Sciencegar

Commander Decks thoughts

Oct 21st, 2025
23
0
Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 11.54 KB | None | 0 0
  1. Current Active Decks - Softcap of 6 because that's a good selection for commander night and doesn't break my back carrying them.
  2. Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist - Monoblack - An artifact value deck, which feeds recurring or self-replacing 2-drops to Ashnod for the first few turns to build up Powerstones, then either casts a big thing like Blightsteel Colossus or starts a value loop with the likes of Retrofitter Foundry or Unwinding Clock/Walking Ballista. Probably my favorite deck, because it has the most solid gameplan and a wide variety of tools to build resources even with bad draws.
  3. Me, The Immortal - Temur - A standard +1/+1 counters deck, aiming to either pump Maisie Williams and make her unblockable for commander damage, or just get enough counters on the utility creatures to smash face. A deck I used to consider low-tier but which has improved greatly with upgrades.
  4. Ghidorah (Illuna, Apex of Wishes) - Temur - A polymorph-style deck using Slime Against Humanity to make counter-laden bodies to mutate onto, then exile most of the deck to find one of 3 game-breaking permanents, winning with either overwhelming flample commander damage or a horde of gigantic Smog Monsters.
  5. Lilah, Undefeated Slickshot - Izzet - A different take on spellslinger, I accept the limitation of not having a dozen 1-mana cantrips in order to abused Plotted cards, thus having a safe store of free spells in exile to fuel storm cards or Flaming Tyrannosaurus.
  6. Biollante (Nethroi Apex of Death) - Abzan - A self-mill and mass reanimation deck focusing on getting graveyard value enough for a turn 5 or 6 Biollante, typically bringing back 50 power worth of creatures and some boardwipe protection.
  7. Godzilla (Zilortha, Strength Incarnate - Gruul - Ramp, Big creatures, Power Matters cards.
  8.  
  9. Decks which are assembled but currently on the shelf:
  10. Gavi Nest Warden - Jeskai - The archetypical Astral Slide deck, which I designated as my Bracket 3 control pile and put my gamechangers into. Wins either with a horde of tokens or Approach of the Second Sun. Shelved mainly because my Ghidorah and Biollante decks are newer and warrant more testing, but could be cycled (hah) back in easily.
  11. Narci, Fable Singer - Abzan - This is currently mostly an Enchantress Value Vomit deck, which somewhat focuses on Sagas and saccable enchantments but mostly just makes an extremely busy boardstate and grinds opponents out with 15 varieties of token. Currently awaiting me getting all the Summon cards from the FF set and rebuilding it as a more focused Sagas deck, which will hopefully be more interesting and less of a hassle to subject pods to.
  12. Shorikai - Azorius - The definition of Artifact Pile, I bought this as a precon thinking I was making a mecha deck, but Shorikai is just too good a value engine for that concept and it always felt like the deck wanted me to rebuild as generic draw-go. I've accumulated a box of other artifact synergy cards, but so far none of the other commander options have sold me on rebuilding a specific way.
  13. The Jeskai Energy Precons - Yeah, I bought both of these, and have a pile of other energy cards ready to put in and make the combined energy deck everyone talks about. The issue is I haven't settled on a final commander for this: Satya is the obvious choice if all I want to do is make a million energy and then abuse it, but the lure of Giant Robot is very strong and so I can't dismiss Liberty Prime from the running as commander.
  14. Morska, Undersea Sleuth - Bant - An upgraded version of the Karlov Manor precon, it's become a good Bracket 2 deck that I'm happy to bring out. But it's just a tiny bit too clunky to make the core 6, and I keep feeling that I'm about to get a dumb deck idea that needs clue generators, so it's not entirely safe.
  15.  
  16. Piles of cards, waiting in boxes and intended to become decks:
  17. Zabaz The Glimmerwasp - Boros - A potential alternative artifact list, focused on abusing artifact creatures and counters. Seemed neat a year ago but I'd have to buy a lot of cards to get it right and I'm not as enthusiastic anymore.
  18. Roon of the Hidden Realms - Bant - Cracked in a booster about a year ago, made me go 'Ooh, I've heard that Blink decks are all the rage! I shall assemble a horde of ETBs'. Since then, I've learned about many other blink strategies and this particular commander is now looking quite generic, so this pile is mainly a parking point for ETB cards.
  19. Narset, Enlightened Exile -Jeskai - When I was making my Lilah deck, I originally had an idea of doing something based on the Wee Dragonauts deck I assembled back in the ancient times of original Guildpact, but I quickly realised that was a non-starter with Lilah's gimmick. So I pivoted to Narset, who seemed to have the combination of spell recycling and pump to make the concept work. This is by far the biggest pile of cards I have, basically every cantrip and prowess and prowess-like creature I can find, but I'm stuck at the conceptualisation phase: Should I be using a bunch of Wee Dragonaut types with cheap pump spells, or the probably more powerful route of Monastery Mentor effects to make a massive pumped board? The crisis of effectiveness versus honoring a extremely bad deck from my youth leaves the deck unbrewed.
  20. Choco, Seeker of Paradise - Bant - A bird tribal deck I've wanted to make for a while now, FF finally printed the commander to make it happen. One problem - I haven't opened a Choco or seen one for trade yet, so without him, the cards are sitting there waiting.
  21. Purphoros Bronze-blooded - Monored - This one is tough to explain, other than the idea 'What if I punched you with Dragons?'. Sneak Attack effects, sac outlets and Sundial of the Infinite send flaming dragon punches across the board. But, I have a mono-red dilemma.
  22.  
