I think what’s equally important is to know when you’ve gone outside of a principle and accepting it. I built Edgar Markov with one board wipe because I shouldn’t need wipes. I want to be the reason for the wipe. If you out creature me, then I tip my cap to you and accept what comes with it.

If I remember correctly Dana mentioned this many moons ago and I finally found someone who thinks the way I do: If you run tons of Cantrips/small card draw effects it's totally reasonable to cut some lands.since you dig deeper and faster through your deck you are likely to find more lands reliably.

I really like the idea of building/brewing a very strong version of a deck, then de-powering it from there. otherwise, the trajectory of most decks is to slowly grow stronger over time as new synergistic cards are printed and slowly swapped in. maybe that doesn't keep up with power creep/inflation of entirely new decks so it's fine, but intentionally tuning a deck down is not a bad thing

My First game with Blanka, I casted Return of the Wildspeaker, expecting to draw 11 and someone instantly countered it,, then I was reading it my graveyard and started cracking up laughing. Plugged it for Soul’s Majesty. Great challenge!!

Dana: Echoing Truth

I've recently fallen in love with the enchantment Greater Good. Its a 4 mana green card that allows you to freely sacrifice creatures for card draw equal to the creature's power. A free sac outlet is great in decks like Meren but , I especially love this effect when facing a boardwipe. My creatures are still going to the yard, but I get to grow my hand and potentially recover much faster than my opponents were expecting me to.

I love the point about advancing the board state instead o f stopping things. Shout out to Spelljack for a counterspell that loves to create memorable moments.

I love the advice in this video. I don't agree with 100% of everything, but thinking about the topics, and some of the points you make are totally valid.

I think the most valuable deckbuilding principle is simply managing to set a clear line as to where this given deck is going to start and end; whether it's a theme, a character, or just raw power. The roof for upgrading and tuning EDH decks is extremely high, and if you have a large library of cards (or lots of disposable income) before you know it you might have optimised away the entire point of a deck and taken the fun out with it. Your Assassin deck with Ramses can run hugely powerful combos with with the UB colours, but after a while you're winning off combo so often you might as well cut the commander, and whoops you have another Thoracle. Every Grandeur deck I've ever made gets further and further from the Grandeur pop and eventually would be much stronger if I cut the enabler cards and swapped one of the 99 for the commander, but then the fun of making Grandeur work in a singleton format was the entire point. There's Sandwurm cards in the Hazezon deck even though one is weak and the other is terrible, because it was a Dune deck and when they go the theme goes and the fun follows.

For brand new players I think templates are great because card selection can be overwhelming (unless you start with a pre-con and upgrade from there every time). But i also think if you start building a deck around a type that you're not used to playing, using a template can be helpful until you get used to the mechanics of your deck and how it works. My first deck was an enchantress deck, and I played it a hundred times before i started building my second deck, which revolved around graveyard recursion. I had no experience with it, so I put a lot of single-target removal and board wipes just so I can try to stay in the game. Once I was comfortable i took out a lot of those and added more potent cards that clicked with my commander.

More on challenge the stats backdraft hellkite. Only in 47 Feather decks even though Feather will overwrite flahback exile effect so instant ends up in your hand.

At about

To Matt's point about moving the game forward, a huge rule I try to stuck by is making sure my board wipes are one sided. So often I see board wipes used in a way that drags the game out, and I don't like that.

Regarding templates, what I've found most helpful are mutable templates. It is absolutely true that ideas like "always play ten ramp and ten draw spells" fall apart because different commanders have different needs, but the idea that your deck wants

More and more, I'm starting with my draw package. I want draw spells at both ends of the curve - small draw spells really help with hitting land drops, while big draw spells are basically finishers in their own right. Templates are great for a starting point, you just have to remember they aren't hard and fast. What they

I have a single rule where i can not use the same card if its already being played from previous deck. The only exception are lands and mana rocks. This forces me to not look at the "staples" for a certain color and make my decks be different from one another because none of them contains the same cards.

I looove Dana’s challenge of Echoing Truth, I’ve bounced something like 1,400 elf tokens with that before, it’s a game changer and often a life saver

Havok Festival is one of my favorite cards to play, do I lose because of it most of the time? Yes, but people's reaction to it are always fun. They don't hate it rather they say "oh OH, So it's GO TIME!" It turns a game that may have stagnated into something lots more fun for everyone.

Whelming wave in changlings is a beautiful surprise.

Echoing Truth has been stellar every time I have used it!