Commander Cards in Magic: The Gathering

Beyond color identity, your Commander often determines the strategy of your deck. Some Commanders are aggressive and you’ll want to build an aggro deck, others might be control, combo, or midrange. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your commander is key to building a cohesive and powerful deck.

4. Building Your Commander Deck

Building a Commander deck is as much of an art as it is a science. It’s a combination of selecting cards that support your Commander and make your deck function well across different parts of the game.

The Command Zone is where a player's Commander card is placed before it enters play, allowing players to cast their Commander from that zone and providing additional rules for how Commanders are handled when they leave the battlefield.

Choosing Your Commander

The first step in building a Commander deck is choosing your Commander. This will influence every other decision in your deck building process. When choosing a Commander consider:

• Playstyle Preference: Do you like aggro decks, control decks or combo decks? Your playstyle should guide your Commander choice.

• Power Level: Are you building a casual deck or competitive Commander deck for cEDH? The power level of your Commander will impact your deck’s overall strength.

• Synergy Potential: Does your Commander synergize with certain strategies or card types? Commanders like "Muldrotha, the Gravetide" has graveyard recursion, while "Niv-Mizzet, Parun" rewards you for casting instants and sorceries.

  

Color Identity

Once you’ve chosen your Commander, the next step is to understand its color identity. Color identity is determined by the mana symbols on your Commander’s card, including those in its rules text. Cards in your deck must match the color identity of your Commander.

Each color in MTG has its own strengths and weaknesses:

• White: Board control, life gain, creature support.

• Blue: Card draw, counterspells, tempo control.

• Black: Removal, recursion, life drain.

• Red: Direct damage, speed, chaos.

• Green: Ramp resources, big creatures, mana fixing.

Card Choices

When choosing cards for your deck, aim for a balance of:

• Ramp: Cards that accelerate your mana production like "Cultivate" or "Sol Ring" are must haves so you can cast your spells on time.

• Card Draw: Consistent card draw helps you keep a full hand, providing options, and allowing you to execute your strategy. Cards like "Rhystic Study" and "Phyrexian Arena" are staples in many Commander decks.

• Removal: Include both targeted removal (e.g. "Swords to Plowshares") and board wipes (e.g. "Wrath of God") to deal with threats.

• Win Conditions: These are the cards or combos that will ultimately win you the game. For some decks this will be an infinite combo, for others it will be overwhelming your opponent with creatures.

Lands

Your mana base, or the lands you choose, are key to a successful Commander deck. They should provide consistent access to all the colors of mana that you need and some utility lands that synergize with your strategy.

Consider:

• Dual Lands: Cards like "Command Tower" and Shock Lands (e.g. "Breeding Pool") to help fix your mana by giving the flexibility to produce multiple colors of mana.

• Utility Lands: Lands like "Strip Mine" or "Gavony Township" provide extra value beyond just mana. Look for lands that can become creatures or that can create creature tokens.

• Basic Lands: Don’t underestimate the power of basic lands, especially in decks that use cards like "Back to Basics" or "Extraplanar Lens".

5. Cards in Every Commander Deck

While every Commander deck is different, some cards are so powerful and versatile they find their way into many decks. These are called "staples".

Staples Across All Colors

Some cards are good in almost any Commander deck, regardless of color:

• Sol Ring: This artifact is the most played card in Commander, gives you an insane amount of mana for 1 colorless mana.

• Command Tower: A land that taps for any color in your commander’s color identity, so it’s a must have for any multicolor deck.

• Arcane Signet: A 2-mana artifact that taps for any color in your commander’s identity, another auto-include in most decks.

• Cyclonic Rift: A blue instant that bounces all nonland permanents your opponents control back to their hands, often wins the game.

• Teferi’s Protection: A white instant that phases you and your permanents out of the game, protects you from almost any threat.

Multicolor and Artifact Staples

For multicolor or artifact based decks:

• Chromatic Lantern: This artifact makes all your lands tap for any color of mana, fixes even the most broken mana bases.

• Farseek: A green sorcery that ramps and fixes your colors by searching for dual lands.

• Darksteel Ingot: An indestructible artifact that taps for any color of mana, ramps and resilient.

Commander Specific Cards

Some cards (perhaps most?) are designed with Commander in mind:

• Rhystic Study: A blue enchantment that draws you cards whenever your opponents cast spells unless they pay extra mana.

• Smothering Tithe: A white enchantment that gives you treasure tokens whenever an opponent draws a card, gets you resources fast.

• Doubling Season: A green enchantment that doubles your token creation and counters, a staple in many token or planeswalker decks.

