Win more commander games... (Beginner) | Deck Driver MTG 

I've started tracking my games this year. I played 51 games so far and won 21.57% of them (which is below average in 4 and 3 player games), but more importantly: I had fun in almost all of them. Could I crank up the powerlevel of my decks? - Absolutely! Should I play more focused and less daring sometimes? - Probably. Would I or my playgroup enjoy the game more, if I did all of the above? - I don't know. Probably not. So I keep things, as they are. :) Edit: Always consider, by increasing your own win percantage, you decrease someone elses. Ask yourself, if you are realy below average, because in a 4 player game, you shouldn't win more than 25% of the time (In a 3 Player game it's 33,33%). The real win is the fun you had and friends you made along the way.

We gotta get these boys off of PowerPoint

its always nice to see someone's design philosophy. good luck with the channel.🙂

I feel like the sole reason i win games is because i never give up. you can win games you never thought were winnable. Go into a game not expecting to win but just wanting to show off your deck. as long as my deck does the thing im happy.

When you speak about "How do I want to win", I couldn't agree more. Even if you are a meme, casual player, you need to figure out how to win, how your deck wants to win and how fast. EDH is a social format, and having fun is important, but a part of you, maybe a little one, wants to have chances to win the game.

Very good information for 2 years of playing. I believe this advice is probably some of the best I've seen around in a nice solid and concise video. Good job!

What's kind of wild about this list is how simple it is. The Command Zone and TCC did a list few years back, might have even been almost a decade ago, going over how decks should be constructed. Obviously, most of the time on those videos is just to pad out for ad revenue, but they had stuff broken down to subcategories and by the end you had to keep tabs on 8 different parts of the deck. This video makes the process much simpler. Thank you for the insight.

Thank you all for watching! This support in just over a month of uploads has been so amazing!

This video was super helpful. It's so much more to EDH than just buying the most expensive or popular cards for a deck. I always felt like if I spent over 300-400 dollars on a deck that it had to win and I was always disappointed. Paying attention to the science of deck building is paramount.

this might be one of my favorite mtg channels on youtube! keep up the great content my friend

I feel like you’re my kindred deck building spirit. Efficiency is fun! Winning from second and patience is an art. I don’t understand why people play a “vs” format game and not want to win. Got my sub!

Crazy that I’ve played for 10 years and I haven’t thought to much about sandbagging, I kinda just pop off when I see that I can, this has been a very useful video, thank you

I respect your style, it's not for me, but I'm happy you get enjoyment from your games

Always stoked to see someone new creating content, WITH a love for cEDH. It annoys me how there is this divide being created between our casual and competitive community. I love playing at any power level, but have started to embrace higher power more regularly. It literally feels like the casual community is tearing itself apart trying to figure out it's identity. As a person with anxiety, casual games started to become the worst experiences. Look forward to more of your stuff 🍻

Just found your videos last night. Thank you for good quality audio and intertaning content

One of my new favorite things is adapting CEDH decks and tuning them for more casual players while keeping the same basic shell, Tymna/Tana bloodpod has been a blast constructing

The theme and synergy makes good sense. Along with an awareness on the number of cards. It does however put a limit to how much specific support stuff you can put in the deck.

my philosophy is grab whatever I own that fits the deck jam them together see what happens and edit from there

I like the philosophy of your commander supporting your game plan rather than being it. Though I will say one of my most focused decks (that weirdly isn’t that expensive) is my light paws deck, all in enchantment voltrons. Just hang back with some soft stacks in the early mid game to discourage them from attacking you (think ghostly prison) and then once you have a good set of enchants to throw on your light paws pull her out and try to take someone out, plenty of protection enchants to give you evasion to get in an OTKO on someone as well as protect you from targeted removal. Really fun mono colored commander focused deck. 😊

It’s actually crazy how we play the game the EXACT same way down to the deck building in Moxfield and the first precon that we started off with playing. The only difference being I started a year after. I will say, I dropped the vampire deck within a week of playing the game but returned to it within a month. I can send you the deck list if you want to see it, it wins reliably turn 5-7.

