Playing Commander for Free

Not every Commander deck is planned and shopped for.  If you want to get into Commander, but you don’t want to pay any cash, you have to build with what you have got.  This week, I will share with you my process on how to build an EDH deck without buying any new cards. 

First are foremost, you need to choose a general for the deck.  When choosing a general I have three recommendations.  First, do not play a five color general.  Chances are you don’t have a good mana base just lying around waiting to be put into a deck.  Second, do not play a general that requires you to play a tribal deck.  Non-sliver tribal decks are bad to begin with.  If you are just working with what you have, they become nearly unplayable.  Third, do not play a mono-colored general.  Mono-colored generals require you to have a saturation of good EDH cards in just one color.  It is more likely you can build a good deck when playing 2-3 colors.  For this demonstration I will build a Doran deck.  He is three colors, a good agro creature, and I have an ample supply of cards in his colors.

There are several types of cards to look for when picking the remainder of the deck

•          Mana Fixers
•          Removal
•          Tutors/Card draw
•          Threats
•          Lands

Playing commander is like playing an online RTS like Starcraft or Age of Empires.  The winner of the game is almost always the person who gathers resources the fastest.  If you are playing Commander and you have no way to accelerate your mana production, you are going to lose. Mana accelerantion usually has the added benefit of also being able to fix any problems with colored mana that you may have.  I like to have at least 10 cards of the 99 be accelerants, to make sure I at least get one early on.  You will be surprised when you look through your collection, how many accelerants you end up having. For Doran, I went through all of my black, green, white, gold and artifact cards and pulled out the following;

•          Frontier Guide
•          Khalni Heart Expidition
•          Harrow
•          Everflowing Chalice
•          Felwar Stone
•          Orzhov Signet
•          Garruk Wildspeaker
•          Cultivate
•          Devoted Druid
•          Mul Daya Channelers
•          Worn Powerstone
•          Sol Grail
•          Golgari Signet
•          Yavimaya Elder
•          Rampant Growth
•          Oracle of Mul Daya
•          Coalition Relic
•          Star Compass
•          Coldsteel Heart
•          Phyrexian Lens

Unless you are playing a turbo-combo deck, you will need a way to stop people from using infinite engines to win the game.  Whenever I build a new deck, I go through and look for nearly every piece of removal I can find.  I want removal that can take care of multiple threats, remove a card permanently, or has a body attached.  When I looked through my cards I found the following removal tools;

•          Acidic Slime
•          Viridian Corrupter
•          Royal Assassin
•          Sunblast Angel
•          Slice in Twain
•          Massacre Wurm
•          Phyrexian Revoker
•          Grim Poppet
•          Heartstabber Mosquito
•          Kor Sanctifiers
•          Ioana’s Judgment
•          Sylvok Replica
•          Mold Shambler
•          Maelstrom Pulse
•          Admonition Angel
•          Steel Hellkite
•          Path to Exile
•          Qasali Pridemage
•          Nevinyrral's Disk
•          Decree of Pain
•          Brittle Effigy
•          Swords to Plowshares
•          Terastadon
•          Argentum Armor

Another important part of Commander is making your deck consistant.  You can achieve this through redundancy, card draw or through tutor mechanics.  Any card that can search up a threat or a removal spell is like having additional copies of those cards in your deck.   As a side note, make sure you have cards in your deck that your tutors can find.  I found the following tutors and card drawing in Doran’s Colors;

·         Primal Command

·         Stoneforge Mystic

·         Diabolic Tutor

·         Crystal Ball

·         Green Sun’s Zenith

·         Demonic Collusion

·         Syphon Mind

·         Font of Mythos

·         Temple Bell

Now comes the most fun part of building a Commander deck, choosing your threats.  This is the part of the deck that you can just throw in whatever you think can win the game.  This includes big creatures, game changing spells, and combos.  Looking through my cards, I found some cards that can quickly end a game;

•          Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
•          It That Betrays
•          Artisan of Kozilek
•          Baneslayer Angel
•          Sword of Vengeance
•          Grafted Exoskeleton
•          Bonehoard
•          Mimic Vat
•          Behemoth Sledge
•          Chameleon Colossus
•          Necrotic Ooze
•          Serra Ascendant

A commander deck should play between 35-40 lands.  You want a higher percentage of lands than a standard deck because you are playing a larger spells and longer games.  Never underestimate the power of playing a land every turn.   I slot 40 cards in the decks for land and I take of 1 land for each 2 mana accelerants I play.  Even so, I will never play less than 35 lands even if I have more than 10 mana fixers.  Choosing which lands to play depends on what cards you have decided to play.  I use every dual color producing land I can find.  Then, I put in basics according to the number of mana symbols of each color are present throughout the deck.  Think of this the same way you decide on what mana to put into a draft or sealed deck.

So, if you haven’t played Commander before because of the monetary investment.  Use this as guide to make a deck, and go start having some fun.  Pictures of the new Doran deck will be posted on my facebook page.  Feel free to leave feedback or ask me questions.

Next week I will have an update on how this deck is performing and any additions to the Arcum deck.   Thanks for reading!