• Aetherflux Reservoir: An artifact that rewards you for casting spells by giving you life, can deal 50 damage to any target if your life total is high enough.

6. Commander Card Interactions

As you get more comfortable with the format you’ll start to explore advanced strategies that take your game to the next level. Combat damage is a crucial concept where a player loses if they incur 21 or more combat damage from the same Commander, emphasizing the significance of damage dealt by Commanders within the game. These strategies often revolve around maximizing the synergy between your Commander and the rest of your deck.

Synergy and Combos

One of the key features of high level Commander play is synergy and combos. Synergy is when cards in your deck work together to do something powerful, combos are specific interactions that can win you the game.

• Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts: This combo creates infinite Zealous Conscripts, wins if your opponents can’t stop it.

• Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood: When both are on the board they create an infinite loop of life gain and loss, eventually draining all opponents to 0 life.

• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion: This combo lets you deal infinite damage by removing counters from Triskelion, then bringing it back with Mikaeus for more counters.

Ramp and Mana Efficiency

Ramp is key in Commander because it lets you cast big spells early. Good ramp cards give you an advantage by accelerating your mana.

• Kodama’s Reach and Cultivate: These green spells search for basic lands and put them onto the battlefield or into your hand, so you hit your land drops.

• Mana Crypt and Mana Vault: These artifacts give you explosive mana acceleration, at the cost of life or you having to pay extra mana later.

• Smothering Tithe: As mentioned above, this card can get you a ton of mana by producing Treasure tokens whenever your opponents draw cards.

Card Draw and Tutoring

Consistent card draw and tutoring is key to your deck running smoothly. During the draw step, certain cards can influence the drawing of cards, impacting your gameplay strategy significantly. These cards keep your hand full and let you find specific cards when you need them.

• Mystic Remora: A blue enchantment that draws you cards whenever your opponents cast non-creature spells unless they pay extra mana.

• Demonic Tutor: A black sorcery that lets you search your library for any card and put it into your hand, one of the most powerful tutors in the game.

• Sylvan Library: A green enchantment that lets you look at the top 3 cards of your library each turn and draw additional cards at the cost of life.

7. The Commander Meta

The Commander meta is the current trends, strategies and popular decks in the format. The meta can vary greatly depending on your playgroup, local game store or online communities.

• Competitive Commander (cEDH): In competitive play the meta is often defined by combo decks and powerful, efficient commanders. Decks like Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver are popular because they’re versatile and powerful.

• Casual Commander: In casual play the meta might favor fun, thematic decks that aren’t optimized for power but offer unique and fun gameplay.

• Group Dynamics: In Commander politics play a big role. The meta can be influenced by the personalities and preferences of the players in your group. Knowing your group’s dynamics can help you build your deck to the environment.

8. Budget Commander Decks

Building a Commander deck can be expensive, especially if you want to include the big powerful staples. But you can build a competitive and fun deck on a budget.

Prioritize Key Cards

Identify the key cards for your deck’s strategy and prioritize those. For example if you’re building a Meren of Clan Nel Toth Commander deck focused on graveyard recursion, focus on budget recursion and sacrifice outlets before looking at the more expensive options.

Use Budget Alternatives

Many expensive cards have budget alternatives that do the same thing just not as efficiently.

For example:

• Expensive: Mana Crypt

• Budget Alternative: Mind Stone

• Expensive: Cyclonic Rift

• Budget Alternative: Aetherize

Synergy Over Power

Synergy can often make up for the lack of expensive, powerful cards. A deck built around strong synergies can do well without the most expensive staples.

Use Commons and Uncommons

Some of the best cards in Commander are commons and uncommons that offer great value. Cards like Ponder, Preordain and Terminate are inexpensive but extremely effective in the right decks.

9. Conclusion: Commander Cards MTG

Commander is a format that’s all about creativity, strategy and the social aspect of Magic: The Gathering. Whether you’re building your first deck or tuning a competitive list, understanding Commander cards in MTG is key to your success. By choosing your Commander, building a balanced deck and mastering the advanced strategies you can make a powerful and fun Commander deck that reflects your style and personality.

The world of Commander is vast and ever changing, new cards and strategies are emerging all the time. Stay up to date and keep refining your deck, over time you’ll be competitive and along the way you will have a lot of fun playing this format. Whether you’re a casual player or an aspiring cEDH player the Commander cards that you use will lead to many memorable games and, hopefully, victories.

Summary

This article has covered Commander cards in Magic: The Gathering, deck building, key cards, advanced strategies and budget tips. Whether you’re new to the format or a veteran you’ll find what you need to navigate Commander and improve your game. Remember to have fun and enjoy all the aspects of playing Commander!