How i build a deck, step 1: throw something together on edhrec, step 2: i show my friend whos been playing for 15+ years, he is disgusted then fixes it. Step 3: Done

Great points here! I think each method has pitfalls. The first method, sideways has more in common with bottom up than top down. This is because both are heavily centered around a foundation of a theme and the commander is an afterthought. However, the theme in bottom up is based around the game and the theme in "sideways" building is based on flavor and fun, rather than the actual game. I would agree it is inherently weaker, but it's possible to make a great deck. The biggest pitfalls with bottom up are picking a weak theme, which might as well be "sideways" deck building or picking a random commander just because you like them and they help the colors. To me, the point of commander is having a Commander, so top down really makes sense as the preferred method, but one must make sure the deck plays without the commander. My scarecrows deck plays like table police when my commander is out, but functions as 5 color artifact combos without the Reaper King and it is perfectly fun and serviceable. But I agree it is nice to see more bottom up building, especially for people who are way too salty.

Top down or bottom up.... is it too much to ask for both? Select a Commander, make a decision about which theme works best with that commander. Then build 99 cards bottum-up on that theme in those colours. If you want some additional commander synergy just take a second pass through the 99 & see if there are any cards that could be cut in favour of something more synergistic: you'll have a much more critical eye when you actively have to cut a card to push extra commander synergy into the deck.

Bottom-up construction is something I've done a tiny bit of in the past, but moreso just to find a commander to play with. However, a few months ago I watched that Salubrious Snail video about making midrange decks, and it's kind of like a bottom-up deck design philosophy. The gist is that you look at your commander not as a card to build around but rather a card that will always be in your opening hand, using that to help cover any weakness your deck might have. Using this strategy, I made an Elfball deck online that can jam out a ton of mana pretty easily, but since they're all Elves, they tend to be pretty cheap and there aren't that many outlets. The commander I chose to fix that problem? Zacama. Had I looked at Zacama first and tried to build down from there, I don't think Elf Tribal would have been my first thought. It may not have even occurred to me. But it made for a cool concept!

Ha, I'm over halfway through making a Rule 0 metal deck! All the cards have names of metal bands/metal songs or a metal reference. I got Tezzeret, Master of Metal as the commander, then cards such as Deicide, Suffocation, Killswitch, Iron Maiden, Roots, Puppet Master, all the cards with Slayer in the title, Lord of the Pit and all creatures with Embalm. Cos they make White Zombies 🤘

I hadn't played for over 20 years and just got back into Magic last summer and started playing EDH. I have some decks I basically net decked, but trying to brew my own now so i found this very helpful. Thanks!

I mean one thing about top down building is that it really lets you build with weird random cards you won’t see anywhere else which in my opinion is a good thing because you get to use a lot more unique stuff and it’s fun to do that and you can’t really see anywhere else

This is actually really solid advice. Great vid.

step 1: 100 basic lands 20 of each color. step 2: replace one with sliver overlord. step 3: ??? step 4: win every time

I love your take and really wish more commander players were like this. I feel like the over abundance of busted precon commanders have turned everyone into top down players that get bent out of shape when you remove their kill on sight commanders that their decks NEED in play. Very refreshing to see other people with a similar viewpoint to me.

I love it when you come accross a video that perfectly explains the problems you've been having in deck building! Great vid :)

Good points, and definitely a valid way to build decks. In general, I have found that good commander decks use a little of both ways of thinking, and the bottom-up and top-down processes feed into each other. For example, I might pick a commander first, which lets me start finding synergy pieces. Then, I figure out the best synergy pieces that fit together, and that lets me establish a theme. That might make me reconsider my commander, or fight harder for the commander to work, which brings me back to examining the deck pieces.

Ive taken a blend as of recent with my deck building. My last deck was built with the idea “i want to make a companion deck that utilizes partner commanders, thus i can say i have a 3 commander commander deck”. From there, i took that idea, and came to the conclusion that i want my deck to generate a ton of mana, that way I could cast my companion whenever i desired. This lead me to use one of the green companions, and ultimantly i felt keruga to be the most fun pick for the deck. Theme in mind, rather than looking for deck pieces, i went looking for commanders, and stumbled upon erinis and a blue background. Thus, my simic self mill/ landfall deck all in service of my hippo overlord was born. And the deck is so bonkers good. Underplayed commanders mean you can monilith the commander a bit, since no one is going to remove a commander who has done nothing for 4 turns when a prosper deck is across the table… but my deck is so crazy that by turn 7 i tend to run out of basic lands in my deck (all 19)

I never really thought about it that way. I realized I've always been a top-down player bc I like gimmicky commanders and playing around them. But sometimes I'd have games where my commander was destroyed and I had a really stale play experience after. This vid helped me re-evaluate my decks for sure, to atleast guarentee I can "do the thing" with my deck and have fun, regardless of winning/losing!

Love the skitarii look of the new avatar, great video as always!

Great video. Will be sharing this to multiple people.

Bottom up might result in a more effective deck, but it also results in the most common version of the theme you've chosen, and the commander you pick will often end up barely related to the rest of the deck. At that point, you're not really playing "commander", you're just playing 99 card singleton with a bonus card. Yes, Distorting Wake is bad even in a Hinata deck, but it feels much more like a Hinata card than the alternative multibounce options do, and in turn makes it feel more like you're playing with/against a "Hinata deck", as opposed to a standard WUR deck that happens to sometimes have Hinata out. The goal of any game is to have fun, and unless you're the kind of person who just enjoys winning, the most fun you're going to have is going to come from finding the right balance point between commander-centric synergy, broader thematic/subthematic synergy, and basic power level. The strongest possible deck is rarely the most fun possible deck. The right power level is the power level that allows you to win a reasonable proportion of the time while sacrificing the minimum deck identity.

I appreciate the consistency of bottom up design, but I'm rarely inspired to build a new deck until I see a commander that I jive with enough to take the time to build. I'm willing to accept the feast or famine gameplay, but I do try to ensure there are still ways to win even if my commander becomes unavailable.

I like the the new avatar and also, building bottom up decks! It makes for a more interesting deckbuilding process, for one thing.

I actually really love building decks from the side they can be so much fun added bonus it could also become a bodem up built deck as well

this video helped me out a ton with one of my recent decks! I was doing top to bottom, but playtesting was going awful, so I recently rebuilt it bottom to top and now its more consistent and honestly better.

I've honestly done a bit of all three (mostly the latter two). Top down works really well for commanders that essentially BEG to be the crux of the deck and just by design are essentially needed to make the deck function just by what they do (Prosper for example, or Tawnos Solemn Survivor) but it's almost a requirement that a lot more of the deck is going to need to consist of a solid protection suite to keep your commander alive or reduce the impact of the tax (flicker/blinks, fake your death effects in black, hexproof/indestructible effects, command beacon/netherborn altar effects, etc). The bottom up tends to be a lot more self sufficient but also tend to be a bit more vague and nebulous in terms of optimal ways to pilot the deck, which can be a bit of a downside for newer players or if you want an extremely streamlined play pattern.

I think that top-down works, so long as you are willing to dedicate slots to commander protection. I run a Niv deck, and that can be rough because people see him hit the board, and you usually dont get to untap before he's gone. However, he is the engine that drives that deck. So, to make sure he stays on the board, I have a good 6-7 slots dedicated to just cards that will keep him on the there, and i dont play him until i get a card in hand that i can use for protection. I have an anhelo deck that runs similarly, although tbf in that case, Anhelo just makes my big scary spells bigger and scarier, so its less crucial that he hits the board, and he doesnt have the same infamy as Niv. Keeping in mind the way people perceive certain cards and commanders, even when deckbuilding, is really important, and i think it can make a top-down style work.

I love your new avatar! Also, Great video! I find myself doing bottom-up deck more often now with my local commander league.

aye, new avatar looking clean man! great upload as always

My first custom commander deck ( a solid 7) was somehow all of these at once. I went in knowing I wanted to do wolf tribal, and knowing Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves was going to be my commander as I drew him years prior and always wanted to use him in a deck, but I also had a bunch of specific cards I wanted to use. The deck ended up being a Token Wolf Tribal, where I make a ton of wolves, pump them up, and murder everyone. It also have my favorite infinite combo in all of magic

Love the advice and the new sprite!

I never thought about it like this. Very helpful video, thank you.

Sorta also a Top Down design, but starting at a different point is when you build around a secret Commander in the 99. Usually a card that isn't allowed to be in the Command Zone normally and then you chose cards around that and how to get your secret commander into play reliably and keep it there.

