How to build better decks

Commander (EDH) forum

Posted on Oct. 11, 2019, 8:41 p.m. by NavyVet88

So as the title may imply, I want to build better decks.

The only edh deck that I built on my own from scratch was a rakdos madness deck and it is awesome!. And no, I didn’t rob the idea from the merciless rage precon as I built this deck over three years ago. I honestly feel like I got lucky when I put the deck together simply because I cannot synergize cards very well. I’ve attempted building so many decks and would end up losing interest halfway through because of some sort of mental fatigue with trying to find the right cards for my ideas or realizing my idea was financially out of reach etc.

I’ve basically resigned myself to upgrading some old precons I have just to add substance to an other wise stale deck. I’ve watched what seems like every video on YouTube from the command zone and tolarian only to have a brain fart when I actual set down and go to work with my cards. I am terrible at second guessing myself too lol.

Gidgetimer says... #2

The final step in my process is "ask my friend who is a better deck builder if I messed anything up" so I'm not the greatest. I will however share my steps to building a passable EDH deck.

The first and most important part of deck building is to figure out what you want the deck to do. This could be building around a legendary creature and their ability. It could be wanting to build to a theme, ability, or tribe. It could be "consistently threaten lethal combat damage on turn 4 to one opponent" or "build Rube Goldberg combos".

Step two is determining what color(s) the deck is going to be. I find 2-3 colors to be the best but other people may find different numbers of colors more to their liking. If you are building around a legendary creature's ability it is easy to determine your colors since the best way to have access to the ability is to have them as your commander. There is often a best color combination for any strategy though, and it is unwise to fight against the best color(s).

Next you need to figure out the mana base. This comes after deciding on colors because your colors determine what ramp you can play and ramp is always important. I find that dedicating 45-50 of your slots to mana production will yield the best results. I say that I start with 40 lands and drop one for every 2 acceleration pieces I put in, but you can see from my recommended mana production numbers that it is more that I start with 35 lands and 10 mana accelerators and then cut one land for every two additional accelerators. This often winds up being 33/14. Crafting the perfect mana base is a whole other topic that I could go into if you want, but these guidelines are a good jumping off point. (specific land balance will have to wait until after we have the other cards picked out.)

After you have your mana base laid out you will have 49-54 more cards to add. At this point you need to have your goal in mind for every card added. If a card doesn't achieve your goal it doesn't belong in the deck. Achieving the goal may be directly, as in a combo piece or beater, or indirectly, as with tutors or interaction. For varying styles of decks the balance of these pieces will need to be tweaked. I'm not a fan of set lists of extended sub categories here like the youtube channels tend to do (2 wraths, 3 targeted removal, 6 draw spells, etc.). The major thing is that if a card does not accomplish the goal of the deck, it is a waste of mana, time, and a card slot.

This is where you would decide your land distribution. My basic rule of thumb is ratio of pips on card is equal to lands in deck. Two color generators count for alternating colors starting with the one you need more of. Things that produce 3 or more colors or no colors count for no specific generator. Some weight is given to colors you need early game or colors that help you get other colors.

If you have a friend who's opinion you value on deck building it would be the perfect time to get their input. Otherwise, now it is time to play test. Remove under performing cards. Pay attention to what is causing you to not achieve your goal and address it. Eventually you will have a deck that is fun to play that you created from scratch.

I know I ramble a bit, I could go through the process that lead to one of my decks to illustrate if you want or I could go over my process using a theme, commander, or style that you suggest to give you idea if you like.

October 11, 2019 9:54 p.m.

Gidgetimer says... #3

Not upgraded, so can't edit.

I missed a mistake in my first proofread and only found it now. My sixth paragraph's second sentence is "My basic rule of thumb is ratio of pips on card is equal to lands in deck." That was supposed to say "My basic rule of thumb is ratio of pips on cards is equal to lands in deck." Trying to convey that in a bant deck with 33 green pips, 24 white pips, and 18 blue pips you would want your ratio of mana producers to be 11:8:6.

October 11, 2019 10:03 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #4

Both of the above are pretty great starting points. Here's a couple points to add that I think would help.

  1. When building your removal package, it is important to think about the decks your opponents play. If your opponents play a lot of small creatures, Wrath of God effects are disproportionately powerful; if they tend to be light on creatures and more into combos, artifact/enchantment removal might be a greater priority than it might otherwise be.

  2. Remember, great cards are not always the right cards. When cutting down to 100, it's often difficult to decide exactly what should or should not go. Don't be afraid to cut cards that are objectively good, if they are not the most effective at reaching your ultimate victory.

  3. Use TappedOut to build your deck before you buy. Yep - this is a bit of shameless promotion, but there's some nifty tools on this site that can be helpful. The site's ability to show your mana curve and average CMC is incredibly useful, and the playtest feature is a good way to determine what cards underperform. Make a few test decks that are similar to what you see in your meta, then use the playtest feature and play all sides of the game yourself, seeing what works and what does not. Finally, you can always ask the community for additional sets of eyes.

Hope some of that helps!

October 11, 2019 10:16 p.m.

NavyVet88 says... #5

Thank you guys so much for the help! I have been playing for approximately four years with my wife included and we are both still learning adamantly. I will take your points into my current build and let you know how it went.

October 11, 2019 10:48 p.m.

JANKYARD_DOG says... #6

1.) Find your inspiration: be it a specific commander, theme, tribe, jank combo, or desire to go Mono...

2.) Colors: This is usually guided by your inspiration above. Building around a commander or mono color makes it easier. If you're into control, look no further than Esper.

3.) Hash out the details: Now that you've nailed down the above, what do you want your deck to do? Make a few categories and try to find cards that overlap for maximum effort. Example: Draw and Big Creatures, Elemental Bond overlaps both categories. Or Removal and Zombie, Fleshbag Marauder covers each.

