Commander Cards You Should Be Playing
Since a large part of my job is pulling everyone’s commander lists, I get to see certain cards very often. Things like Sol Ring or Arcane Signet. I also see a lot of cards that, in my opinion, shouldn’t really be in most commander decks. For this week’s article I wanted to talk about some of the cards I don’t see enough of and cards I see too much. Keep in mind these are all my opinions on cards and if you have a niche deck that needs to run Lightning Bolt or Mind Funeral have fun with it. These are general tips for deck building in Commander. Let’s jump right in with: Commander’s Sphere.
If you’ve played commander in Game Grid since I’ve started working here you know I have nothing but disdain for 3-mana rocks. If they cost three they’d better do more than tap for one mana. Even Commander’s Sphere cycling in the late game isn’t worth it for me. It is effectively a worse Triome at three mana to draw a card. The only 3-mana rocks I ever play are Worn Powerstone in 1 or 2 color decks and Coalition Relic or Chromatic Lantern for 3+ color decks. There are so many 2-mana rocks you should be playing instead of the 3-mana options. Cards like Star Compass, Pillar of Origins, Prismatic Lens, and even one-shot cards like Pentad Prism if you have a combo that you want to get quickly.
On top of the dislike I have for 3-mana rocks, green decks should be playing less mana rocks and more cards that cost 2 that search up lands into play. Cards like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore, and Three Visits are better than your 2-mana rocks when you have lands that count as Forests in your list. When your Three Visits goes and gets a Zagoth Triome you are much further ahead than the 4-color deck that went and cast a Commander’s Sphere, putting a Shock Land into play untapped with Nature’s Lore and Three Visits is icing on the cake. Green also has access to the one mana ramp spells of Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl, both of which should be in basically every green deck.
If you are ramping hard and aren’t in Green you have some other options for big rocks. Cards like Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are expensive but put you very far ahead if you can play them on turns 2 or 3.
From ramp to removal: a common problem I see across most commander games I witness at the store is that people do not run enough interaction. This isn’t 2010, you cannot afford to only play one Swords to Plowshares, one Naturalize, and one Wrath of God. Commander decks are so streamlined and so linear now that you have to have interaction at every spot in your curve. Whether that’s a counterspell at 1 mana, like An Offer You Can't Refuse, or a multi-target removal at 6 mana like Casualties of War; you have to be able to interact with your opponents at every stage of the game. You don’t have to have best-in-slot for every card in your deck. Don’t wanna spend $7 on Cryptic Command? Play Dismiss. Most of the time Dismiss is going to do exactly what Cryptic Command does for an easier mana cost.
For your white based interaction: if it only kills one creature it had better cost one mana or be free. There’s a reason that Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are the high water mark for removal.
White is king in board wipes, and has been since Alpha, with old cards like Wrath of God and Akroma's Vengeance all the way up to more recent additions like Farewell and Vanquish the Horde, white has firmly cemented white as the board control color. When you pair white up with Black you get some of the most effective spot removal in the game, with Anguished Unmaking and Utter End being catch all removal for everything but lands and Vindicate picking up the slack in that department.
Cards like Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light are fine for Commander but I would stay away from them unless you have enchantment synergy of some kind (when your Oblivion Ring also draws you a card it makes the risk of giving them back the card less painful). The last thing I want to talk about in white is Disenchant style effects. While there is nothing wrong with playing good old Disenchant itself there are better commander options with cards like Dust to Dust and its more contemporary clone Return to Dust. Both of these cards are great for dealing with the more problematic card types that normal removal doesn’t hit.
Ideally you want your interaction to hit as many things as possible, which is why Arcane Denial and Counterspell are my top choices for interaction in blue, your countermagic needs to be fast and hit most threats which is why Arcane Denial is my first stop for blue countermagic. If your counterspell cannot counter everything it had better only cost one mana. An Offer You Can’t Refuse, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, and Stubborn Denial are all contenders for spots in my deck depending on what the rest of the list looks like. If I’m not playing a lot of big creatures, I won’t be playing Stubborn Denial for example.
I also tend to stay away from countermagic that opponents can get around just by having lots of lands in play. So cards like Spell Pierce, Mana Leak, and Convolute very rarely make it into my decks (with the only exception being Mystic Confluence because that card does so much other stuff.)
Black is the first color I think of when I want to remove a creature, and as such it has lots of cards I usually don't play because that’s all they do. Like with white, don’t play removal that only kills one creature unless it costs one or is free. Cards like Bone Splinters and Spark Harvest fit into lots of black strategies and Snuff Out is a very powerful card at most tables. To be frank I think black really needs some help in the interaction department for Commander, it is very good at advancing its own game plan with tutors and graveyard interaction and is pretty poor at stopping the opponents in a multiplayer format. You really do not want to be playing Thoughtseize in your commander deck, but something like Go Blank is a card that makes it into most of my black heavy decks.
