might as well play actual cEDH decks.
nothing feels worse than pulling a demonic tutor, an enlightened tutor, and no white mana, and using the demonic to fix your mana ramp.
One of the main reasons I keep Dryad Arbor in my Meren deck is because it's a land I can Fauna Shaman or Fiend Artist for and I actually have been in situations where I needed to do that to get a third land.
Ah yes, I have Demonic Tutored for a Land before.. lol.
The first video I've ever watched from the command zone was the first deck template 4 years ago. I was on a losing streak and I Googled how to build a commander deck and that's how I found you guys
I was about to use your old template...Nice timing on the update. :)
My big (recent) level up was diversification. For example: don’t make all your ramp mana dorks, or rocks, or sorceries that ramp basics. Make your ramp a mix of different modalities so no one form of removal or control blows you out.
Similarly, with spot removal: sometimes people will have protection from a color on an important permanent. Have answers in different colors and modalities. Not just all blue counterspells or all white instants.
This approach upgrades your deck because it makes it more versatile, resilient, and functional.
I HIGHLY recommend mtg forge! You can play several formats against AI. They're kinda dumb, and aren't a perfect simile, but you can really feel out your deck then! Much better than goldfishing imo.
I use this program for years now and it has vastly improved my deck buidling and play style. Also you can play online with friends.
@@MrHeinrichMueller Bruh i used too but how can you play online? I cant.
G2know!
@@MrHeinrichMueller where can I play it? Is it an app, or is it browser based?
hey do you happen to have a link for this? I did some quick googling and nothing really came up
Since I starting building my own decks in January 2018, which I thank you guys for all the advice over the years, was definitely when I learned to not run as many cards that don't do anything on their own. There's a lot of great cards that don't do a lot on their own but are bonkers in tandem with other cards, but I learned you really need to have cards you can play and have an impact right away
Two crucial moments in the video if you want the template numbers 8:00 and 45:00 Btw i love this video and I thank you for making it
Also 16:15
@@Tariq8ification thanks 😁
I usually watch the old episode before I start throwing a deck together. So I'm on my lunch break thinking about an Obzedat Ghost Council and lo and behold! Thanks for the update!
How many spiders should my “oops All spiders “ deck have?!
I think the name says it all.
Lands, and rest spiders
35 ^^
Just Make A Spider Tribal.
At least 65
Thank you for the UPDATE! I've only been playing EDH for a few months and have hit some setbacks on my first few decks. Your guidance and advice for building playable decks is something I look forward to doing now and NOT dreading. Also, I enjoy your advice for fixing pre-con Commander decks as well. Keep up the great work! So Say We All...
Them: I wonder where the term ramp comes from
Literally 2 seconds later starts talking about rampant growth
I honest to God thought it was because it make your mana curve look like a ramp.
...it makes little sense but hey.
Lmao
"Ramping up to something big" is a common term even outside of Magic. I.e. "That band's bar-room gigs that everyone THOUGHT were bombastic were really just ramping up to what their stadium tours would become." - I think Rampant Growth was just coincidentally named, and is kinda a false etymology for where the term came from inside even Magic itself.
@@andrewsparkes8829 I mean I kinda thought of that but I just thought that it was kind of ironic so I just brought it up
I wanted to point out that I really appreciate how you guys do your own ads- makes it feel really congruent and I don't feel brutally interrupted by them like other channels that cram in generic UA-cam ads
Once I figure out the themes/packages I want to play around in the deck it becomes pretty easy to build it. I think the difficulty comes when you have to cut/substitute cards. Future episode for knowing which cards to cut/sub?
They actually do go into this some in the back half of the episode!
Came back to this video to see if I missed anything and I have built a ton of decks since then. The biggest thing that has helped me is as I am building a deck I have the sleeves for it available. When I put it into the deck I sleeve it up and put it to the side; I do not mess with a card once I sleeve it until I have a really really good reason to or I have played the deck.
