I think the number 2 method is definitely the way to go, your deck just runs a lot better if your commander is a synergy piece rather than the thing that makes the deck work

For what its worth, my favourite method is to pick a mechanism, then choose a 'good' commander, then immediately look for redundancy cards for the commander for when its not there. Or tribal, and then I get hamstrung with the preferred commander's colours - always too many, or not enough..... grrr. Hydras are testing my colours/Commander choices atm

I made this 2 years ago. I picked something I wanted to play, I tried every colour combinaison to fit the way I wanted to play this deck. Then I searched A LOT for a suitable Commander. I ended with Tayam, Luminous Enigma for a Graveyard Explore Deck. I love it, I took everything possible, even really underwhelming cards, but it was on Explore purpose, just to synergise as much as possible. I've been blessed with the last Ixalan set. I'm the happiest guy at the table with this deck.

Going the opposite direction. I've built an Odric, Blood-Cursed that is Commander focused, but actively doesn't want Odric to stick around since I just want the etb producing lots of Blood tokens. It's a good feeling knowing you can block with your Commander to get more value from it!

Okay, hear me out. Roon can blink Opponents creatures, but it has green. Splashing green could be fun. :)

Hey Demo! Cheers from Brazil! I have a Ranar Blink deck that has a mechanic very similar to what you are cooking. Not only you are exiling creatures from battlefield ( and also grave), but making a Spirit token in the meanwhile. There's also a spirit subtheme ( and a little foretell). Thanks for your content and keeping up the excelent work!

These vids are so much fun to watch and picture what you're explaining. Very informative and entertaining.

I'm kinda using both strategies at the same time, meaning that I may browse potential commanders while looking for a specific mechanic or style to build the deck around. Sometimes I discover an interesting mechanic while looking at Commanders, sometimes it's the other way around.

I absolutely love the idea of your deck!!! I wanted to build around blinking decks but not the typical brago way, and i didn't think about blinking your creatures AND your opponent's ones too, seems pretty fun dude! many thanks :3

Kudos for sharing your perspective on this. Since subscribing a couple of years back, how I judge cards has completely changed. In retrospect, I can see some of my more recent decks tend towards method 2, but I now see clearly why some of my builds never seem finished, as I balance interaction with engine parts to keep a commander in action. Essentially, in your example here, the interaction and the engine are one and the same, the commander simply is a useful tool to keep the engine running.

I think building around your commander is the purpose of the format and makes it fun. you're playing commander like it's modern or standard now. not complaining just saying, above all do what's fun for you.

Lagrella, the Magpie seems like what you’re looking for. If you’re willing to creature tutor.

Thanks for the interesting ideas. I've been trying to build around Stenn since its release, without success. I'll investigate the direction of your decklist. Thanks for all the content you share.

I remember when I switched to this new style you're describing, it was exile matters before that really started catching on (bell borca) and I think this system of building rejuvenated my edh enjoyment. Awesome to hear it talked about.

Isshin, Two Heavens as One is one of my favorite commanders. I have a samurai tribal deck where he's the commander. BUT I've been thinking of doing a vehicle deck with him as the commander.

Generally I prefer to build around mechanics and focus on making the commander just one part of a greater machine. I also like redundancy and recursion so my decks are like the A-10 Warthog. You can blow half of it away and I'll still have a reasonable chance of closing the game out while everyone else has huge commander taxes or ran out of gas. Either my commander will "do the thing" more/better when it's out, or it's some sort of value engine like card draw. I'm not crippled if I can't get them out but they help things run smoother when they are.

I would highly recommended Roon of the Hidden Realm for the blink deck you were discussing. He can blink any player's creatures with his activated ability, and having green would make it easier to find your containment priest.

Thank you for the video, i do think now it's a really great way to make a cohesive deck and i want to try that in the future. I had a similar strategy in standard with containment priest and i was using Yorion and other blink effects, because i could tuck creatures under exile enchantments and artifacts and then when yorion blinked them with containment priest out, they were exiled forever and i got to exile new creatures.

Loving your new blink deck idea, I actually do a lot of the same things in my Heliod, the Radiant Dawn deck. Training Grounds is perfect for Planar Guide and to transform Heliod! Another personal favorite in that deck is Eye of Singularity. Makes for some hilarious situations with Theoretical Duplication, Mystic Reflection and Clone Legion.