4.) Mana Base: after making card choices you should be able to see your curve and what balance is required. Your mana base comprises of not only lands but artifact, spell, and creature based ramp.

5.) Finalize: Make sure you've got an even 100, keeping your stack of 'maybe' cards aside, and test it out a bit to work out any kinks or things you thought would be 'the greatest thing since Betty White' but turned out to be Sliced Bread.

There are a bunch of fantastic sites to use as tools to help you out because memorizing 60,000 cards is just not happening. EDHREC can help you find cards that synergize with commanders and specific cards. Scryfall has a great advanced search (gatherer I find annoying), Mtgassist can find you similar cards for redundancy, and of course Here to make before you buy so your wallet isn't flattened by your poor card choices. Anyway, hope it helps in some small way.

October 11, 2019 11:08 p.m.

Dango says... #7

TL;DRing the responses here a bit for my own sake because it's 4am and I just got home from work lol. But as someone who plays both cEDH and casual, I'd say that a couple important factors to consider are refining your mana curve and narrowing down your themes to ensure that your deck is consistently doing what it wants to do.

By refining your mana curve, I don't necessarily mean to lower it. You want your curve to look more like a positively skewed bell curve (meaning higher densities of low cost spells, and less big spells). This is more of a general rule of thumb in a lot of cases, the exception of which being decks that like to cheat big things out for free or reduced costs, like skilled Narset, Enlightened Master players. ;)

Narrowing down and defining the themes of your deck really helps you fill your slots as well. For example, in my recent Kadena build, I opted to run lots of flash enablers, topdeck manipulators, and cards with bounce abilities, all of which to help abuse her ability and make the deck function how it wants to. In addition to that, I'd say running redundant effects with your commander is often welcome just so that you're consistently doing things you want to do without having to lean hard on your commander being out to do things.

Hope this advice helps a bit!

October 12, 2019 4:19 a.m.

dingusdingo says... #8

The most important question for building any deck is the environment its going to play in. If you have a competitive deck, you almost always need a discrete infinite combo to finish out games. Especially in a format like EDH, where players gain life, pillowfort up, and generally stall out games, having a guaranteed A + B combo to win makes a huge difference. The combo you want will depend on your colors and commander, but once you know a handful of them you can simply plug and play.

Mana is especially important, as people have touched on. I like to run my decks around 33 mana, never more than 36 in fatty casual decks. I definitely recommend running extra cards to give you more mana, one of the easiest ways to improve the efficiency of your deck. Somewhere 8-11 rocks is usually excellent, and you can cut it smaller if you run mana producing creatures. Regardless of whether you choose creatures, artifacts, or enchantments to help ramp, I recommend at least one set. In EDH it is common for players to run wipe cards that will wipe out entire mana bases, such as Armageddon against lands, Wrath of God against creatures, and Shatterstorm against artifacts. Not having your entire mana base get destroyed by one of these is crucial.

Next, every deck needs removal and every deck needs draw or tutors. Removal is interaction for your opponents who are also trying to achieve their own game plan. Draw and tutor give you access to more resources, so there's a higher chance you get the resources you need at the correct time. Learn the cheap and efficient staples for each color in these regards, you will see them in deck after deck. You want to slot low cost spells, a strong rule of thumb is if it costs more than 3 mana, it better be able to handle two or more things.

As others have also mentioned, pare down your deck to focus in on your big themes. One way I like to do this when I'm building paper is to separate my potential cards into different piles based upon what they do. For example, if I have 120 cards I want to put into a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck. I'm going to make piles for mana rocks, cards that make everyone draw, removal and wipes, creatures for value, etc. I can then see that my pile of sweet equipment for Nekusar to attack with only includes 3 parts, and it makes it easier to cut them where I would have otherwise kept them in. Piling them by effect helps give that distance.

My last piece of advice is to consider the way the format is set up. You run a 99 card deck of singletons, and you have a single card that you always have access to. Your commander is your bread and butter, and while its possible to build great decks that work independently of the commander, you shouldn't ignore the consistency of having 100% access to your commander. What do I mean by this? You need to choose the cards that go into the 99 based on how they perform with the commander before you add them based on how they perform with each other. Yeah casting Scheming Symmetry after ramming Aven Mindcensor is a pretty sweet play, but its going to be rare situations where you happen to draw both of them at the same time from a 99 card deck. Run cards that are strong in the slots at all times, not just when you get the Christmasland 1 2 or 3 cards in your deck that make it go. Focus your cards to work in tandem with the commander, and after you gain more experience in the format then consider how you can layer combos that work without your commander.

October 12, 2019 5:10 a.m.

NavyVet88 says... #9

Is it possible to build a good edh deck out of one set of cards? As in can I build a deck using only core set 2020 cards? Curious...

October 12, 2019 8:09 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #10

I doubt that is possible. New sets have around 250 cards, with a whole lot of those cards being generally unplayable commons and uncommons. Add to that the additional constraints of colour identity, and you’re going to have a hard time finding a cohesive set of 65 cards.

October 12, 2019 8:43 p.m.

Gidgetimer says... #11

If you want the flavor of all the cards being from the same plane your best bet for a reasonably powerful deck is going to be going with Ravnica and making allowances for using all nine Ravnica sets. As Caerwyn said there are just too many commons and uncommons that don't do enough for a well functioning EDH deck to build a deck from a single set and have it compete with decks that haven't been given the same restriction.

October 12, 2019 9:26 p.m.

NavyVet88 says... #12

Gotcha thanks! My friend and I were talking about how cool it would be to have a “single set” deck if it were possible.

October 13, 2019 10:37 p.m.

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