Black really hits its stride with the two color removal we have already talked about with white and some other fantastic options with red. Dreadbore, Bedevil, and Kolaghan's Command all stand tall as very good options for removal that can hit multiple card types. The new Sheoldred's Edict is a card I haven’t had a lot of experience with in commander but it does hit all opponents and you do get a choice of what card types you’d like to remove.
Red loves two things: direct damage and screwing with blue players. At higher power tables where 3 of the 4 players are playing blue, cards like Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast tend to make it into my CEDH decks. Red’s removal tends to be lackluster for everything except artifacts ( Blasphemous Act notwithstanding). The best way to remove a creature while you are playing a red deck is to force your opponent to have to block to stay alive, that doesn’t mean you get to ignore your artifact removal however. Shattering Spree and Shatterstorm can set those players who got ahead with mana rocks back to playing fair magic
Green is in a similar spot to red, in that it has a hard time removing creatures. Outside of a few niche commanders, fight spells aren’t super worth it in commander, there are too many things that can go wrong. What green does get, and I try to play as many of these effects as I can fit in my deck, are creatures with enter the battlefield effects that destroy artifacts and enchantments. Reclamation Sage should be in every green commander deck, or you should have a good reason why you aren’t playing it. The same goes for Boseiju, Who Endures and I have even been enjoying a Carnivorous Canopy style effect more and more.
Green also gets the mass enchantment removal spell Tranquility, which if it won't hurt your deck too severely, is definitely worth running in your creature heavy lists. The last green card I want to talk about has been a Commander staple since the format’s inception, Beast Within. It answers everything and should be in almost every green deck. I like it better than the white version since white has more efficient options but Generous Gift does work in a pinch.
Let’s talk about card draw, direct damage, and mill spells. What do these three things have in common? You shouldn’t play one shot versions of either of them in commander. As much fun as Lightning Bolt can be in 60 card formats, it will be underwhelming in basically every commander board state. The same is true for small, one shot card draw. Divination shouldn’t be in any commander deck. If you’re playing at higher power level tables you have access to cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain. At lower power tables you have cards like Silver Scrutiny or Stroke of Genius, with Stroke of Genius having the added benefit of drawing someone else out of the game. Turn your infinite mana into infinite cards for your opponent and draw them to death on their upkeep.
Mill and Burn have the same problems in Commander. You have more opponents with more resources. In a modern or standard game of Magic you have one opponent with 20 life and 60 cards in their deck. Easy enough to burn through. In Commander you have three opponents with a total of 300 cards and 120 life. You just do not have the resources to kill all your opponents if you are spending cards like Lightning Bolt to remove 2.5% of your total opponents life totals. Same with cards like Tome Scour or Archive Trap. You can absolutely win with mill, but it will be all at once in one big turn with Prosperity and Sphinx’s Tutelage.
The other option is a little more Commander specific but with Phenax, God of Deception or Captain N'ghathrod, you can nickel and dime your opponents’ libraries out of the game. If you are running mill, just be sure to bring all of your Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus so you can stop them from getting value from their graveyard.
Burn in Commander looks a lot different than burn in every other format. You need consistent and repeatable forms of damage. Instead of Lightning Bolt, play Ankh of Mishra, Sulfuric Vortex, or Roiling Vortex (with the added bonus of Roiling Vortex really punishing people trying to cheat cards with things like Cascade.) Red damage doublers like Furnace of Rath or the new Solphim, Mayhem Dominus really crank up your effects that do the consistent damage, with Chandra's Incinerator cleaning up the creatures so you don’t get left behind by your opponents. The one exception to the one shot damage cards for me are the X spells that can target players. If you have ways to make all the mana, turning it into a Banefire can delete one player from the game immediately. If you don’t feel like singling out one player, use something like Comet Storm or Rolling Thunder to off the whole table and each creature in play at the same time. I have also witnessed one of the sillier burn wins, Earthquake for 30, then in response to my own Earthquake, cast Teferi's Protection and blink out leaving everyone else to deal with the Earthquake.
These are a few of the cards and archetypes I see a lot of when pulling lists for Commander and hopefully you’ve seen some things that will help elevate your existing decks or better your deck building for the future. Remember that Commander is supposed to be fun and collaborative, if you have a decklist you’re having a hard time getting to work, bring it into the store and we will help you get the final list hammered out. Or if you’re looking to build a new deck and need some cards for it, send us a list. Thanks for reading and let me know if you agree or disagree with any of the cards I’ve mentioned here.
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