I like your creative approach. It always feels so great to play against decks that are not copy pasted from edhrec or just simply the goodstuff slam of the best cards in colors. I wish more people had time and resources to have that creative and researching approach to deckbuilding. Method 2 is the way to go

The Trinket Mage just did a video on this! Bottom up vs. top down deckbuilding. I like that you mention playing one or two cards that work with the commander you ultimately use.

I kind of combine the two. All but one of my decks are Mardu, because I can’t stand blue and don’t want to lean on green as a crutch, so I pick a Mardu commander with an ability that I find interesting and then figure out how exactly I want to build it. I wholly reject the idea that there’s an “optimal” way of building a deck. It really does depend on the synergy between the cards you add rather than just raw power. This means I try to only include “staples” where they work within the deck strategy. Kelsien is a great example. It’s the only deck that has Dockside Extortionist in it. Instead of doing an equipment build, I went with a blink/untap strategy. This means I can continuously blink Dockside if I don’t need to blink Kelsien. Whenever I build a deck, I always build it with not having access to my commander in mind. Often that will be another card that does something similar. That means I very rarely build a pure monolith commander. The closest I have to one is Extus, my latest deck. He relies on the protection swords to get in for damage and keep removal away. On top of that, I use as many non-blue counter spells, copy spells, and target changing spells to keep him alive until he’s suited up. If he is otherwise inactive, I can suit up Kellan, the Fae-Blooded (whose adventure helps finding equipment) and still have about 75% of my deck still functional.

after 20 years of playing Magic and 10+ with commander I have only one advice: Build with what you have. Order cards if you must, build/print your collection at your own pace but build with what you have. One of the best improvements you can make to a deck is understanding the cards in it, so using cards in multiple decks makes them better because you understand you pieces of cardboard better than most

Very interesting idea! Eldrazi displacer and a few more colorless sources like talisman, mystic gate, nimbus maze, and adarkar wastes would be a great backup for mistmeadow witch. It would also make training grounds potentially potent enough to include.

From the Dr. Who sets, the card Don't Blink is another copy of the "cant enter the battlefield" spell.

Monolith commanders use thier commander as 1 of 3 combined cards needed to pull of an impressive combo. Toolbox commanders combine states, to prevent opponents from taking actions, countering counters. Floodgate commanders prevent game states, and create an environment of rules. These are the most common playstyles, not all of them. You'll mix different wincons, beatdown, burn, and others on top of it. Youll have different engines and engine options, and they'll try with all their might to convince you its balanced because someone has a phd when its really just a status synbol. Clear as day, Monolith is the most powerful way to build the deck.

Same. I find most of my "evergreen" edh decks came when I was building around an idea or theme rather than a commander. They're more creative and lead to better responses from pods I play in.

The most fun commander deck I ever played was my first: Melek, Izzet Paragon. He’s a 6 mana 2/4 in U/R that lets you play instants and sorceries from the top of your deck, and spells cast that way are copied. The reason it was so good was because the vast majority of the deck was a standard spell slinger theme (which has lots of support), while maybe 6-7 cards really leaned into manipulating the top card for Melek. So if you didn’t have Melek you were still able to play a game, but if you stuck Melek the synergy was strong enough to threaten to take over the game in a turn or two. My more recent commander decks like Cosima, god of the voyage basically require the commander to do anything. I’ve found that’s lead to a lot of non games.

Opalescence and paralax wave works well too! In response to slapping out 4 enemies, you exile the creature enchantment and rinse repeat

Damn, I was just thinking about this over the weekend. I started out making decks where the commander was "cool" or "powerful" and recently have started being more interested in the mechanic the commander has. That's why I really like Arcades and what he does.

I like playing jank. Sometimes a janky commander comes up like Ivy or Beamtown Bullies that I really want to build around but I'm now more and more a method 2 builder. Loads of my decks are an idea, "flicker," "chaos" or "Naya self-burn" that have multiple rotating commanders.