The pod just trying to have fun…then this guy enters… 😂 just playing. This was a cool video and I’m extremely new to building for commander. So thank you for the advice!

Another thing is don't cast your commander if u can't protect or use it.

Not every deck can be built within a certain mold. You found one that works for you, great. You definitely realised a lot of points a lot quicker than I did, interacting with better players is always much quicker than having to reason things out for yourself. However, as a next step I would urge you to now try to find players who have managed to make decks function outside of your preferred mold. This would allow you to add more tools to your toolbox as a deckbuilder.

I've definitely got the deckbuilding aspect down, but the concept of being in 2nd place is such a great way to go about playing a game! First threat is usually first out, and honestly that's the main reason I ended up losing most of my games. My decks are fast and efficient, but I am terrible at hiding it.

That’s crazy. I also started playing magic in September 2022. Twins!!!

Long story short... 90% of MTG is just card knowledge.

A lot of things make sense now. I used to love 60 card 1v1 competitive mtg (still do, but have a lot less opportunity to play it than I used to). The way you describe your commander ethos (win, do so quickly & efficiently, play tight) is exactly how I approach 60 card magic when I have the chance to play it. Commander (for me at least) is different from that. I want to have some fun with friends, I want to have a laugh, I want everyone's deck to at least do something (I'd like everyone to enjoy the game), I want to see some crazy stuff, I want to do some crazy stuff. I also do want to win, but that's down the list somewhere. I don't judge my Commander de ks by their win rate, but rather by how much fun they are to play. A deck could have a 50% win rate & I'd still keep it on the shelf most of the time if it was apparent that people didn't enjoy playing against it. I do see a lot of this "over competitiveness" (not sure if that's quite the right phrase, but it'll do) in Commander of late. I feel it's symptomatic of mtg not having good enough support for the 60 card formats these days. Commander was a much more chilled (IMO better) format when most players had 60 cards to scratch that competitive itch.

Love the video, and the insight on your thought process! I took a look at my decks with this mindset and it's astonishing how much it's changing my decks! I have a question for you though; where do you mark your lands that also interact with things? (ex. Bojuka Bog) Great video!!!

Im sadly in a spot where i mostly play 1v1 so im also careful about making my decks. Still there is a lot for me to learn! Love your content

We pretty much share the same philosophy, no wonder i like your decks so much. Copied your tatyova budget list and ive destroyed my lgs , keep up the good work!

Do you count protection spells like Heroic Intervention as part of your 12-16 interaction/removal, or do you count those towards the main strategy cards?

Where do draw effects fit into your personal formula?

This Channel is Gold. Count me in.👍🏻

I base my decks from CEDH and see budget alter cards. My first one was a Jhoira Weatherlight Captain midrange storm. Lots of counterspells and mill effects on the cheap.

This video speaks to me. I love playing Thrasios Tymna, and I'm not even running Turbo Druid anymore but have instead opted for a midrange build which is very much an anti-meta build. However, even though the midrange build scales very well to the overall power of the table (I also don't play out Thoracle lines at lower power tables), the overall value of the creatures I play tend to overpower the rest of the table. That leads to feels bad moments for some people I play with because they want to abuse treasures or death triggers and I completely shut down those lines (which is the point of my list)

I feel the commander as a complimentary piece thing so much! Lier, Disciple of the Drowned is my highest win rate deck and I basically only play him to enable a win or get more juice; the rest of the list is a hyper focused unblockable or evasive Rogue tribal combined with a ton of cantrips, protections and loot effects aiming to get to a point where I can either copy / reoccur Notorious Throng to go wide and/or finish the table with a Candlekeep Inspiration. It’s the only extra turn deck I’ve ever liked because it ends games on those turns too quick to really waste everyone’s time.