  23. Pages in a Binder, which I think seem neat:
  24. Alesha/Alesha/Lurrus - I definitely find all the weenie support cards of late to be compelling, so the idea of some combination of Aleshas and Lurrus is on my mind. But I think I'm missing a couple of cards to really cement the direction of this idea, whether it would be creatures or just some kind of bauble recursion pile.
  25. Minwu, White Mage - Monowhite - Am I a bad enough dude to make Cleric Tribal Lifegain? Probably, eventually. But its a very generic concept, and a lot of the interesting cards are in Orzhov colors, so I think I need an inspiring card or three to be compelled to assemble this.
  26. Gigan (Gyruda Doom of Depths) - Dimir - Man, I got a lot of neat Dimir cards I'm not using, and this is yet another neat Godzilla Art card I can try. But Gyruda is kinda infamous as a Mill Combo commander, and I fear that my dream of reanimating cool kaiju will be dashed on the rocks of people pre-emptively killing me.
  27. Zombie Something - I don't know exactly what I'm thinking here, other than 'Deadapult is a cool card I've had for years, so maybe I should make a Zombie tribal deck which does something other than just swarm people'. I don't really know what commander would work though, I'm leaning Thraximundar but I'm not sure if the combo of 'Sac zombies to control the board and then Big Commander Damage' is quite as feasible as I hoped.
  28. Katara, Waterbending Master - Monoblue - When I saw the TLA previews, this weird starter set card stood out to me as a potential card-draw powerhouse, so I'm already starting to brew potential ways to turn 'cards draw many when fight' and 'everything else is flash and instants' into a winning formula. Of course, there is the issue that the commander isn't out yet, so I can't really build this yet.
  29.  
  30. More Ideas in my Binder:
  31. Caradora, Heart of Alacria - Selesnya - After the failure of my Shorikai deck, I've been on the hunt for another vehicles commander who can satisfy my dreams of playing Mechtitan Core as a secret commander, and Caradora seems like a good way to combine that with the Blink deck idea, maybe some counters stuff too. I am slowly assembling pieces, and I figure pretty soon, I'll finally take Shorikai apart and make the mecha deck of my dreams. But Liberty Prime tho....
  32. Persuasive Interrogators - I've never really gotten interested in Poison Counters as general thing, it might have been an interesting thing to try in the elden days, but in the era of Proliferate and Prologue To Phyresis, it seems less interesting to slowly build up the poison to off people. Assembling 15 clues and then combo killing the whole pod with a weird Karlov Manor uncommon though? That sounds neat. But I haven't settled on which black commander enables the best clue generation, sac outlets and Secret Commander tutoring to make this actually work.
  33. Vikya, Scorching Stalwart (Ryu) - Boros - I swear, I had the idea of Saber from Fate Stay/Night using a sword to beam my opponents to death way before they printed Excalibur in the Assassin Creeds set. But yes, rather than just make Boros Equipment for normal commander damage reasons, my goal is to assemble a Rube Goldberg machine of equipped Vikya, Burning Anger/Arcane Teachings, and ways to reduce Activated Ability costs, to machinegun the table to death.
  34. Roxanne, Starfall Savant - Gruul - I really like Big Mana decks, and as with Ashnod, the idea of a commander who makes Mana Rocks really appeals to me. Finally, a way to make an X-spell or mana outlet deck feel good...but wait, whats this about Treasures? Am I going to end up sideswerving into generic Treasure value if I continue with this brew idea?
  35.  
  36. It's a big Binder okay?:
  37. Golbez, Crystal Collector - Dimir - The call of Dimir is strong, as is the idea of another artifact value deck which plays with its graveyard. But I haven't really started on this beyond 'cool commander'.
  38. Zidane, Tantalus Thief - Everyone has that degenerate part of them that wants to steal everyone elses stuff, but its bad cricket in many pods as people lose their combo pieces and pet children to hungry Gontis. But Zidane solves this by enabling and paying off temporary theft and discouraging the saccing that others might suggest. The obvious treasure and blink subthemes combine to make a deck concept I'm actually really into, if I can just find a Cloudshift in one of these Jumpstart boosters...
  39. Zoraline, Cosmos Caller - Orzhov - I like Drain Life effects, the idea of nibbling at opponents life appeals to my gremlin side, but I never found an orzhov commander which seemed to sell the concept well. But Bloomburrow gave me a bunch of bats based around paying and gaining life, and this seemed like a good direction to brew in. Not as many bats are MV 3 or less as I'd hoped though - Won't anyone think of poor Blind Hunter?
  40. Ukkima/Cazur - Sultai - A partner pairing where one half is the neatest thing I've seen in ages and the other is there to allow me to play Raised By Giants. The concept here is a Ninjutsu and Blink deck that gets Ukkima in and out of play as much as possible for drain value while passively buffing it and my other guys.
  41. The Monored Dilemma - I know I definitely want to make a monored deck. That's fairly obvious at this point. But the issue is there are a lot of options which appeal to me, and they're mainly for Liking A Character reasons. As well as Purphoros Dragonpunch, I have; Sabin Master Monk, my dude from FF6, as a neat Beatdown from Graveyard idea; Gilgamesh Master of Arms mainly because I like his shenanigans, J Jonah Jameson as a way to make the Menace Tribal deck I'd been thinking about, and one of the Ashlings.
  42.  
  43. I am not sure where I'm going with any of this, other than I come up with deck ideas and I'm never sure when to drop them as whims or fully commit to deck-ify them. I'd appreciate if people have input on what ideas might counterpart my existing decks, or any moral advice on finishing what I start. Or if anything just seems neat to folks.
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment