The Tens of EDH 7: Creating a Deck
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miracleHat
8 May 2016
3395 views
8 May 2016
3395 views
The Tens of EDH
Creating an EDH Deck from Scratch
Introduction .1
Welcome to the seventh installment of this series. As mentioned in the title, this series focuses on the top tens of EDH, also known as "Commander". I hope that you will enjoy this article, though opinions and perceptions do differ, so this may not be for everybody. Please keep the comments nice and civil and if you disagree with anything written here then please post it down below.
Introduction .2
When I was going through the forums a long time ago, I noticed a thread that was not spectacular or unique in any way, but it got my brain turning. The person posting wanted to know how to get into EDH without purchasing a preconstructed commander decklist. This is not something new, but you see the question, "How do I get into EDH without buying a Preconstructed deck?" The underlying question is, "How do I create an EDH Deck from scratch?" So: I figure that giving the 10 steps that I went through to create 6 of my 7 EDH Decks will help some people!
#10
Know What You Want
There is a lot that you can do in EDH. Do you want to go stompy-smashy-beat your opponent’s faces-beatdown using the biggest wurms / dragons / leviathans? Or would you rather play solitaire running an infinite combo deck. If you do not know what you want to play, then there is no point in attempting to enter the format. Remember! If you start out with a deck idea and it just is not working: scrap it, save it for later, and start working on something else that you have floating in your head. The amount of time, energy, and frustration that you will save is staggering.
#9
Theme is Important
The theme is what makes your deck work. Running good cards that do not fit your deck theme (ex: Phyrexian Crusader in lifegain) is usually bad and counterproductive. To put it simply: KNOW YOUR THEME. All decks run off of some type of theme, whether it be Tribal, LIfegain, or Tokens. It is important to note that having subthemes that still fit under your overarching theme is still important. For example, running a Rakdos Group Slug Themed deck (Underworld Dreams and Banshee of the Dread Choir) with the subtheme of chaos control (Grip of Chaos and Warp World) makes sense. However: running Rakdos Group Slug and saying, "my subtheme is blow everything up" is not a valid subtheme. Ideas of focus come in here and what you can realistically achieve with specific card choices. Your overarching theme should be somewhat vague, and open to interpretation, while your subtheme should be direct, to the point and exact.
#8
Do You Have Personal Restrictions
Many players run into the problem of group or personal restrictions when deck building. Don't be the player that starts building a deck, just to have it get banned from your playgroup for X reason. The most common restriction is budget, and not being able to afford nice cards such as Crucible of Worlds for their Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck or Karn Lubricated Karn Liberated for their grixis control deck. Another might be infinite combos, and having them banned from your playgroup. This is a major question for you to ask yourself (and your playgroup) before you start compiling the decklist, it might change your mind on what you want to end up building!
#7
Do Some Research
There are a lot of cards that you can use in crafting your EDH Decks. Unless you have an encyclopedia in your brain of the MTG Card Database, go to many of the different resources at your disposal. The first place you should look is your collection: what you already have! Some sites that you might find useful: Gatherer
Magic Card Info(I personally do not like it but many others do)
and Essential Magic (My personal favorite and first choice). Finally, ask the people here on Tappedout.net, at your local cardshop/game store for advice, opinions, and other strategies! They will be your best help.
#6
Create a First Draft
So now you have a theme that you want to play with. You have your personal / group restrictions. You have researched and studied different examples and cards that you find interesting. MAKE YOUR FIRST DRAFT ALREADY! Whether this is online, in paper, or proxied, get it as soon as possible. Take all of the cards that you want, it can be more than 100 cards even, and start playing with them.
#5
Test it Out
This is the second most important thing for coming up with a deck from scratch: play with it! Try absurd things and take risks. Specifically draw into certain scenarios to see how your deck reacts. See if you can win in under 5 turns. Things like this will allow you to get a better feel for your EDH Deck.
#4
Cut Unneeded Cards
So you are testing and testing and you find that you do not like drawing into Spin into Myth or nekraatal. Take them out and replace them with something else and test it out (Aetherspouts and Final-Sting Faerie respectively). If you find that your replacements are better: good for you. If you decklist has worsened because of your alterations: change them again or revert back to you original setup. After playing out a couple of games with friends, ask them if they could go over your decklist and give you some comments. They might point out that Fauna Shaman is not a good card for your deck (since you only run 8 other creatures) or something simple such as: "You need more lands."