I started about 6 months ago, and while I have A LOT to learn, I’ve found a sort of similar strategy. I don’t have any super fast mana cards so I like to have 8-12 ramp, removal and draw spells to make sure I can stay caught up and churn through every deck to draw the cards I need. I built Brenard, Ginger Sculptor as my first non-precon deck and learned that letting go of some favorite cards to make sure I could do the thing every game has made me have a lot more fun and led to consistency almost ever my game. Most recently I picked up Mothman and Caesar (loved fallout), and while Mothman is still pretty similar to the original gameplan and was more straight forward to build more consistent, I’ve struggled to revamp and build aristocrat Caesar. My first iteration had 8 creature token generators, 10 buffs and anthems, and 10 burn spells so I could go wide, make my tokens bigger and burn when they entered and died so even if they were blocked and died they’d still give value. It turns out I struggled to get the ball rolling because I struggled to get a creature token to sac early. This means I wasn’t able to get Caesar going with more creatures and card draw. I ended up rearranging a lot, and now I have 17 creature token generators, 8 anthems/buffs, and 8 burn spells. I haven’t played yet, but in my goldfishing I was able to start my gameplan on curve much more consistently. Like what you suggested, I had to take some losses, cut some pets, and double that section to make it more consistent. If anybody want to look, here’s the link to my Caesar: www.archidekt.com/decks/7241284/caesar let me know what you think of it, and don’t be afraid to be harsh, I’m still learning so I would like to learn more 😌

"I'm a CEDH players who plays casual" is the exact tone I feel from these videos

regarding not popping off first...what if I'm playing a Goro-goro and Satoru deck against a simic Kinnan deck and other grind-y decks? The best way I could incorporate this video's advice would be to run protection first, build up enough 1/1 unblockables then try to proc in a more explosive turn later?

Deck building challenge -> construct a deck that prevents people from dying or ever having the game end

What's your philosophy with cards that give you extra draws? I generally dedicate around 10 cards to draw power in my decks because I hate gassing out.

Great video! ❤

I VERY quickly learnt "life isn't everything" in commander, you're playing infect, commander damage, or tokens to beat your opponent FASTER than they beat you it was a great first lesson and Saint Traft was a great first commander

Hi, are any of the pre-built decks for commander good? Been looking through some stuff buts its hard to find comprehensive tierlists of sealed products for beginners.