I have a Selesnya Human tribal plus-one counters deck that was originally an upgraded Leinore Autumn Sovereign precon, that has around 8 different legitimate options in the 99 to be the commander and the deck still works. There's an angel subtheme and pretty much every Sigarda works, and Shalai, and Lae'zel/Master Chef etc. etc.

This reminds me of my "Game Show" deck. It uses the tempting cards (your opponents may put creatures into play from their hands) with field wipes and stuff like containment priest.

That boromir deck is gonna be really good. I wanted to make a blink deck too, might look into this

the second method usually gives you the ability to have a few legendary creatures in the 99 that are easily swapped to the command zone too. So you can have multiple commanders built in and easily change the feel between games without sacrificing much or anything in the deck and how it plays. its also a kind of cheat side board if you replay with others that are re-playing the same deck and you have a different commander that might be more beneficial to you or detrimental to them.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your Lulu deck, I've heard you mention it before. I have a Lulu/Guild Aritisan deck that I just love, but feel too monolith. Hoping yours solves that problem a bit.

Don't Blink is a card I just found in my new Davros precon - it seems like it could fit your mass blink idea well as a backup containment priest effect

When you said phasing to protect I immediately thought of Reality Ripple, looks like you got it already 👍 And regarding Type 2 building, I think that's why I enjoy my Ghen deck, I very rarely cast him, it's the enchantments and artifacts doing all the work

I'm working on a deck, using method #2, who's purpose is to force fair magic. So it's a control deck, but there are no counters. It runs cards like Lavinia or Yasharn, which prevent the aggressive value cards people like to run.

Oji, the Exquisite Blade Legendary Creature - Human Monk When Oji, the Exquisite Blade enters the battlefield, you gain 2 life and scry 2. Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, exile up to one target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control. Use that to blink creatures that exile your opponents' creatures. 😁

If you were willing to change some colors around you could run Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer as the commander. Makes it really easy to find containment priest and is generally a good “secret commander” commander.

Congrats! Roon of the Hidden Realm can blink your opponents creatures btw.

A mix of both methods. I build decks and then choose my commander for it and if I like it, I might change a few cards to fit the theme. But I'm a huge fan of interractions, so I'm leaning toward those instead of just going in with one strategy.

Another option you could consider (if you haven't already) is Ranar the Ever-Watchful. With all the exile effects, you'd make a ton of 1/1 spirits.

I've used Commander-swapping tactically with my non-stax Zur the Enchanter deck, which uses several tutoring strategies. It can also work with Ertai, the Corrupted as Commander, who can counterspell repeatedly. What I do is find out which Commanders my opponents are packing, and then choose Zur if I want to go aggro, or Ertai if I think I need to play more defensively. The main advantage of having Zur as Commander is killing opponents with 21 points of Commander damage. With Ertai as Commander, he's a counter threat who can always be recast from the Command Zone, taking the heat off Zur. Also wanted to mention Price of Betrayal as an Orzhov/Esper combo with Parallax Wave.

I've constructed most of my commander decks using method 2; I thought it was more fun to have a particular theme or idea and find the commander that fits best. I've got a few decks where the commander is an afterthought. Specifically, I have a blue/black unblockable deck with some walls for defense, I almost never play the commander. I have the handy dandy Vorpal Blade packed away in there, its fun if I can get it out and attached to one of my creatures.

Been in a rut for magic. Trying to get back into it. I like the Boromir deck idea seems fun! Don’t watch your videos as much as I used to but still enjoy them when I do! Been busy with NFL and now WWE 😂

Funny you mention building a boros lands deck, because I was inspired by your Gerrard Boros deck originally. I took that idea and applied it to creating a lands deck that function similar to that. The biggest challenge has been finding a boros Commander for it. Been going back and forth between original plargg and Augusta, queen Kayla, and now I'm going to test run Jenny, Generated Anomaly. If you want to see mine let me know but I am super curious what you could cook up

I have 3 monolith commander decks that come to mind. Kaalia (The deck can work without her but obviously much slower); I try to include enough creatures that don’t require her to cast them and that will gum up the works for everyone else to slow the game down if they remove her too many times. Hylda of the Icy Crown which is hard to get around; I have counterspells and protection as well I do not play her too early. It’s rather a pillow fort deck, so I don’t have to be in too much of a rush to cast her and lastly Animar; built in protection from White and Black tend to mitigate a lot of the removal threats. I just have to address any board wipes in the 1-2 turns before it’s too late for my opponents to do so. For the other 15 or so decks they either do not care much if Commander is removed or in the case of some like Muldrotha, it’s not uncommon for me to recast her 6+ times in spite of her cost.

