I've been posting tournament reports lately but I wanted to try something else.
Commander or EDH is currently 100% my favorite way to play magic. You get to play cards that would otherwise be completely useless, attack with gigantic monsters and pull off silly plays that end up being powerful somehow. There's generally not a cut-throat attitude, at least not in my playgroup, and the only wrong plays are those that piss off your opponents.
The best thing about Commander, to me anyway, is building a new deck. It feels personal. You're picking 100 weapons to use in battle and there's usually no wrong choices as long as they feel right to you. You can start with a list someone else made and change it to your own masterpiece or choose a commander, a set of colors or even a theme to get you going but from there the only limitations are your card pool and the banned list.
So lets build a deck together from scratch, see where we end up and then I'll try to post some brief explanations of any games I get to play with the deck.
First up we need a Commander or a Theme to build around. I have a lot of ideas swimming around in the old noggin but I think the one we're going to run with is one of the legends from Theros - Anax and Cymede .
I'm picking this Commander for a few reasons. First and foremost, they're flavorful and interesting. I love the idea of the Spartans and these two are supposed to represent the leaders of Akros, Theros's version of Sparta. Second is that I've never made a Red/White Commander deck before and venturing into new territory is pretty exciting. Lastly, I want to fiddle around with some of the Heroic abilities in the new set and I don't think Standard is the place for such things.
Before we dive in I want to address the cost associated with building a Commander deck. The nature of Magic is that good cards are going to generally cost a few bucks. This format throws a wrench into that by making some generally bad cards into all-stars which then makes those cards cost more than they should. There are definitely going to be a few costly Rares and Mythics scattered about the deck but I'm planning to steer clear of the super expensive cards, especially when they can be easily replaced with a cheaper card. I'll also try and explain any pricier inclusions so you'll know why they may be worth your hard-earned bucks.
I want to go ahead and get the mana base out of the way first because it's a lot more important than people realize. When I first started building Commander decks I just threw every single dual land I could find into a pile and called it a day but the more I've gotten to actually play with decks like that the more I've realized the importance of limiting your "Comes Into Play Tapped" lands. That said, being able to cast your spells goes a long way towards making a game of Magic interesting so we're going have a balance of basics and non-basics close to 2 to 1.
Lands - 36
12 Mountain
12 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 City of Brass
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Temple of Triumph
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Boros Garrison
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Command Tower
1 Arid Mesa
1 Mishra's Factory
If I owned a Plateau it'd definitely be in there and I certainly wouldn't fault anyone who wanted to play more things like Terramorphic Expanse or additional fetch lands. I'm not including them because our curve is generally going to be pretty low and being a turn behind will probably hurt us more than a typical Commander deck.
I include the Land Destruction lands not to screw with people casting their spells but to get rid on annoying things like Cabal Coffers, Maze of Ith and Kor Haven.
The costly cards in this group (Arid Mesa , Rugged Prairie and Sacred Foundry) are pretty easily replaceable with either more basic lands or the previously mentioned Terramorphic Expanse or it's brother Evolving Wilds. You'll definitely notice a downgrade in the speed of your mana base but it will still function.
Next up on my list are some basic, utilitarian artifacts that tend to end up in a lot of Commander decks. None of these cards are particularly exciting but they serve a purpose.
Artifacts - 7
1 Sol Ring
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Boros Signet
1 Champion's Helm
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Skullclamp
1 Sunforger
1 Boros Keyrune
Of note is the absence of Lightning Greaves, this is because we plan to target our commander with things which wouldn't be possible if they had shroud. I'm also leaving out some of the more expensive rampy artifacts like Thran Dynamo and Solemn Simulacrum in the hopes that our deck will be a bit on the fast side. We can always readjust in the future if that doesn't work out.
Usually I would play a few copies of equipment in out deck to make our little guys tougher as well as Stoneforge Mystic to search them out. I'm going to ignore that road for now because our Heroic guys want to be targeted with spells rather than equipped but it's possible that we want some Swords, Jittes and Skulls anyway. For now we're going to stick with a lone Sunforger.
Next up are a few White and Red staples, cards that typically will end up in any deck that contains these colors. I know a lot of people hate the idea that any cards are required in a Commander deck but you always want a certain number of answers to hard to deal with permanents and these cards are some of the best. It's also important to know that all of these things can be found with Sunforger
Utility - 6
1 Oblation
1 Chaos Warp
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Return to Dust
1 Disenchant
1 Vandalblast
Now that we've got all the somewhat boring things out of the way, it's time to hit up the ol' Gatherer search and find a list of Heroic creatures in our colors. After that we'll try to add in a few other critters that will play nicely with them and maybe some ways to pump 'em up.
Gatherer spits out a few creatures when you search "Heroic" but these are the ones we want to look at in addition to our Commander:
1 Akroan Crusader
1 Arena Athlete
1 Fabled Hero
1 Favored Hoplite
1 Phalanx Leader
I left out Labrynth Champion and Wingsteed Rider because I would rather cast my Commander than these guys every single time but I'm open to the idea that I'm wrong. In addition to these guys I want a few creatures that are good with Pump Spells and Enchantments as well as some generally powerful creatures that work well with my Commander's anthem-like ability.