I personally use the Command Zone deckbuilding template and it's been great. A few tweaks since even in the few years it's been out the format has had some power creep and obviously you should be building for the tables you play at. It's a nice starter jack of all trades template to then tailor to your personal experience and preference. They treat it not as rules, but as guidelines. Sort of a "well why does my deck stray from the template?" and if you have a reason, great, otherwise it's probably better to stick with the template if your answer is just "oh idk it just does." 10 - 12 Card Draw with Repeatable > One Off, I count tutors as card draw, since essentially it IS card draw you're just stacking the card you draw if you look at it purely from the standpoint of what it actually does vs does it trigger card draw effects. The mechanics of the game don't count it as card draw, but functionally speaking it puts a card in your hand that wasn't there before from your deck, so like functionally that is card draw in my eyes. 10 Ramp with more lands > enchantment ramp > artifact ramp > creature ramp and I do count cost reducers as ramp in certain decks. With the important that land in hand is NOT ramp. Could be considered draw, but not ramp, as it does nothing to put you ahead of curve. 10-12 Single Target Removal/Interaction 3-4 Board Wipes I deviate a bit and instead of 35-38 my land base is always 33-35 depending on if the curve is closer to 2 CMC or 3 CMC Then my deck will usually have 30 of the thing I want to do. Elfball? I've got 30 Elves. Enchantress? Well technically I have more than 30 enchants because SO many Enchantments fill the other roles, but all in all 30 enchants are the true core of the deck. Some exceptions for spellslinger, planeswalker, and landfall decks that want more or less of the thing. Overlap is a big factor as well. Elvish Archdruid is ramp in elfball, Beast Whisperer is card draw, and Rec Sage is single target removal. But they all count as 3 of the 30 elves in the deck on top of fulfilling their roles as the other pillars of the deck. Enchantress has TONS of overlap, especially in a deck like Sythis, Harvest's Hand. She innately makes all your enchantments card draw and there are so many other "when you cast an enchantment" or enchantment etb based card draw spells that you can skimp on the card draw side because otherwise you'll deck yourself out if you're not careful. There's enchantment based removal, enchantment based ramp, and all in all I hardly run anything BUT enchantments since enchantment creatures exist, outside of a few constellation cards that are just normal creatures. The overlap in Sythis is crazy, you can basically gain life and draw cards with everything but your lands each turn. I recently made a deck for the new Riku that cares about modal spells and one instant include card was Archdruid's Charm because it fits the modal theme of the deck, but it is also is all three major pillars. Its first effect is a tutor ability that either puts a land onto the BF tapped for ramp and being one land ahead next turn (it's also instant speed so could be used on the end step prior to your turn so the tapped part doesn't matter), or if it's a nonland it goes to your hand functioning as card draw. Then its other two abilities are single target removal / interaction of different flavors. Obviously you only get to choose one of them at a time, but it's still a staple in that deck due to it filling so many roles. Lastly, I 100% agree with the sentiment of keeping your cards close to the chest. No I'm not going to counter the sol ring or the tutor, I'm going to counter what they play or what they fetch because 9 times out of 10 it's coming anyways and I don't want to have wasted my interaction on something that eventually ends up being a nonissue.

Strefan was also my first! Any tips on how to improve him? Or do you have a high power deck on moxfield for him?

It depends on the cards but it's sometimes is worth having less than eight of a certain card type in your deck for instance board wipes

‘Test-Handing’ is called ‘Goldfishing’ in Magic parlance. Good luck!

We tell people all the time to focus on your main game plan and have a plan to win the game.

I think related to what you said about

gotta say i love casual commander and precons always havin a blast with those decks albeit clunky sometimes mediocre sometimes bad to me its fun especially for some laid back rounds with friends

Dude I love Xenagos I really hope one day you post your list

Um...you've been playing for two years? I guess I'm impressed that someone so inexperienced is doing so well in the MTG RU-vid space. Seriously, well done

Strefan was my first commander deck as well. I found out about Edgar Markov this year and bought the judge promo version. Swapped him in as a commander with a couple of nasty cards. My play group tells me the deck is gross now 😅

I actually don't care about winning just as long as I can do the things my deck was designed for.

Card draw wasn't mentioned, but If you want to win in casual. I found that the person who draws the most cards and has the mana to play them would win 90% of the time.

Not popping off first is so much better, I've been playing less than a year and my first couple decks were fast and got scary, but didn't win right away, so they always got stomped before I could finish the game ... More recently I built a deck that is slow and just ramps and then out of nowhere I cast 30 creatures in one turn and just win the game... Being patient and popping off 2nd always wins

Would you be open to look At viewer decks? Bitting my nails off trying to build a sauron, the dark lord nazgul deck 😅

Could you do a fully optimized Cass Hand of Vengeance deck?

