What is the best quality for a deck?

Commander (EDH) forum

Posted on June 18, 2020, 1:08 a.m. by SynergyBuild

Of the following qualities of a deck, which do you find the most important when looking to win games of EDH?

  • Resiliency - The ability to come back from interaction or unfavorable board states, often through the use of card draw or recursion.

  • Speed - The ability to reach a winning game state as fast as possible, often through the use of ramp or mana acceleration.

  • Consistency - The ability to control your deck's luck as much as possible, often through the use of cards with multiple uses, tutors, cantrips, and redundant cards.


Really, these qualities are parts of all decks, where if a deck is speedy, it is good when you are ahead, it lets you stay there and end the game fast. If a deck is resilient it is good if an opponent is winning and you are behind, since your deck is built to come back from that point. If a deck is consistent, it is great at making sure it can get ahead when at parity, or is at equal standing to it's opponents.

Which do you find most important while making decks? How about piloting them? Have you noticed pulling out decks that are better at one of these qualities while leaving the decks of different qualities less played?

enpc says... #2

The best quality of a deck? Having a clearly defined win condition. Generally everything then falls into place from there.

And no, "turn sideways" is not clearly defined. Understanding how the deck turns sideways, how it generates tokens or pumps creatures and how it can pull double duty from cards, that's clearly defined.

Generally when I see decks that don't have that, they then have a tendancy to be all over the shop in terms of strategy, which then has a habit of blowing out average CMC, reducing the overall number of cards dedicated to ramp, draw and removal and ultimately resulting in slower and less productive turns.

June 18, 2020 2:09 a.m. Edited.

Darkshadow327 says... #3

I agree with enpc, but in the terms you have defined I prefer Resiliency.

June 18, 2020 4:06 a.m.

DuTogira says... #4

Consistency is king. If your deck can't do roughly the same thing over and over, your win-rate is only as good as your luck.
From there, I'd take resiliency over speed any day. On a cEDH level, having a 100% consistent T3 kill threat vs a 100% consistent T5 kill with backup, i'd take the T5. Someone will always try to stop you, and if you can't recover... well that's just game.

I think it's a good priority hierarchy for general deckbuilding too. Make your deck do something consistently. Forget speed and resiliency. Then refine it, add methods to recover when your opponents try to stop you. This will frequently require heavy playtesting to understand what makes you vulnerable, and the addition of some extremely generically powerful cards. For example, if you're in blue, you'll almost always end up running Cyclonic Rift. Once your deck does one thing, and does it VERY well, then worry about making it faster. This will usually involve more expensive lands that come in untapped, more expensive tutors, and a lot of research into potential fringe and cheaper alternative to your current win-conditions.

It's worth noting that consistency rarely breaks a deck, and resiliency will bring the deck's power up a bit, but not oppressively so. Speed however brings the deck up to a whole new level of competitive. Make your deck too quick, and you very well might alienate your playgroup. Cautionary tale, nothing more.

June 18, 2020 1:59 p.m.

MagicMarc says... #5

Hello, I would say that Consistency is by far the most important quality in a deck.

I would argue that the other two qualities you mentioned, Resiliency and speed are only design goals.

Look at any top tier deck in any format. All of them will have multiple redundancies in the deck that duplicate or have similar effects to the main win condition and how to get there.

Shocklands and deck thinning are primary aspects of top performing decks and their entire purpose is to make the deck more consistent and reliably hit their their win conditions.

June 18, 2020 2:40 p.m.

RNR_Gaming says... #6

Eh having fun while I'm playing it/surprising opponents with weird card selections specific to my meta. If it's at a bigger tournment consistency across a large feild.

June 18, 2020 3:11 p.m.

RambIe says... #7

Manipulation, Adaption, & Unpredictability

In Cedh Consistency is primary, Speed Secondary, & Resilience is third priority during the build.
You can see that inside every Tier 1 deck.
However...
For me a deck that is capable of truly manipulating its environment,
adapting to play threw any board state all the while
providing unforeseen synergies and an unpredictable win con.
Is the ultimate goal in every deck i build and my only priority.

June 18, 2020 3:22 p.m.

griffstick says... #8

I like Resiliency because I find it fun to build back up after being knocked down.

June 18, 2020 6:35 p.m.

Fun question. I think consistency can encompass all the qualities you’ve mentioned (E.G. the consistent ability to rebuild) and that makes it the most versatile. If you know what your deck is going to do, you can pilot it better as well.

June 19, 2020 4:07 p.m.

Metachemist says... #10

Interesting, I think a fourth category is worth proposing. At least in the realm of my experience as a way to both make a deck more competitive AND more fun to pilot.

Interaction. And I don't mean the ability to single target remove someone else's threat. I mean the ability to play around other people's interaction to your own win con AS WELL as the ability to screw over someone else's plans.

June 28, 2020 3 p.m.

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