Hey a natural episode! Been missing those in the middle of the eternal review streaks.
Thanks Jimmy and Josh! I'm a new player and I've been watching Command Zone pretty much every night for a month! Tonight I actually did stuff (first time was mana screwed) and won! Yay Command Zone!
Good way to go about checking your numbers is to build your deck in manabox and then tag cards with their roles (e.g. card draw, ramp, etc)
Then you can sort by tags and it'll tell you how many cards are in each tag, and they'll appear under everything they were tagged with
Holy crap! Thank you for dropping that dime piece of info! Iv been using that app for a while and I didn't even think about that. 🫡 iv putting that to use Fer sure. Cheers!!
@@cloroxbleach9847no worries! I've also been doing a lot of deckbuilding in moxfield lately and it's great because I can add all the cards to a maybeboard, tag them, then drag and drop them into the main deck
So I'm rewatching these because I'm getting ready to build a Damian discard deck. Lots of good tips for someone that hasn't built a deck in a few years.
When they talked about the change of the manacurve of their decks to lower cmc I thought: off course you play a lower curve because in 2021 a 2 cmc creature makes your Opponents unable to play their commander and a 3 cmc creature makes them unable to draw extra cards. Actually these things are from 2020.
Damn, I haven't played in a while, but a 3 cmc creature that stops your opponents from drawing cards? Damn. I guess at least it's a creature, not like an instant or something.
There's Leovold (banned), Narset parter of veils (not a creature, tho), and Hullbreacher which not only prevents extra card draw for your opponents but it even has an upside. Oh and it has flash too.
Don't forget about OP Agent shutting down all tutor effects better than Aven Mindcensor or T3feri turning off counterspells, or Oko elking someone's commander for eternity, or Dockside Extortionist making between 3 and 12 treasures on turn 2, and a billion other cards that sped up your win conditions.
Tinybones edh deck. 2 mana commander, card draw, and deals damage for card loss. Easy money
I mean, there are older 3 cmc cards that prevent extra card draw and 2 cmc cards that prevent casting your commander, these aren't new things. It's just that now there are more of them.
Thanks y’all! I’m in the middle of a move and all of my cards are in storage.
I’m made a Tatsunari deck with a bundle box and a precon zendikar deck today with this guide that was so fun to play.
I also love the 101 video abut play styles. Magic should be fun. Ten years ago it was gate kept. Magic is for everyone. Love y’all for what you do.
I also had way a lot of lands and mana rocks that I maybe didn’t need, but I learned by playing it that it should be honed with less ramp and more enchantments/mana/draw.
Not gonna lie. Fell asleep listening to this episode and woke up to Gallia shouting about MeUndies. Lmao
I've just played standard for so long but watching your videos makes me want to really try Commander.
Do it!
1:28:32 Coming back to this a year later and Jimmy accidentally predicting the Reconfigure mechanic...
It's hard to not spoil things when you're in the public eye, you're better off just slipping into a coma for a few years. Just call that foreshadowing.
@@RBlair1337 what
My deck building level up moment was when I decided to do no more mana rocks that are above 2 CMC unless they are particularly synergistic (I.e. Pendant of Prosperity in my Inniaz deck since I can just pass it back to myself and then it becomes insane), and when I started eliminating lands that do not have the ability to enter untapped unless they are particularly synergistic, such as Field of the Dead in any deck that cares about lands, or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in a mono red deck.
The time of confusion is over now.
For the next two years anyway!
Yes, but the land of confusion has yet to dawn!
the custom categories on tapped out are a great way to help track category coverage with overlap.
Gallia as a Valley girl is hilarious, I must now speak as a Valley girl while playing my deck.
I thought the sane
And such a chin as well!
Recently I use your template to help my friend form a edh deck and we test play it and we have fun thanks command zone. =)
Can't wait until everyone starts curving out at one.
That will be "fun".
That just means Sol Ring will be super viable!!
Isn’t that a modern deck?