Just ran into this video. EDH + PWD = Auto sub 🤘

Running eveyr burn card you can in commander doesnt make your deck themed, but it does make it consistent.

further to these points something I love thinking about is MODULAR commanders, they go in the 99 so they're still in the deck and you dont have to worry about misplacing them and oftentimes just adjust how the deck is played! my favorite to date is Azorius fliers, with Isperia, Inniaz, Kangee and more as available commanders!

Hey Demo great video. Have you considered stifle effects here? I know you love that card. You can counter the delayed end step trigger, meaning the creature stays exiled. It works on commanders too, exiling them for the rest of the game. Really makes opponents think hard about putting their commander back into the command zone when you blink it. Makes for some great bluffing situations. End the turn effects also work, so long as you end the turn with the delayed trigger on the stack. I originally built my Roon deck this way and it was mean. This might be the push I need to bring back Roon of the Shadow Realm

I wonder how well Willbreaker would work with this concept, for those backup cases where the containment priest isn't out. If you control Willbreaker and flicker an opponent's creature, you should be able to order the Willbreaker effect first, then the flicker hits, then you get the steal the creature permanently, since the creature returning from exile doesn't see/remember anything about the Willbreaker effect. Then you could just outright permanently steal creatures in one step instead of your flickers turning into "temporary" exile effects. One caveat is your exile/flicker effects would need to be not opponent-specific, otherwise it would fizzle when Willbreaker changes the creature's controller to you. I didn't look through your whole list so not sure how good it would go in, but one of my favorite pet card boardwipes is Out of Time..phases out all creatures for X turns where X = total creatures. Could have decent synergy if you have a way to manipulate the counters on the enchantment, or just flicker the enchantment itself. Actually, a lot of those "exiled while this is in play"-effects could be pretty funny with the flickers. Only downside here is phasing doesn't synergize with Containment Priest or any of the ETB effects on your other creatures, since phasing =/= leaving the battlefield. It still could be on theme and have other synergies, though, and definitely has the same energy in terms of flavor. To your larger point, I think building decks around single cards in the 99 is great. There's generally redundancy for most effects in MTG so it's easy to not get stuck with the commander-or-bust dilemma. So far i've designed decks around Windfall, Life of the Party, and the next one I want to try is Wedding Ring. Distilling a deck's strategy down to a single non-commander card that best represents it makes finding synergies on the various search tools pretty easy, as the key phrases you want are almost always the same. Also lets you dabble with things like Partner and Background, where most "best commander decks" don't touch any of that stuff.

I would recommend that people not be scared of running partner commanders, they cover color Identity and can really flesh an idea out

I definitely do both methods of building. Sometimes I do method two if I have a card I want to build around that does something cool but are in colors that don't do that thing well (I recently build an Aragorn Clue deck so I could play The Fugitive Doctor how I wanted).

This sounds just like my Roon deck. Great minds think alike

I think I've found myself building in a combination of the two. I'll find a commander that has a cool mechanic, or find a mechanic I want to build around, and browse synergies with that. Essentially my Commander is just a more powerful, more consistent synergy piece to whatever I have out on the field.

If you can work Day of Dragons into this bimodal blink deck idea of yours... you'll be my hero.

If you are ok with adding some Colourless Mana (specifically) Eldrazi Displacer works wonderfully with Containment Priest especially with Training Grounds in the deck

I think I do a mix of 1 and 2. I have cards, ideas, and synergies that I want to play with and my own play style; usually I'll pick commanders that help me do those things, but sometimes a commander will give me an idea I hadn't previously thought of. I can get too far into the janky ideas and end up not liking how the deck actually plays, though. I think a lot of people undervalue flexibility, resilience, and sustainability in their decks and maybe having a commander has contributed to that. I fully expect to either have redundancy for my commander or have ways to protect or recast it over and over. I'm not sure how much I should value my commander in terms of card advantage before I start to think I'm spending too many cards to protect or recur it. I think just ramping a lot to make sure you can recast it several times is the most versatile (since you can use that mana for other things), but I like to build decks that don't need to ramp, so evaluating how I build around my commander can get more complicated.