I like to aim for 9 cards per thing my deck wants to do, that way it divides evenly into 11 strategies (all be it, 4 of those r dedicated to lands, usually 1 or 2 for basics, 1 or 2 for mana fixing, n 1 for utility lands) which leaves me with 7 other strategies to aim for. Sometimes I can drop the number of cards in a strategy to 6 if it is something that I'll need a lil later into the game n don't want cluttering my hand (so example is my Rhys, the Redeemed token devk had 9 board wipes but I dropped it to 6 when I realized I usually have the most threatening board n don't need to rush into my Dies triggers right away (almost every creature in my deck makes tokens when it dies so Im never hurt by a board wipe) n I used the extra 3 slots to put 3 more spot removal spells to keep my interactions high even when I don't wanna kill everything. So in a perfect world on turn 4 my 11 cards should have something from each pile if I have 9 of each, 4 lands, 1 spot removal, 1 board wipe, 1 thing to multiply or buff my tokens or sac creatures to make more tokens, 1 thing to protect my stuff or get it back from the grave, 1 creature who wants to dies to make tokens n 1 that wants to die for a different effect, n 1 ramp card. The numbers in my deck aren't at 9 each anymore but that was the plan I started with n tweaked it from there based on how games went over time.

Suggestion - Adding card price (rom Card Kingdom or TCG Player) may be beneficial.

That Strephan Deck is pretty decent when upgraded

you don‘t run specific draw cards? o.O

thoughts on an upgraded strefan precon deck? upgrade ideas from nitpicking nerds and tcg goldfish, they make it seem like the deck can be pretty good

I always build my meren with a lot of creatures, the only two artifacts I use in it are sol ring and birthing pod, for ramps I only use creatures, and it's a pretty fast deck.

Insta click. I believe you will grow a lot. Keep up the great videos!

Interestingly regarding tutors, I've played for several years, and a couple years into my Commander career I used to hear people say "I've removed tutors from my decks, it's more fun", and I thought they were insane. I would run Vamp Tutor, Demonic Tutor, etc ("they're so strong, why wouldn't you run them?"), and you know what? I've since removed every hard-tutor from my decks too. Tons of playing experience led me to the realisation that certain levels of optimisation don't always achieve the mutual fun play experience desired at (most) casual tables. It's a weird thing, but since tempering my decks and identifying and removing 'scare cards' such as high-value tutors, I win more games and have way more fun, particularly in games with players with good threat assessment. Likely because removing such cards allow me to fly a little more below radar, perhaps in that key second-place you talk about in your video. But, each to their own and their respective pods and playstyles.

Honestly I've been playing commander since 2017 so not terribly long . Here's how I've learner how to win . Play with synergy. Stick to a theme and don't deviate ... removal is essential but going overboard slows you down . Play select removal and hold onto it . Don't use it just because you can. But using too much just decreases your decks ability to win .. your deck should be a one trick Pony depending on the archetype. But it should do that one trick really well

Yeah Strefan commander is bad i also started with him and i almost quitted but then there was Phyrexia and I had fun for a while with Ixhel & the poison stuff but lacking card and future options i quickly started looking for another type of commander less battle focused. And then i found out about Modern and i fell in love with Murktide especially the spell slinging aspect of it Then i started looking for spell slinging commander and now i am the proud owner of a Veyran Voice of Dulaity and a Narset Enlightened Master. Veyran is for fun games and Narset is more a tryhard one I am happy that i did this journey because you cant know what mechanics you like if you havent played with or against So my advice to all beginner is find ur playstyle (aggro, control, ...) and then find a mecanics that suits u best

I started playing EDH in 2011 and all the sudden all my playgroups are branded cEDH. Whatever cEDH is considered, we consider that means you have a $40,000 deck or something, but on RU-vid it's like our normal decks aren't casual when EDH was originally about playing the most busted things in a casual setting, multiplayer being that setting. Granted, buying reserved list EDH staples was 10x cheaper...we all still play with them though. Just proxy them until you can afford them at this point.

Cutting good cards can be hard but you really do have to ask yourself whether they push your strategy.

Want to have more fun? Build around your commander. Want to win more? Build with it. Meaning, if you build around your commander, thats your focus. Thats your engine. Or build like Deck Driver and have cards that can win without your commander around.