@@althaearatliffthereligion you mean the one that uses ornamental theater and that land that turns into a 1/1?
@@jacobdancey145 ornamental theater
Thank you for this I am getting into magic after over a decade it is super fun I got the velociramptor ixalan deck and I wanted to try and make my own! 😊
Josh at 10:59 - I don't know where the term ramp comes from.
Josh at 11:00 - Rampant Growth...
At 10:45 he makes a guess that it may be named after the card, after the fact he clears up that he doesn't actually know where the term comes from.
I organize all my commander decks into categories. My category names, which mostly align with yours, are: Land, Ramp, Interaction (Instead of Removal or Board Wipes), Card Advantage (instead of Draw), Tutor (Includes regrowth effects), and The Meat is a slew of deck-specific categories.
I love the look on Josh's face when Jimmy hits the seamless Segway to plugging the sponsors 😂
The scooter is a Segway. The original word is spelled segue.
This helped me alot. I just started playing commander after 25 years where i started magic on the Age of 7 :D i just build an Isshin deck because i liked so much how lady danger played it out. That inspired me and i fixed it with more card draws and ramps and cut the number of synergy commander cards. It feels lot stronger now, thank you very much Guys!!
I know that this is an exception to the general guidelines regarding mana curves, but in a deck like Jodah, Archmage Eternal, you're actually probably going to want to be high-mana-curve-centric. Generally you want to be able to do more things faster, but also always consider how your mana curve is going to be affected by your commander (which Josh and JImmy DID touch on). In some cases it's more than "where does my commander fit in my curve?"; it's also "can my commander ENABLE a higher curve?" Good examples of (but not limited to) this other than Jodah, Archmage Eternal are: Golos (pre-ban), Yidris (to an extent), Jodah the Unifier, Horde of Notions (probably), Jeleva, Narset, etc.
Yea, a green selvala deck is just going to have a ton of mana. Not just cause of the ramp, but because big creatures enable huge card draw in green and it takes over a game when you go, 1 drop, 3 drop, 5 drop and draw a card by turn 3.
My big level up moment was when I started taking into account my own player experience into the deckbuilding process, adding cards that are potentially less optimal but make for much more memorable games!
I never go below 35 lands, but I also never go above 38, this made me feel good about my choices!
I go 40 lands for lands matter decks and I have 33 or 32 for elves cause mana dorks etc
When I played type 1 back in the day, it was normal to see a lot of creatures being played with no abilities. They were good due to P/T vs mana cost ratio for example... Coming back 20 years later and building decks now, ..., no one plays ability-less creatures anymore because overlap is so easy to obtain with all the cards printed since then and so fundamental to the combos/themes people play. (One exception I've seen, bear decks :) )
Ive been playing the 10 theory (10 draw, 10 ramp etc ) since I have been making my decks in google spreadsheets back in '09
I do this also. I just dont add removal at all. Mine is ramp, draw, tutor
One thing I would add to the template is we are seeing more 5 and lower cmc/mana value commanders. Not to say you can't have higher-cost commanders but 5 and lower seems to be a sweet spot to recast your commander if it's removed a couple times. Games are faster as you guys mentioned so having a 7 cmc commander that costs 9 the next cast really isn't very efficient.
Can we get a template image of this? Id like to compare the two templates when using a commander, this would further my deck building ideas in a way.
ramp 10-12
card draw 10
targeted removal 10-12
board wipes 3 maybe 4
lands 35-38
meat and potatoes ~30
what's my goal
how will it end the game
@@MrObsidianJeff i meant like them making an image with it laid out, I am a visual learner when it comes to MTG.
16:19
45:00
These time stamps have their template numbers bud.
@@TheMystcast I forget what the template from the old one is..
Haven't had an opportunity to play games for a good while, but have been having fun brewing new decks or tuning my older ones. This episode was a lot of fun and gave me a little urge to go back through my older decks and be more critical.
Noooooo, what happened to the song in the beginning?!😱
For me, it was when I created my Kess wheels deck.