I only just started playing a couple of months ago. I bought a precon that came with Imprisoned in the Moon and Darksteel Mutation. I get the best reactions when I stick them on someone's commander and their whole world crumbles.

This was great insight - I was so focused on glorifying my Commander that I forget the other 99 cards are on the main stage most of the time! Thanks :)

Nice video ! Personnally I have my own way of making my commander decks. It's not optimal but it gives a lot of punch. And I'll give the name of the sledge strategy juste because it's fun. You start as a top down commander (you go down the hill with your sludge) when you build it, you take your commander then you put every cards that work with it in your deck. Then you select your cards so that you get around 63-64 nonland (generally with around 10 ramp, 10 draws, 2-3 boardwipe that all work with the commander). Every good cards that were cut are put aside. Then you start doing bottom up (you take your sludge to the top), by taking every cards you've put in the deck and think "does this work with another card in the deck, like at least 2 or 3, if my commander wasn't there". Then once you're finished cutting cards, you do the top down all over again (with less cards to add of course) Edit : if there is not enough cards that work with each other, the method doesn't work and you're commander is too useful for the strategy. In this case I put a lot of protection for my commander or ways to get it back since he's that much of the center of the strategy

Lovin the new look!

This is a pretty nice video. And I do like the sprites, I came here pretty much because I spotted the skitarii.

Yes, but sometimes that's just the risk I am willing to take. Part of the fun of running different commanders is getting the opportunity to run cards that are generally bad in other decks. Like, there's probably numerous better artifact/enchantment destruction spells I could be running over Seal of Primordium in my Muldrotha deck, but it's really cool to get good value out of a random card I had that I would have otherwise never used. It does suck that my deck's power level takes a hit whenever the commander isn't out, but that's why I've got to treat it like is something worth keeping out. If my commander's getting pinged off the table so many times that I can't summon it anymore, then it's clearly my fault for not playing in a way that allows me to protect what I consider a important part of my strategy.

Perfect timing on this video! I've been struggling with a deck I've been working on a human tribal that's a mix between voltron and token creatures acting as cannon fodder blockers while my big powerful (highly synergistic) creatures swing for massive damage.its been a real pain in the ass but it's getting there. Efit: subbed btw

I don't think I've ever built a deck that was commander first until very recently. I built a Kardur deck because I found Eater of Days, and the idea of just, jamming Kardur, then dropping eater of days and leaving the table for a couple rounds made me laugh so hard that I built it. Did a demon subtheme, and now I have a demon deck that makes me overwhelmingly happy and pulls off some nasty Shenans, and my commander functions mostly as a "the board is getting weird, why don't you all fight about it" card. It's almost a teferi's protection if you time it right.

Fantastic video, a massive helping hand! :)

My favorite sideways deck is a niche deck based around the idea of ghosts possessing items, so it's a vehicle heavy deck with a moderate spirit tribal subtheme. Unfortunately the best commander I could find was Kaikar, which thoroughly does not fit thematically lol

While I definitely agree that bottom up decks are more consistent, as I’ve been making more of those style decks recently, I also find they lack that “wow” factor specifically unique to commander decks. Your deck does a thing well and it does it great, that’s cool. But so is seeing some random draft shaft card that does nothing on its own suddenly win somebody the game because the group was focused on other scarier threats then their commander at the table.

I prefer top-up deck design. It's where you pick Derevi as your commander, build entirely around her, and never get punished for it.

Well thought out video, subscribed

Think it's worth mentioning as an extension of bottom up design - you can further refine your cards by picking a strategy as well. Like if you're building auras you can go for an aggro strategy with lots of pumps and keywords, or a more midrange strategy with lots of repeatable auras (rancor etc) to trigger enchantresses over and over. Great vid!

Since the commander is effectively a guranteed card in hand you can use it to shore up a weakness or free up deck slots. For example Piru is a boardwipe so you can avoid running (m)any others or use it to cover a weakness to burn decks.

This was a great video! I tend to do all 3 of these at different times. Sometimes a mix of both in the same deck. For example right now I'm building Tom Bombadil Sagas and Polukranos Hydras. Both of these are both top down and bottom up in a way. I'm building a theme around my commander's payoff. But the theme can exist on its own. But sometimes I just like to have a theme. So like I also have a 4 color Aragorn deck that is historic tribal but the theme is "weird or hard to pronounce card names." I'm also building a 5c "Universes Beyond" tribal deck that could care less if the commanders are on the field.