This is something I've thought about a lot - it's like secret commander in a sense; it's does help if you get some kind of utility/boost to cast at least once

this boromir deck is very very cool. have you considered galadriels dismissal or robe of stars? i feel they would fit but im not sure

I recently finished building a deck with Mortarion, Daemon Primarch as the commander. The original idea was to cast Mortarion, then use spells, creatures, and abilities that make me lost life in order to build a big board of tokens with Mortarion's ability, then regaining my life in some way before end of turn. While playing the deck itself, however, I realized that I was rarely casting Mortarion while still getting immense value from the deck in terms of combos and payoffs. So while the original deck was definitely a Method 1 deck, it's evolving into a Method 2 deck and I think I might swap Mortarion out for a different commander every few games

I suppose making a deck have synergy is important, and it looks easier when your commander can fit one part of that synergy. I suppose that I had been wanting to make a Talion deck, but couldn't quitw figure an easier synergy. My idea had been to ignore obvious synergy and make it as return to hand deck, where most my creatures could be good etb effects, but the commander just extra punishing for forcing opponents to recast. I was worried it might not be a good deck idea as the commander wouldn't directly affect my own etb, but I might re-evaluate. Also on that example of a commander that effects humans and artifacts, I just saw the Fallout Arcade Ganon card that has similar effects. I feel compelled to make a deck based on him, obviously with humans and artifacts, but just couldn't figure out an obvious synergy with taping for quest counters, drawing before a discard, and once a turn casting from the graveyard. But I might be able to look for a deck idea that wouldn't rely on Arcade Ganon.

I think casting your commander in edh is important, but also power creep and removal have gotten to a point where non green decks can struggle when staying casual. Obviously cards like prosper are broken and are outliers, but i think going more obtuse with what can be your commander is important now. Not only for diversity in the format, but a 4 drop commander getting blown up twice runs you 8 mana and almost skips your turn when the game is at the most crucial part. I admit that my hansk deck is a bit monolith, but gruul omnath can ramp ridiculously and my azorius deck led by Ezrim could easily be another legend and same for landfall

I am currently building a similar deck with containment priest! Except I am using Lagrella the Magpie as the commander because she let's be exile the 3 best creatures from each of my opponents. I also have Gilded Drake to exile and get back to steal more creatures from my opponents. It seems like a really good combination of cards that I am not seeing anyone play in Lagrella

Great video! I havr been as well.

Who doesn't change their deck building style? Artists of every kind must have their blue periods at some point. That doesn't mean your grey scale is any less important, or beautiful.

I'm sort of a hybrid- I don't build my deck around my commander, I use the commander as inspiration for what mechanic or mechanics to build the deck around. (Which is why I particularly enjoy building commanders into strategies that aren't typical for them, like using Hylda for an elemental tribal deck instead of a tap deck)

Method 2 is how i found one of my favourite decks, Garth One Eye Cycling. I had the gavi precon and i absolutely hated it, the cost reduction is making cycling uninteresting, and the token payoff is mediocre at best. Garth is just the coolest Toolbox, and i run Astral Drift and Astral Slide as my way wincon and a way to reset Garth. Garth isnt necessary for the deck at all, just the coolest Swiss army knife ever. Its basically a roundabout blink deck, which chews through the deck very consistently, very fun to pilot!

Machine Gods Effigy would be a great include

Kinda random but the first time I checked out your videos I wondered WTF is this intro music!? Now, a year later I can't help but mouth and bop along to it, fills me with a weird sort of hype. Helps that you're handsome and charming af, maybe!

My strategy: find something really stupid and see how far I can push the envelope. This could be a monolith commander or it could be an overall deck idea ...I have plans for an Atogatog deck I also plan on making a Kibo Deck if I can get a DK barrel deck box to play the DK country theme when it opens - a deck idea around the deck box!

Maybe Lagrella the Magpie could work as she basically blinks opponents creatures

You could helm this with Aminatou, and include some Phage shenaniganery... Also, even if you dont push into 3 colors, you should probably have the means to shut off and/or double ETB triggers somewhere in here, just in case.

