Commander Deck Inspiration Ideas...
Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 12, 2020, 4:58 p.m. by RogueSatedan
Hello all,
I am looking for some inspiration to build a Commander deck for a friend. My local gang decided to do a Secret Santa deck build and I am trying to come up with something for the guy in our group who loves to play blue/control.
I would love to put something together that doesn't actually use blue at all, but still leaves him lot of room for control and counter spells...
I plan to go through the whole list of potential Commanders to see if anything I think he might never have heard of or seems interesting jumps out at me, but I also hoped that someone out there might have exactly what I am looking for... Commanders, great potential cards to include, etc.
If you would like any additional details that I missed let me know. Thank you for any help!
RogueSatedan says... #3
I like Tinybones. That does seem like a possible strategy to build around... he actually has a ninjitsu deck with a win condition of milling your opponent to death so that ability is kind of up his alley as well! Great suggestion. Thank you!
October 12, 2020 6:16 p.m.
JANKYARD_DOG says... #4
What about something Orzhov, centered around draining, paying and switching life totals?. W/B offers lots of control options and there are several commanders that fall under that strategy. I personally like Selenia, Dark Angel because her ability allows her evade removal and can be stacked for life loss effects.
Esper has alot of stax builds though I'm not too familiar with the commanders. Black or Rakdos could be discard centric which is also a kind of control. There's Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger or something more Janky maybe like Neheb, the Worthy with a dash of Minotaur Tribal.
October 12, 2020 6:48 p.m.
Shameless self promotion here, but if playing against my Orzhov deck doesn't make you feel like punching yourself in the face with more controlling aspects than my mother than I don't know what does.
October 12, 2020 7:59 p.m.
What would be your budget for this deck roughly? I ask to get an idea of deck builds to suggest.
Also, in the Null Brooch family is a card called Ring of Immortals. It can slot into any deck as well but it is expensive.
October 12, 2020 8:02 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #7
Toshiro Umezawa might be a good choice. It's control, it doesn't use counter spells, but instead plays all the Doomblades.
October 13, 2020 12:12 a.m.
VampDemigod says... #8
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed is a lot of fun. If you have a way to tap him every turn, he’s premium, repeatable removal. Price-wise, he’s a steal at $0.35. Untap shenanigans can be hard to find in black, but vehicles can help you out there.
It’s kind of a unique control deck, but getting to kill an opponent’s creature and get gold is just dandy.
October 13, 2020 9:40 a.m.
If you use something with an untap ability like King Macar, the Gold-Cursed you can use artifacts to untap it if your deck's colors don't have cards for it.
The most popular way to do that with cards like the king is with mana artifacts like Springleaf Drum and Paradise Mantle. Other popular ways are with prison type artifacts like Puppet Strings and Amber Prison. Lastly, people like to crew stuff like Mobile Garrison, Cultivator's Caravan or Smuggler's Copter.
Or, just go infinite with him for shenanigans like with Freed from the Real + Paradise Mantle. If you go this route, there are a bunch of other creatures to be abused with the combo. Not that it's the best example but I do have a deck where I outline some of the card synergies here: The Real King Of Paradise.
I would like to give honorable mention to Captain of the Mists. He is a twiddle with legs. This card has amazing synergy with King Macar, the Gold-Cursed and even untaps for free when the king or other humans enter the battlefield.
October 13, 2020 12:13 p.m.
RogueSatedan says... #10
MagicMarc - No budget. Anything goes.
And I'm liking a lot of these ideas. Thank you very much guys/gals. I was kinda leaning towards at least red and black, possibly green, but you guys are making me think about keeping white in as well!
I feel like black is a sure thing and I feel like I am leaning towards a deck that forces everybody else to just discard everything each turn... at least a few spells seem cheap right now and I think I might throw in a Isochron Scepter as well to let him play something over and over...
...are there other artifacts or enchantments that will allow you to play spells over and over again?
October 13, 2020 12:28 p.m.
VampDemigod says... #11
I don’t know of any offhand. I would suggest Tinybones as a commander if you’re going for a discard strat.
October 13, 2020 12:32 p.m.
There are some funky ones, RogueSatedan. Like Spellbinder which is good for the combat step with evasive creatures. There is also one that casts during your upkeep called Panoptic Mirror.
October 13, 2020 12:38 p.m.
Gonna be that guy and suggest Kozilek, the Great Distortion
October 13, 2020 3:37 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #14
Be aware that Panoptic Mirror is banned in commander, probably because its just too easy to go infinite with only a single extra turn spell.
October 13, 2020 7:43 p.m.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is a great card to have in the command zone. Stealing spells is a fun strategy, even mono black has many options...like Enslave, Grave Betrayal, Chaos Wand, Mindleecher, Word of Command, Praetor's Grasp, Dead Man's Chest and Hedonist's Trove.
October 13, 2020 9:58 p.m.
RogueSatedan says... #16
Rzepkanut - Wow, that is a lot of good stuff... thank you!
RiotRunner789 says... #2
You can do a counterspell without blue but it will be quite janky/clunky.
I would recommend mono-black discard, probably with tiny bones, trinket thief as the CMDR. You can build some impressive control builds using a resource denial strategy with some lock/stall pieces such as Null Brooch (which is a isochron scepter with a built in negate in a discard deck).
Edit: Grammer and typo fix.
October 12, 2020 5:13 p.m. Edited.