While what laying out your mana curve is a great starting point, I suggest one more thing before starting to play. The term I’m going to use is “turn mapping” where we lay things out not strictly by mana value, but by what turn we expect to play that card. Chatterfang’s mana value is three, so most of the time (there are always edge cases) he will be your turn three play, assuming you’re making your land drops every turn. Once you’ve got your first draft of the deck, I suggest you lay it out in stacks organized by mana value.
No Secondary Commander
Soul-Guide Lantern is a suberb example of a graveyard-hate card that you can use to draw a card if it’s not useful that particular game. Fortunately, there are many ways to ramp in almost every type of deck. Creatures that make mana (mana dorks), artifacts that make mana (mana rocks), Rampant Growth-type effects, “rituals” like Dark Ritual, cards that make Treasure tokens; the list goes on and on. The Mutant Menace deck is stretched around several different themes – from milling to +1/+1 counters to reanimation. And yet it doesn’t feel unfocused, partly because of the engine that is the Wise Mothman, which really works to tie the deck together. Able to swiftly build up a board of beefy creatures, ping opponents with burn damage, or take to the skies and kill with a few good hits with a commander, this deck has all sorts of roads to victory.
Additionally, whenever Oloro’s controller gains life (something they will be doing each turn regardless), they can pay one mana to draw a card. Like Edgar Markov, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic is a commander that benefits its controller even when it isn’t in play. Causing its controller to gain two life at the beginning of its controller’s upkeep, regardless of whether or not it’s in play, Oloro is a consistent means of ensuring its controller will always have a stable life total. Until next time, enjoy Magic, and have a lot of fun with your new Commander deck.
The more mana you have, the more you can do with the rest of your cards. And if you have more mana than your opponents, then the bigger edge you’ll have over them. One of my biggest deckbuilding level-ups was when I started by adding my wincons first instead of last, then built the rest of the deck towards them. At the end of the day, when you’re getting a free, massive dinosaur every turn it’s hard not to win games.
Mana Acceleration (A.K.A Ramp)
That being said, I would probably steer you away from Surrak Eldrazi, between the basically 4c budget manabase () and the inherent hate players have for eldrazi, it might be an idea to table for now. Brian played Magic intermittently between 2003 and 2017 when he fully embraced his love for Commander. Finding ways mtg card to maximize the value of each piece of cardboard in the deck is one of his favorite things to explore, especially if it involves putting lands in the graveyard! Outside of Magic, Brian works as a consultant in the marine industry, turning his passion for boats and ships into a career. Including the right number of cards from the different categories will be important to how your deck functions, and looking at your general game plan by mapping out your turns can help you envision your path to victory. Using Heroic Intervention again, maybe you want to make sure you have the mana available to play it on turn six, when your Squirrel token machine is humming right along.
Another way to use EDHREC to help you find your wincons is to go to your commander’s page. It’s important to include enough cards that can end the game, or at least push your deck’s primary strategy forward so that you’ll reliably have access to these cards. For example, a common win condition in an Elf deck is Craterhoof Behemoth. If it’s your only wincon, you might go an entire game without seeing it. Vampiric Bloodlust is an EDH deck running the ever-popular Aristocrats strategy. It’s a very expensive deck right now, thanks to Edgar’s price, and the inclusion of format all-star Teferi’s Protection.
Having around 36 land cards is standard for a Commander deck. You’ll want to figure out the mana curve of your deck is; that is to say how many cards of each mana value your deck has. This will help you decide how many land cards you need to put your plans in motion. It’s okay that Return of the Wildspeaker costs five mana because you’ll get the most use out of it later in the game, with a large creature on the battlefield and only a few cards (if any) left in your hand.
The other 26 creatures are Zombies, and will take advantage of various payoffs your deck has to offer. You have a bunch of strong Zombie tribal cards, for example Liliana’s Mastery, Cemetery Reaper, and Gravespawn Sovereign. These are just a few of them, and you’ll certainly find even more hidden synergies when you actually play with this precon. “Hate” cards are another type of card that combat a specific archetype.
Meanwhile, Isperia, Supreme Judge doesn’t initially speak, hey this is a fliers matters deck, but the title of the deck should clear up some confusion — First Flight. This is a fliers matter deck and playing it makes it very clear that this deck really cares about having lots of fliers and utilizing them to soar to victory. Beginners should easily be able to pick up these decks, pilot them, and have a blast doing so.
Artifact decks are a popular strategy that can really be hurt by something like Manglehorn. I usually play decks that focus on the graveyard (another popular strategy), so Rest in Peace gives me nightmares. The best way to do that is increasing the number of cards you can play in a game. Some would call this “card advantage” or just straight up “card draw” but I think the concept is a lot more nuanced than that. I like the term “velocity” because it evokes a feeling of speeding through your deck, and there are different ways to do that.
Party Time
One of the ways to alleviate some of the issues you may have in adapting to this environment is choosing the correct deck. You can choose one that plays to your strengths, one that will teach you something about Magic or the cEDH metagame, or you can just try to keep your head above water. One of the strongest options players have when seeking to build a quick and aggressive Commander deck is the vampire-tribal commander Edgar Markov.
You also want to be in control of the game – it should play out in a way that you imagine, and without too much randomness. Although the decks are cheaper, and have fewer valuable cards than the more expensive versions, that doesn’t mean that they don’t contain good cards. You’ll find many powerful cards such as Blasphemous Act, Army of the Damned, True Conviction, and many more. Naturally, Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are also included in each Starter Commander deck. There’s really been quite a few preconstructed Commander products this year.