I'm definitely going to try this method. I started making a list of my favorite cards, and landed on esper enchantments. Zur the enchanter is too big a removal target, but Zur2 can protect my enchantments, and the deck doesn't fold if he gets removed. I like this idea a lot.

Great video. I love building top down for obvious reasons, but the strongest decks are without a doubt the bottom up. It's a fine balance.

Definitely love to build this way

i tend to go somewhere between top down and bottom up, where i start with some regular cards i like and find other cards that work well with them, then find a commander that supports or is supported by those cards, then finish the deck with cards that work well with the commander

I've tried all 3, and I can say that Bottom-Up works best, it's just definitely the one that requires the most work.

Never seen one of your videos before this one, but I really do like the spritework.

These are great tips for beginning players like myself I really enjoyed the advice

My favourite decks are goofy tribal decks that always start by going on scryfall to just search up that goofy theme, so this really resonated with how I brew

Step 1. Make a list of every card that's ever been printed that fits the gameplan / theme and can go in the deck. 2. Cull that down over several passes until there's only ~50 left. 3. Add some more removal / ramp / etc to smooth it out.

Funny thing. I had a Painbow deck, my first deck ever. Obviously running five-colors in a deck that doesn’t naturally control the both but wants big creatures on your field sounds nice but it was relatively slow. As I learned and bought other decks, I learned not to value to end goal without first stabilizing (ramp, solid, consistent boardstate, and ways to not get too overwhelmed before “popping off”) long story short it is now a prismatic bridge deck, that does the big creature thing but with a safer mid range strat. lol so it was not so much too down or otherwise more of a in and out strategy that focused on the original theme. Its my first born love lol

Personally, I use both Bottom up and Top down methods while building. I start with choosing a commander and a theme (the theme doesn't necessarily have to fit the commander), then build the deck around that theme and over time make changes to the list to better synergize with the commander without over relying on it. I've been playing with tribal Merfolk for almost a decade now, with most of that time having Sygg, River Guide as the commander. Over time, I decided to add green to the deck, swapping out Sygg with Tuvasa (when she came out) and increased the enchantment count, molding the deck to having themes of tokens, enchantments, and tribal merfolk all in one.

Bottom up, that’s the way I like to…. Uh… build commander decks

Bottom to top is a great way for newbies to construct better decks. I agree. I have a 5C "Detectives tribal" with Ramos as the Commander. He is a good card by itself, and the fact that he can remove counters to give you mana to use the clues or other things is amazing.

Funny you mentioned Goad, bottom up ended up being how I designed my Eisika Goad deck and it’s a powerhouse that really surprises people and also never casts her Prismatic Bridge side for once

I like a mix of top and bottom, one of my favorite decks, Jon Irenicus Shattered One, started with me seeing I had a lot of black/blue control cards. I found a cool/fun comander in those colors, then went top down, looking for creatures that have fun interactions with Jon. Now I give my friends ridiculous fun cards and still control the flow of the game.

I just want to cast Cruel Ultimatum, Villainous Wealth, and Maelstrom Nexus

i almost always design top down, and usually just run at least 10 cards to protect my commander in one way or another, whether its reanimation, return to hand, etc. something like Snap is basically a protection spell for your commander, as well as being just generally a good option

I did a hybrid of this. My Armix|Rebbec deck started as top-down (pulled a Rebbec and started evil laughing) then tried to build around Artifact synergy. Eventually settled on Armix because he is solid as a removal tool and plus the challenge of "Artifacts, No Blue" means I get to run weird tools

I opened a Hinata in the prerelease and I built the deck and played it exactly one time and put it away forever. I don't know how I would rebuild it, but it was definitely a learning experience for me.

Basically you described why blue farm is such a strong cedh deck. It is a strong 98 card pile that is supported by tymna and kraum. Basically you can build anything in sans green around tymna kraum and the deck won't brick

Totally agree! ❤ I have a Dynaheir deck that is built around artifact shinenigans. The only reason I play dynaheir is to make my artificers tap instantly but the deck can play perfectly without! (It's a secret osgir deck).

I sometimes use the bottom up method, but I usually find myself doing the top down method while keeping away from a lot of the effects that rely on my commander. I will add some of the payoff is great, but not too many. A good ideology while building is add cards that are good on their own and great with your commander out.