My first approach was to do a Grixis Storm/combo strategy, but often I lose focus while deck building. So, I changed directions. I separated everything by wheels, and wheel payoffs along with Mana rocks and card draw. Keeping a simple strategy led to bigger plays, and better game play experience, plus the deck was more enjoyable to pilot. Kess is also an underrated Wheels Commander IMO.
57:30 I don't think that preview has been posted yet?
Nope! They sure did goof, lol!
I recently started just adding some neat little lore references or just things that make me chuckle, because of the way the art goes together, all in a way that is either stricly better or at least replaces a card without decreasing the quality of the deck.
Look at how young the boys looked. They are so precious
All (except sol lands I guess) of your ramp in an artifact deck is also in your on theme category. That's part of why I love them so much.
Mana curve changes make me sad. The reason I loved and got into commander was that you can play big splashy cards which are pretty bad in other smaller formats and they work. Now everyone has brought the curve down it just isn't viable anymore which just makes decks all seem more samey and not so different to those older formats.
Just have the conversation about power creep.... if a few want to build cEDH decks do it so theres matchups to be had. My play groups solution was for everyone to build a "low power" / "budget" deck or two. Gives us all an option at the dork store when there's new / young players around. I built a $44 eddrik deck because I like him but did NOT want to be the high powered eddrik stereotype.
@@jamesoakley9333 that doesn't solve power creep affecting mana curve at all. If I want to go and sit down at a table with randoms and play that means I either have to play a more tuned and samey deck with a lower mana curve and not much big splashy stuff, or play a weak deck that likely stands no chance because people want to play with the decks they've made which is completely fair. In random match ups it just makes it way less likely you're going to get to play with your favourite deck and still have a chance. 'Have a conversation' is fine to a degree, it can solve individual games if you make sacrifices to what you want to play, but it isn't the solution to the bigger problem and just allows the game to keep creeping further and further
Dont be afraid to tell someone "hey-im not here to sit here and watch you turn 3 the table." If you are playing locally you can choose who you play pick up games with.
@@jamesoakley9333 you seem to just be willfully missing the entire point ^^
I found in Gitrog 45 lands to work perfectly with allowing three of those lands to be some combination of the non-mana lands (Maze of Ith, Dark Depths, Glacial Chasm....)
I think as a deck builder myself, I tend to not really care about the deck being extremely powerful over being flavorful. I will still try to make them the best I can within the given constraint (squirrels for example) but the flavor of the deck is far more important to me than winning anymore.
I mostly agree. I more want a deck that FUNCTIONS than a deck that wins. Winning is nice though, I'd like to do that sometimes.
@James Black www.archidekt.com/decks/953365#Coin_Flip
This is one of my lists. On theme, but as good as I could make it.
@James Black cedh is just pay to win, why bother? It's supposed to be a social multiplayer game not a turn 2 combo win game.
@Nick Fanchette I agree, I personally like the collecting aspect and don’t use proxies for cards I don’t own, but I don’t mind if others do. I’ve watched / played a fair amount of cEDH in our local meta and command fest Seattle, and it just felt to similar to vintage / legacy. It was a personal choice to strip away the hyper competitive for me and just get back to 93-94. My high school years and enjoy fun / jank brews...
@James Black In my meta we have folks running T&T, Najeela, and many actual cEDH builds. I run coin flip, Toski squirrel tribal, or Yarok Energy. I did say that I build them the best that I can, primarily because my group runs such high power level that they actually want a match, not just someone watching them goldfish. I like EDH because I can attempt to build the best version of something starting as underpowered. I rarely win in my group, but that's not what its about for me. It's for when I can actually make all of my squirrels into druids with Maskwood Nexus, and tap them all using Gilt-Leaf Archdruids ability and get the upper-hand on actual cEDH lists. BTW, coin flip is fun when you have scepter combo and you activate Goblin Festival a thousand times for a flippy version of Walking Ballista...