It adds a third color but Roon of the hidden realm blinks your opponents stuff.

I think method 2 leads to much more creativity in strategies and commander choice and I have been doing that more and more lately.Like I made a deck with the idea of casting fractured identity on bad creatures so all of my opponents have one but i dont ,so i made a 4c partner deck cause you need red and black for the bad creatures and more ways of giving them and azorius for fractured identity .

I shared your journey from number 1 to mostly number 2. Maybe this is also due to the fact we are getting like 100 new commanders each month and it’s difficult to keep track.

I've also been using the number two deck building method lately because most of mine have been shit as of late😬😬

Love your videos, especially this one. But I have a feeling playing against that Boromir deck must be miserable. I know when I had Jared, it was very soon hated for constantly removing creatures.

Ya know I hadn't watched this channel in about a year cause I grew away from magic but I'm back and hearing that theme song again was like sunlight. ^-^

Thats good. You've taken your first step into a larger world.

I went bant for my blinks deck with Jedit Ojanen, Mercenary.

I was wondering if you were going to do any content on the Fallout set?

I need to pick a commander that has some kind of sentimental value, then i go from there. Sometimes the commander tells me what the deck does, and sometimes the commander is irrelevant outside it tells me what colors im in. But i need to have some attachment to whats in the command zone.

Built a kalain treasure deck. It does okay but is more of an aristocrats deck. Been debating gutting part of it to make it a jund ziatora the incinerator deck. Mostly because I can still run kalain and the jester that explodes on death.

Building a Megatron artifact freecast and recursion deck taught me that your commander should only be the most obvious card and the rest should still perservere

Ephara is amazing as a blink commander

Numba 1! Hey, Demo :D

just to tack onto your last statement, I don't really like playing carbon copies of decklists either. I enjoy the challenge of making a unique build. That being said, I did make your Jegantha (wuburg) deck with a few alterations. 😜

My deck building is much more number 1. The idea is at the start of a game, you essentially have a hand of 8, and you can guarantee your hand has atleast 1 card you are happy to have (the commander). However, ive recently made a deck that is the most fun deck that i have rn. Its a deck where i pick my commanders (they have partner), and intentionally do something unexpected. My commanders really want me to cast tons of tutor spells to win with powerful combos, and to use the commanders to draw extra cards to get to this goal…. But ive made it a deck where we cast tons of cantrips that read “target creature becomes unblockable this turn” to win with commander damage. But the main reason this is so fun is by building the deck with the commander in mind first, and have the idea to build counterintuitively to the commanders identity.

I wonder if Mystifying Maze would work in there

I find this interesting, for example Dr. Madson Li's recent fallout precon, it is a clumsy deck that was built around the commander and confusing mechanics and interactions energy, artifact, artifact creature and human, even for something with a universe beyond theme. got confused. Now you take the same commander and make a jeskai that uses artifacts and/or artifact and bonus combos. of equipment or something beyond and exotic, what prevents you from trying to have energy, experiences and radiation on the same deck? How about an ottari and several artifacts with mirrodin? it provides great colors and benefits using artifacts with energy counters, but it doesn't need to be if it wants to be the deck's main strategy.

Bottom up deck brewing is more robust and leads to less nongames. I tend to look at themes on edhrec then at color options then at commanders. If the theme isn't supported at all, then I think partners.

Ive definitely in the last few months found some kinda off beat Pet cards to build a deck around, then find a commander thats on theme, in terms of art or style

Honestly at this point it isn't wither way. I build in both directions, I find a strategy find a commander. Find cards that synergies with my commander and cards that synergies with my strategy. Enchantress is a good example of this were I try to fund a decent commander while working within certain colours. From there let's say I picked tatsunari, I'm going to put mutate cards but at the same time I'm thinking about how do I create an engine without tatsunari?

i think a mix of both is important. That's what commander is about after all: building around a commander you like. If you don't like or care about your commander, then why play edh? I think it's good to find a commander you like first (you will see it every game in front of you after all) but try to find one that isn't monolith is best, for sure.

You won't build a deck around your commander but you'll build your deck around containment priest?

I notice you like alot of older cards. Have you tried PreDH?