This is why I prefer pantlanza over gishath, because pantlaza just helps the engine going faster, but the deck absolutely does not need pantlaza in play for it to go crazy. Whereas gishath is built in a certain way where you are trying to ramp him out asap, if someone removes him then well, gg.

I try a hybrid method. I often start with a commander, but I try to build my decks so they can function fine without the Commander. For example, in my Krenko Goblin deck, I found that Krenko was a 'kill on sight' commander, so I built my deck where Krenko simply augmented the deck instead of being absolutely essential.

My issue with building bottom up is it always feels like I'm just making another "goodstuff" deck and just looking for a goodstuff commander to wrap it up. Ironically there are so many solid goodstuff commanders that you could hit it from either end. You had Delney there for a bit, you could end up with a Delney deck either going top down or bottom up. The thing is, I live for commanders that truly change how the game is played, making cards you'd never see become amazing. My favorite commanders are Shirei, Ghyrson Starn, Magus Lucia Kane, and Be'lakor. The former two especially utilize cards you'd never see anywhere else and you would never ever consider when making bottom up lists. I like running unique cards that are boosted by weird synergies and the only way to do that is top down. Yes, it's more fragile, but playing Lightning Coils in my Shirei deck and everyone going, "I've never seen that card before" is the biggest deck building draw for me. Otherwise I'd just run something like Loot with a broad goodstuff build behind him as a generic draw engine.

I built two of my favorite decks, Hogaak and Niv Mixzet Reborn, as a combination of both top down and bottom up. Hogaak was:"Big, likes big graveyard, like lots of bodies" so I built a combination of go wide/go tall centered around graveyard synergy. My Niv Mizzet Riborn deck was built with a limit on non 2 color cards, it has 6 support artifacts, 36/37 lands, and every other card is a 2 color card, with a minimum of 4/5 of each pair. Both decks play just fine without their commander, but go over the top with them.

I am and will forever be a Sideways deck builder. My favorite one was my "Murica" Ruhan of the Fomori deck.

I know it was just an example, but if you're talking about Mardu Goad, Mathas, Fiend Seeker seems like a pretty obvious commander to consider giving you card draw and some group-huggish good will that will make it a lot easier to keep your commander in play and do the thing you're trying to do, with tangential synergy of your bounty counters making the creatures you goad more desirable to block effectively.

An interesting take Salubrious Snail had on top-down approach was picking a commander with the intent of it as an always-available fix to a structural weakness in the deck. iirc he built a Glissa Sunslayer deck that used her primarily as a strong defensive threat (with mild combo synergies) to hold down the board and focus on curving into mana-heavy late game bombs. It had little to do with Glissa’s abilities, and treated her more like a card you could always rely on drawing.

lmao I just looked up “partner” and balled from there, now I’m just wrapping up a Tana/Akroma deck, which hypothetically should be pretty solid

A deck i really want to play around with is the Infinite Armory- equipment artifacts and cards that synergize off having equipment or allow you to get the armory out.

when i realised that my sideways deck, revolves too much around my commander and rebuild it Bottom up, the Commander just makes the deck work even better, is still part of the equasion but not the prime threat, therefore can be snuk under the other parts of the deck that now work well on their own. :D very cool videos thank you for the Imput :)

1:20 not gonna lie, this has become a lot simpler with UB. Pretty easy to make a LOTR or 40k themed deck and still have synergy

My gruul deck is my first venture into bottom-up design and it's been a blast so far! I wanted a gruul stompy deck that makes ridiculously huge creatures by doubling power multiple times and attacking with them. I've made a bunch of different gruul decks with a bunch of different commanders at the helm, but there are so many cool ones that it was tough to choose just one. So, what did I do? I made a deck that supports all of them! Minsc&Boo is the current commander at the helm, but the deck is designed to be able to work with a bunch of stompy gruul legends at the helm (Xenagos, Ruby, Tana, Etali, Halana&Alena, etc) without changing the core strategy of the deck. M&B just happen to be generally strong and do a lot of things that the deck wants, so it's the "default", if you wanna see it that way.