1 Silverblade Paladin
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Emeria Angel
1 Boros Swiftblade
1 Fencing Ace
1 Markov Blademaster
1 Weathered Wayfarer
These are far from the only possible candidates out there. I tried to stay with cheaper creatures since we're never going to be able to compete with the massive monsters other players will be ramping to. Our best chance is to get in there before they're set up and smash 'em up.
Now we need some good heroic enablers. This is going to be tough because pump spells are generally way too low-impact for a BIG format like Commander. We need to find some effects that draw a card, do powerful things or both. This is going to end up being the make-or-break for this deck but I'm hopeful that throughout the years enough of what we're looking for has been printed.
Heroic Enablers
1 Angelic Destiny
1 Dragon Mantle
1 Chosen By Heliod
1 Coordinated Assault
1 Crown of Flames
1 Flickering Ward
1 Mark of Fury
1 Blades of Velis Vel
1 Carom
1 Guided Strike
1 Spirit Loop
There are a lot of cheap instants that target our guys and draw cards that I'm not sure how to feel about. On the one hand, they seem fine as long as we have a Heroic creature on the board. On the other hand, they don't really do anything BUT target our guys and cost mana. I did include a couple of actual pump spells that let us trigger 2 Heroic folks at once to try them out even though they may end up being too low-impact. I didn't include anything with Bestow because of the high mana cost to actually bestow them although I could see trying out Hopeful Eidolon since he's on the cheap side.
Some things I'm pretty excited about are a few Auras that allow us to return them to our hand for a minor cost. This lets us trigger Heroic as many times as we have mana to pay for it and could be extremely powerful. This also opens us up to a draw engine from some of the White Enchantress - type creatures: Kor Spiritdancer and Mesa Enchantress.
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Kor Spiritdancer
Kor Spiritdancer may seem a little on the pricey side at $8 but I think she's worth the investment for Commander since she can fit into a lot of different decks. You could definitely leave her out but I'm excited about looping the bouncing enchantments to refill my hand.
Another type of card I want to include a few of are ways to protect our creatures and permanents from sweepers and targeted removal. This isn't the kind of effect you want to play too many of because they're situational but in the right circumstances they can win you a game. In addition, a couple of these are targeted and will trigger our dudes.
Protection
1 Boros Charm
1 Faith's Shield
1 Brave the Elements
1 Shelter
1 Boros Fury-Shield
We aren't quite a weenie deck but it never hurts to have some beef added to our team.
Global Pumpers
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Glorious Anthem
1 Marshal's Anthem
We don't want too many of these effects since they cost a bit of mana and don't do anything by themselves, however it's pretty important for our little guys to survive things like Elesh Norn that tend to end up in most decks that can play them. It doesn't hurt that one of our local players always plays a deck with Elesh as his actual Commander.
Looking over our current list the whole thing feels a little on the weak side. I want to add some generally powerful cards to supplement our guys that depend on synergy to kick butt. Enter:
Powerful Things
1 Assemble to Legion
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
1 Figure of Destiny
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Gideon's Lawkeeper
1 Goldmeadow Harrier
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Goblin Trenches
1 Nevermore
It'd be pretty easy to just throw in Avacyn, Elesh Norn and some Primordials and just call it a day but I'm trying to stay away from that route. It seems strange to build a Commander deck while consciously avoiding some of the best creatures ever printed but I've played those creatures so many times that they aren't as exciting as they used to be. Those tappers may look strange but they're a pretty decent answer to some of the most powerful creatures like Eldrazi and don't turn on your opponent's reanimation spells.
At this point I have about 12-14 card slots left and I think they need to be a combination of more threats and ways to pull ahead in cards. Currently we're pretty solidly locked into the top of our deck unless we happen to find one of our Enchantresses and that definitely needs to change. Despite my desire to steer clear, it looks like we're going to have to add in Stoneforge Mystic to help us find both Sunforger and Skullclamp.
As long as we're leaning a little bit more on the ol' hammer we may as well bring in a little more utility for it and some more ways to make sure we have access to it.
I'm also adding Mentor of the Meek since most of our guys will trigger him.
Sunforger Things
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Apostle's Blessing
1 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Sun Titan
1 Mentor of the Meek
Stoneforge Mystic is a little on the pricey side at $13 but she's definitely one of the more powerful 2 cost creatures ever printed. You could sub in Stonehewer Giant and you could even make an argument for him alongside Mysty but he is a lot slower, especially in a deck like this.
I'm sitting at 97 cards now including the Commander and I've officially run out of things I know I want in the deck. This is where I dig through my "Box O Commander Gold" and see if anything strikes me as particularly sweet. Here's what I found to round out the last few slots:
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
1 Wear // Tear (can't believe I forgot about this one for so long...)
This puts us right on the nose at 100 cards and I'm ready to put the deck together and play some games. I'm pretty impressed with how the deck turned out to be mostly budget friendly without me setting out to do that and I'm pretty excited to see how it works out.
Here's a link to the deck on tapped out - Deck Link!
Looking at the breakdown of the deck on Tapped Out I already know I need more white sources....
Check back with me later on, I'll have a post up with a description of some games as well as any changes that need to happen.
As always, please let me know what you thought!
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