Grubbernaut

I personally love it. I was trying to add it as a hub. Idk if I managed that or not haha.

Bounce

Bounce is slang for a group of cards that send permanents back to the hand from the field. This is primarily a blue effect although it has been seen in other colors as well. Generally viewed as inefficient. It can have power in specific decks built to take advantage of it.

bloodmvzzle

Sacking goats to summon demons!!! I love that you just tossed that in at the end haha. Love the theme so much. Very cool!

Guerric “Go deep before you go wide!” I love that so much! I’m gonna use that lol.

I started as a standard player. Shifting into modern because I wasn’t a fan of rotation. So spikey is putting it nicely. But one day my friend started talking about commander. I’d heard about it at tournaments and it was always looked down on as a casual format.

Well anyway I decide to build a deck finally so my friend and I could play and it was totally fun and I lost every game! I built a deck the way I would’ve when I played more competitive formats. Only thing is that play style doesn’t inherently translate into edh, not right away.

I bring this up because I, a spike, had to shift my deck building mindset. I had to shift gears and learn a new format of deck building entirely. I began becoming a bit vorthosy. Building to a story, a theme etc. then into interests of play style. I began to expand and stretch my wings into new color combinations. Actually my second deck I built was 5 color jodah good stuff haha.

I got the idea for the jodah deck because I wanted to build around a nicol bolas planeswalker I had but then learned that wasn’t how it worked haha. Then I started thinking, why not all 5 colors! The jodah deck was so fun. It was big splashy spells and big splashy plays. When they went off it was lovely!

That was fun for a time until my playgroup started to improve. They began to understand mana curve in a 100card format. Understand ratios of card draw, mana ramp etc. I understood card draw, that was important in modern as well. Less important was mana ramp. Of course deathrite shaman fit into a lot of decks. But mostly you played low to the ground and fast, at least I did and it was glorious! So no real need for ramp, at least not to the degree that you need in edh.

So now I’m understanding more of the basics and I find myself competitive again. I’m understanding mostly how to build a deck, no clever understandings yet but they come later. But now I’m hard into combo. It’s fun, fast and almost always a win! The faces around the table are smiling for me and it’s great. But then it starts to feel cheap. My friends aren’t doing these things. Sure they have these amazingly synergistic plays that do these powerful things. But not infinite combos. So I started to feel like I needed to make a change to my deck building format. I didn’t understand synergy. Not in a singleton format anyways.

So now the struggle to change my entire deck building mindset begins. I start looking for weird deck builds. Fringe. I go for cycling and fall in love with approach. I start getting linear though. Building for a single purpose. Which is lovely, a couple times. But I craved versatility, adaptability. A deck I could play over and over again and something new could happen each time. Like my old jodah deck! But more streamlined and playable at a table of more seasoned players.

The metamorphosis from standard to edh. From beginner builder to, well where I am now. It’s been a lovely journey. And I’ve loved everything I learned along the way. I’ve always enjoyed building my own decks. But I’ve taken plenty of ideas from the internet too and slowly adapted them to my play style.

I wanted to share this for any new players. Sometimes starting something new like edh is daunting. But don’t let that discourage you. Building your own decks can seem entirely overwhelming but don’t let that stop you either. Net deck something or get a precon. Start watching videos and reading articles for deck tips. Learn and try different play styles and feel out what fits you.

My favorite thing about commander is how personal it can be. You can build a little piece of your soul into a deck and share it with others. But don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work! You shuffle those cards back into your bulk and try all over again baby doll!

Idk where this was really going. But I wanted to share my growth in the format and deck building generally for any new players in the format. If you have any questions please reach out!

Femme_Fatale I love these themes so much thank you! The dark is my favorite! When I loaded up my deck page I saw it looked different and I’m like. Omg how did this happen?! And then I was hoping it was permanent haha. I’m thankful for your work. I had no idea who did it all but thank you very very very much!!!

mlequesne thanks so much for the suggestion. I hadn’t even considered him. I’ll have to get my hands on one and test it out!