Literally you described my Queen Marchesa “combat math is hard” deck haha. It even has Dihada in the 99, and I’ve often thought of swapping them. 😂

I thought about this as it applied to my own deck, I have a deck that’s both sideways and top-down helmed by isshin called Daddies tribal (because there are a lotta hunky men that care about combat triggers). I also have a “Steal opponents things deck” helmed by Lazav that’s both bottom-up and top-down, since it focuses on getting Lazav out fast so I can steal as many things as possible with them, but still functions without them. But then I realized I have a third category. This may be a variation on bottom-up, but I have two decks where my commander is basically a sorcery, so there isn’t much of an issue with getting them out. Dargo/Jeska, and Codie, Vociferous Codex. I play my commander and then immediately sacrifice them to combo off, the commander is the wincon that can’t really be stopped as long as I find the right opening.

Honestly I've been a primarily top down deck builder, and I find that sometimes it's just necessary. Like if I wanted to build a burn deck, throwing a ton of burn spells in before picking your commander would probably just mean cutting a lot of them once you did decide on your commander. The archetype only really has a few options in commander, and there's a good amount of variation between them. Imodane wants high damage single target spells that target creatures, where something like Ojer Axonil wants low damage, low cost effects that damage players. This might just be a quirk of the archetype, but I really feel like knowing what commander you'll be building around would help in such a case. I think both top down and bottom up have their use cases, but the former is more prone to monolith commanders, as they've been referred to recently. I'm admittedly rather guilty of this myself, so I see avoiding it as a huge advantage of bottom up.

I made a "Where Will You Be When Diarrhea Strikes?" EDH deck. Norin, The Wary + lots of explosions. And poison counters.

I would note that for bottom up, you can design the deck such that the comander fixes some problem with the deck, like with the comanders for card draw, you could put a lot less draw in the deck and focus on what you want to do

Top down has the weakness that your commander is centric and all the weaknesses that come along with that. Bottom Up has the weakness that your commander isn't as synergy heavy and so it will never be as rawly powerful as a deck built around it's commander that just doesn't have it's plan disrupted. Sideways won't build you a good deck, but it will be unique and probably will be a good time at the table. I particularly like restrictions like time/border etc. The strongest way to build a deck is often to identify a fundamental problem with a strategy you enjoy, and then choose a commander that is the solution to that problem, then include a small number of cards that work alright without your commander, but are high synergy. So, bottom up, then top down to finish. A good example of this is the progression of Najeela in cEDH. It started out very top down with lots of single card combo enablers like Nature's Will, Druid's Repository, Bear Umbra etc, and now it's a 5c midrange stax deck which only plays 2 najeela synergy cards. It arrived there because Najeela solves the natural weakness of the 5c midrange Stax deck, which is not having a good path to winning in the mid game. For me, I combined all three methods when I wanted to build a clue deck. It started with sideways construction when I added basically all the cards that said "investigate" on them. Then bottom-uply, I decided that Esper made the most sense for the deck, and I added my interaction suite, tutors etc. Then top-downly, I decided on Marneus Calgar as the commander because of how he works with Investigate x times, and then added in some cards that go well with him, like Lotho, Corrupt Sheriff, and Revel in Riches.

So yeah, gonna need a link to that metal band deck list

I try to "approch the middle" rather than waiting for a solid theme or building around a commander, I take a few similar themes that could even coexist and a few commander options that support one or more of my themes/ goals for the deck. I then see which cards I already own and use that to narrow down my theme and commander options. Usually my approach somewhat resembles a bottom up build but just a different way to do it. I've also noticed building around the commander entirely can cause problems, my Niv Mizzet Parun spellslinger tends to be pretty quiet until it suddenly detonates and everyone dies through (surprisingly) non infinite combos. meanwhile my Oloro deck which just uses the commander as free insurance to play slower/ more controlling is a fairly well rounded deck with a little extra health and card draw then it would otherwise have had.

I built a deck from the Bottom Up I call, "You'll just die tired", where I started with Creatures like Malignus, Ferocidon, Cosmotronic Wave, Call in a Professional, Skullcrack, and Questing Beast, with Haste Enablers sprinkle effective almost universal removal, than picked Ruric Thar as the Commander, so yes my is a lot ruder with him out, but I still can easily win without him on the board.

I don't like top Down, bottom up, or sideways, but a fourth more sinister thing.

Whenever I build a top down commander deck, the first thing I do is add some protection to counteract the whole non game situation

The first time o built my atraxa grand unifier deck, i build around her. But after several iterations, now i have other creatures to blink in the deck, and more mana sinks for my ramp. That's a different approach that i like, evolving your deck with the time passing.