Realising that you can't play favorites with your cards when it comes to efficiency and consistency is a big level-up moment for any deck builder, one that I'm still working on. It's difficult to divorce yourself from your favorite pieces of cardboard, but it's a must if you ever want to get past the feast and famine stage of playing, into a space of consistent performance where your skills as a player gets free reins. A more "boring" list of functional cards, as opposed to a jumble of splashy, "fun" spells that you'll only resolve successfully once in a blue moon, will respect your time more. Keep up the good work! Would love to see you do a live brew at some point, to see you put the philosophy into practice :)

2 years of playing “I’m a good mtg player” brother you have so much to learn. I’ve played competitively since return to ravinca, and I still recognize I have so much to learn and am an above average player at best. Edh is a casual format to play for fun. CEDH is where the real magic begins.

Good concept if you focus on winning

What's your thoughts on the number of draw spells a deck needs?

So, I started by dumping a ton of money into a krenko goblin deck and refined it through extensive playtesting. It's a really good deck but I stopped using it because everyone immediately gangs up on me. Every game with it is just a fight between me and the whole table. I now prefer decks that are a bit more subtle. There's more to commander than just cards. It's important to keep your opponents fighting amongst each other, while tightening the ropes around their necks, and preventing them from noticing until it's too late. Being an overwhelming threat is fun but it's not a very good strategy.

A little reminder: Of course everyone wants to win the Game, because why would you even play? The difference is how important winning is to you and how you take a loss. If you can loose a Game and you still had fun playing it, you are doing it right.

we align...

I have th same phylosophi if you want to win be the 1er at the point where nobody can catch up or be de 2e just behind the 1er.

I agree with the advice except for the pop off part. I love being the first to “awaken” my strat and turn the game into a soft 3v1

16 of a card? You underestimate my bad luck Sir. I can go multiple entire games and not get one. I recently had a game where the 2 lands in my opening hand were the same lands I had turn 12. 32 lands in the deck. Deck was shuffled and cut twice (one mulligan), 2 lands in play turn 12. That's all I ever got.

If you win more than around 25% of your game you play in the wrong kind of pod

Nice video!

I'd like to add don't play super aggro commanders, I have an atarka, world render deck where she gives attacking dragons double strike and shes 6 power so shes an auto 2 shot commander and I have cards in there like unleash fury that turn her into a 1 shot for a turn, no matter whenever I pop off, removal is always saved for her.

"nobody's trynna go for second place" my brother you don't know the group hug decks that I play with

Half the battle is having the proper amount of each card type for your strategy. Don't skimp on resource, ramp and support cards. Pick any support or ramp that has synergy with your strategy instead of using strictly meta. Finally cut the cards that are situationally good, or only good if you're already winning. Every card needs to do something for you even if you're not completely set up for a combo, attack, etc.

Bit too spikey for my taste, but I don't begrudge it.

Sometimes I forget just how much of a veteran I am till someone says they started playing two years ago I started playing in 94 😂

You should probably give 60 card format to try. Similar to CDH there's no conversation about power levels it's just trying to win especially cuz it's one-on-one. I prefer modern personally it's very high-powered and can be lots of fun

More people need to know their decks better. It's the chief cause of people who take turns that take way too long. We stared implaming a rule that turns end after 5 mins. There is no reason unless playing with someone new to take that long.

36 lands is crazy

I lose commander games because I play with casual pauper decks and precons then my Pod mates always comes in with a Cedh deck that he wants to "test" out. I need more friend :/

I am pretty sure one can only run a single Golgari Rot Farm in Commander.

What does edh stand for?

I lose constantly because I actively play for the memes. Giving everyone draws, lands, and, other gifts. If everyone has everything no one can feel bad. So I just have fun bringing chaos and joy even if I don’t push for a win. Technically I do carry win conditions. I just don’t go hard.

5:30 shake and bake?

6:10 seems like a situation that could end with a never ending game with 4 player who think like you? No sure tho.

You should also run approximately 10 card advantage cards too or you'll end up top decking after a few turns.

very very good insights! made me rethink some decklists I'm using. congrats for the vid 👏