#3
Try Version .2
You have your themed, 100 card EDH deck, tested with the 'approved for version .2' stamp on the sleeves: congrats! It is now time to see how well this second version does. Warning: do not be surprised if it does worse than the first version! Version .2 is just another way of saying: "Make replacements and test them out" (just a fancier title). I suggest that in version .2 (and all other versions) that you make some drastic change to your deck (normally change the subtheme / a huge chunk of cards). If you are running a ruhan of the formori Equipment Voltron deck and the subtheme is pillowfort, try out a more aggressive subtheme using equipment along side the auras. Changes like these are very important for an EDH Deck, because you will find certain synergies and combos between cards that you might have never found out!
#2
What is Your Win Percentage
I like winning, so the decks that I want to play, I want to have a chance of wining with. If you are fine with losing from time to time, by now your deck should be close to being 95% complete. If it is not winning, and changing the cards/subtheme does not work to help win your games, then you might want to try something completely different. I am not saying that if you lose a game scrap the deck. Every deck will get beaten at some point. $3,000 decks will lose to $50 decks. However: if you do not win 1/10 games, then there might be a problem.
If winning does not matter to you one bit: then ignore all of #2
#1
Go Out and Have your EDH Deck!
It is now that I would say that your EDH Deck is finally 'completed'. Go out, play games, continue to customize, but be proud of yourself. Creating EDH decks can be a long and daunting process. I have been working on my Mono Blue EDH Deck for 3 years and it still is not done (need Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Force of Will, and Capture of Jingzhou)! Remember! You will always be changing your deck around... so do not think that you are done just yet. Keep going over steps 5-2 to optimize your creation.
Conclusion .1
For the obligatory conclusion, thanks for reading this third installment... I hope that you enjoy it and you continue reading. Please upvote, subscribe, comment and all of that vain fun stuff.
Conclusion .2
Now that you have read everything up above: how about we go over some important details. First: this is just one way out of many different strategies for creating an EDH Deck. I have been using this recipe for the past 3 years (since I started creating my own decks). For all of you newer EDH Players out there: I highly suggest purchasing one of the preconstructed EDH Decks that Wizards supplies. They are well built and very easy to improve upon. Do you have any tips for creating your own EDH Decks? How long does it normally take for you to construct a deck from scratch (Psst. I am taking >3 years!)? Did I miss anything that you, the reader, wish to add in the comment down below?
Again: thanks, it means a lot!
The content featured in this article may not be necessarily the views or beliefs of tappedout.net, or other parties.
The next article in this series is The Tens of EDH 8: Getting Back Into It
miracleHat says... #2
I forgot to mention, if you wanted to see an abbreviated version of this article in action:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
@logician: the thought of academy rectum Academy Rector sleeping with me is terrifying.
May 8, 2016 3:42 p.m. Edited.
+1. Great article. When I build from scratch, I find a legendary, say "Here's a legendary. Time to build a completely dysfuctional deck around it." I just play for silly cards, like Spin into Myth. My decks don't win, they derp.
May 8, 2016 9:23 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
So I got to the first actual point this time before feeling I need to jump down here and comment on something. Why do people seem to think that playing combo is solitare? It is only solitare if your opponent decides to not interact with you. I guess that is fine if they don't mind losing games, but most people should at least make an attempt to interact. Once they decide to play an interactive game instead of letting you run free then we are in for a nice strategic game.
May 8, 2016 10:14 p.m.
shaistyone says... #5
Some major points missing that I use, but overall a decent strategic plan.
- How are you going to play the deck? Are you looking to play duels, or only multiplayer?
- Throw out any preconceptions you may have. Many magic players evaluate cards in a binary way: good/bad, amazing/unplayable, whatever. Just because a card was terrible in draft, never made a splash in constructed, and was only found after you dug for 2 hours through the bargain bin at your local store doesn't mean that it isn't perfectly awesome for your EDH deck.
May 9, 2016 9 a.m.
genericaura says... #6
My personal method is a bit different.
Step 1. Just find some Legendary that would be awesome in standard/modern if you knew you would have it in the beginning.
Step 2. Basically build a goodstuff deck of those colors and the handful of cards that you thought of when you saw the Commander.
Step 3. Mess with it and put in cards that fit the Commander when you see them.
Also, shaistyone is right. Most of the allstars in my EDH decks would be crap if I didn't have my Commander sitting next to them.
May 9, 2016 10:43 a.m.