I've found myself using both strategies for decks and I do agree that both work pretty well. About 2 years ago I just wanted to make a mardu tokens deck with all the cards that spit out tokens and every turn to churn out value through board pumps or sacrifice. It ended up being one of the most consistent and scary decks that I have. At the time there was no clear token matters commander in mardu, but now with fallout around the corner I can replace marchesa with Caesar. Then there was Optimus Prime, a deck that was all about getting small creatures big and give consistent value that way. Things like mickaeus or iron apprentice. Going from the other direction this time, strong without the commander, but scary with him. Thankfully he himself is a bit of a pain to remove. Through the processes of building these decks, I realized it was also fun just trying to build around strats without their core color(s). Green is very prevalent with both strats, with blue and black also having some exceedingly powerful cards in their respective strats that I build around. By specifically denying the use of these colors I found myself making more meaningful decisions to the decks. Sure marchesa had many auto includes like bitterblossum and assemble the legion, but I wasn't adding any token doublers to her or counter doublers to Optimus with green. Without the best cards I needed to make meaningful decisions to make up for this, in turn making both decks much more consistent menaces in their own rights.

In theory your advice is definitely a good way to build. I would say that it depends on experience level, I mostly design top down, and I would say I mostly build very strong decks, but it is not like I haven't fallen into the top down pitfall, specifically with my Reaper king deck. While it can still be strong, and it does win most 1 v 1 games (though I dislike 1 v 1 in commander), it is basically not really a competitive deck in any way unless my commander is on the battlefield, and I have felt that before. Now I have like 12 other decks that are doing just fine, and I would say most of them are top down. But I do also have a bottom up, which is my merfolk deck, which I am making atm, getting the cards soon. And looking forward to seeing it in action.

My way of building a deck is pure chaos. I have piles with a loose theme sitting on a desk for months until I find a good commander, and commanders sitting in a binder until I find a good pile. I take my decks apart and put them back together with different commanders. I was trying to build two wubrg decks at the same time, looked at both commanders and realised one of them would fit better in the 99 of the other, and then I had to merge the two somehow. My Krenko Goblin deck started picking up Soviet themes such as Russian language Mountains and then became a Zada deck because her ability screams communism. Ghalta leads my Elves. My Elves can typically fend for themselves, but they just make it so easy to cast Ghalta. I build a mono Black deck, it turned purple! Thanks Innistrad Double Feature, I didn't know that was an option.

I started building decks this way an idea and a dream... I sometimes tend to end up switching the original commander out after finding the exact way I want the deck to function. ... there's also many times I just want to make some Kangee jank. 😅

Top down building works fine if the payoff of the commander is something that already wins the game. If you’re a Karametra deck and the deck is a pile of the most terrifying green/white creatures ever printer. You don’t need your commander to win even with every card in the deck being selected with Karametra in mind.

I've definitely done all three approaches, and when it's top down, you have to consider a plan B that's not just stylish footwear. Shirei is so weird and fun, that I couldn't bear to scrap it. So I made a plan around what the deck loves to do and sneaky ways to protect him: Blessing of Leeches, Gift of Doom, Mithril Coat... and more funky payoffs like Crowded Crypt. It's a blast. And it's a good example. Look at most Arcades decks, they run several plan Bs so you can still attack. Bottom up is often more consistent, I agree. Another approach to that is to make the commander the one thing the deck doesn't do. I messed with the Kasla precon, and she's perfect for a token deck as a big beatstick to force damage through.

I sort of did the bottom-up method accidentally. My Omnath Locus of Rage landfall deck, I recently moved him into the 99 and switched Mina and Denn, Wildborn from the 99 to the commander. The deck seems to flow much smoother as the deck is full of landfall payoffs that don't need Omnath, but Mina and Denn help ramp me into.

Personally I think that the best approach is a balance between the two. For me, a deck needs to work without its commander but it should feel more powerful when it is in play.

I think the approach you would take depends largely on power level. Bottom up makes for stronger, more resilient decks, but it would probably fail to take you towards very unique and gimmicky commander. In a lower-level pod, having a worse deck that just does "the funny thing" and needs the commander in play for that is perfectly fine ! (I'm currently building Borborygmos Enraged, the way I do it is I just throw together whatever cards I have that support the gameplan "ramp to 8 and draw a lot" but realistically I don't think anyone would get to "I wanna throw lands at people's faces" when building a bottom-up deck