Ramp is very nuanced. It's worth thinking about how much ramp is dedicated to helping you hit your 3 drops early vs. helping you make your 7/8 drops early. Some late game ramp is totally worth it.
Yeah but I dont consider caged sun or the like count because at 6 mana, you're creating your win con. More of a synergy piece than anything else
To the listeners - I had two things, first, stop cutting lands to make room for new spice, and second, if you think 8, or 10, or 12 interaction spells is enough, play two to three more.
@Bo Kuen Tao disagree, without enough interaction it becomes “who draws their big must answer threat or value engine first” which isn’t really a choice and studies show more meaningful decision points make more fun
@Bo Kuen Tao again completely disagree, if everyone isn’t playing 12-15 pieces of interaction then odds are people don’t draw it, and games become “who can top deck an answer or we all lose” instead of meaningful choices like should I play my seven drop and hope the turn gets around to me or just scoop to the guy who got lucky because the one card he played shuts off my deck so I have to sit there while the other two people try and find the answer cause I don’t have it in my deck
My most aha moment in commander was easily utility lands that also count as mana. Kor Haven, Memorial to Genuis etc. Going from like 2 or so to at least 6 has given me a ton of outs I would never have had otherwise.
You can really feel the DJ/Kyle Hill influence in this new template.
Absolutely fantastic video, chock full of the advice you need to get into this format... thank you, seriously, for putting it all out there in plain, simple terms... Invaluable advice...
I wish more people watched these
For sure been one of the best helpful guides to building EDH I've ever seen. Although personally I really needed the episode on card draw as well. I play a blue deck that has a lot of different creatures that allow you to draw one card one time and have a hard time balancing that
Josh and Jimmy. great show. the only thing i struggle on is not 7+ cmc spells, i usually only have a couple. its 4 and 5 cmc spells as all the good stuff seems to be in that and i always end up wondering if i have two many 5 drops.
10-12 ramp
10 draw
10-12 targeted removal
3-4 wipes
25 standalone (cards that are just good, or synergise with your commander - what your deck wants to do)
10-12 enhancers (additional synergies - cards that aren't necessarily good by themselves but make other cards in your deck even more powerful. For example, Panharmonicon in a flicker deck)
7-8 enablers (cards that cover holes or weaknesses in your strategy. For example, board wipe protection in go-wide decks)
All of these number are subject to change to fit the specific needs of your deck. For example, a dedicated ramp deck should probably have more than 12 ramp cards.
Josh 'I won't be a musician' sings at the top of his podcast that pays the bills
I love all the episodes your whole crew does you are all very knowledgeable on all aspects of Magic The Gathering thank you all so much for your time and effort you all put into all these episodes
Interessting fact:
The new recommended amount of Ramp Draw etc. has evolved directly in the direction of what you want in CEdh
This makes me kinda sad. I'm in kitchen table meta, all decks are tier 6 tops. Most of us have decks under 80€ and none is above 100, mostly for flavor with cards we've collected over the years. It's really hard to bring players from outside, without him becoming archenemy, if he is playing with newish cards.
They did say the EDH meta as a whole is getting faster and cEDH is just the fastest meta of the format so it’s not a huge surprise.
@@101Shifty and that's a fun way to play too ... hopefully someone from outside the group could find it a relief to be able to play some card other than all the usual staples and superoptimized and expensive one.
yeah ... Commander is actually turning into multiplayer singleton legacy.
I immediately fell in love with EDH when I got back into Magic in 2016, but now to be honest even when the pandmic will be over I don't really feel motivated to play Commander at LGS or GP pods where people are just as competitive at all costs as in Modern or Legacy.
Not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that, it is just not my thing personally.
@@ROMANTIKILLER2 There is a thing called discuss what you expect from the game as in how bs you want one to be or not
This channel has helped me a lot in building commander decks. Thanks Josh and Jimmy for doing this for years now. Always helpful and I always learn something new. Where was this class in school. Perhaps a extracurricular class???