You mention having a site to help you find cards for a deck "theme" or Commander. Another good site for that that is geared towards EDH is EDHrec. You can find what others use int he deck, how many of the decks are present, and whatnot. It is a very useful resource, and one I highly recommend.
May 9, 2016 11:35 a.m.
Paradox_67 says... #8
Manabasecrafter.com is the best site for finding your mana base. Gatherer is great for finding what cards you should play in the deck, it's got filters for specific cards, and it gives you ratings based on what other magic players think. Commander Theory is a great blog for getting ideas for your respective general. Mtgsalvation.com is also a great place to look at already constructed decks.
May 9, 2016 12:24 p.m.
AlucardZain says... #9
Me, I just pick a Legendary that I like, and build a deck around it. Right now, I have an Azami Wizard Tribal EDH (used to be Teferi, Temporal Archmage) and an Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath EDH. Just missing Mind Over Matter for my Azami, and still tweaking my Ob. Used to have a Jarad sac deck which was really fun.
May 9, 2016 8:34 p.m.
nyctophasm says... #10
The thing about picking a legendary creature and building around them is that some legendary creatures lend themselves to more straightforward builds than others. See, I build a Jhoira of the Ghitu commander deck because it was an easy way to cheat out Scrambleverse, Warp World, Eye of the Storm, Possibility Storm, and however many other of my favorite chaos cards. But she doesn't immediately imply that at all. She simply provides a cheap way to get something out earlier than mana might allow, all while allowing you to cast other stuff the same turn. I saw Kuon, Ogre Ascendant and said to myself, how many ways to can I make sacrificing creatures generate value? But another might look at him and say, I can't think of any theme that I would want him in command of. Mogis, God of Slaughter I used to be the beginning of a war of attrition, but others might simply see him as a great finisher for an aggro deck with heavily specific mana costs. Bear in mind that whatever general you pick, he/she will have several different ways of being viably interesting as a build around card. How do you like to play? What do you like to do? And just because a commander is almost always used in one fashion that works does not mean you are wrong to take it in another direction.
May 10, 2016 6:23 p.m.
miracleHat says... #11
Personally, I dislike the "choose a general" and make a deck around him/her. If you choose a theme/strategy/direction that is desired, you can keep open many more routes and passages that are not there when focusing on 1 specific general.
Ex: if a person wished to create a B/x sacrifice/reanimator deck, and automatically chooses Meren of Clan Nel Toth (Oh lord... what a horrible name!), the options are limited towards where you wish to take your deck (heavy focus around meren herself 84% of the time).
However if you decide to create a themed deck that focuses on: having your creatures die for value, being able to easily/quickly reanimate them, there is a high likelihood that you will run Meren, but you also might find that Savra, Queen of the Golgari better suits your needs or Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord (for a more combo-centric deck). It is also possible that you choose to drop out green entirely to be able to add more powerful/game-affecting black cards that you could not add into the golgari version (or you found out that Kokusho, the Evening Star combo deck worked better than jarad...).
Of course, let's be reasonable: if you really like a legendary card and you wish it to be your general (Iname, Death Aspect) then go out and make that EDH Deck!
May 10, 2016 10:51 p.m.
nyctophasm says... #12
No, no, Iname as One, then you can use both mono coloured Iname
May 11, 2016 10:40 a.m.
Nice article.
I tend to start with mechanics or win-cons and work backwards, dividing the deck into teams:
Win Cons end the game, like the Sanguine Bond combo.
Value Generators are cards which keep me afloat until win cons hit, like Strionic Resonator or Mizzium Transreliquat.
Support cards facilitate the deck with scry or tutor effects, or give me a unique edge like Vodalian Illusionist gives me phasing.
Rounders are cards which fill in the things the deck is missing so it doesn't die too easily to combat.
From here, I playtest and determine which team of cards is mis-balanced.
May 12, 2016 10:01 p.m.
Decks_On.Acid says... #14
When is #8 coming out?
Also: I was wondering if I could float some idea's to you (private chat)....?
-Logician says... #1
I use a very similar formula as well to build EDH decks. I've been working on a five-color superfriends deck for a while now, and I am still missing a couple of expensive fetch lands. I don't plan on investing into all the OG duals. That's a bit much for me. While I should be trying to buy the remaining fetch lands that I need for my deck, I can't help but try to start getting some key foils to my deck first. My next purchase is going to be a foil Academy Rector. I can't wait to feel it... to SMELL IT... TO RUB IT UP AGAINST ME AT NIGHT
May 8, 2016 3:35 p.m.