The color identity restrictions of EDH is the one thing that makes the decks both interesting and manageable to build. Like the stanzas of a poem, the beauty comes from how you work within the restrictions.

You are the adam warlock of EDH thanks for the guide

I've been playing magic on and off for years and the past year have found my love for it again. Your videos including this one has helped greatly in my thought process behind deck building and I look forward to more from this channel.

Thank you so much for your comments on boardwipes! While sometimes it might be necessary to completely wipe the board, it is more often better to play a board wipe which synergizes with your strategy. If you wipe the board but don't have an immediate strategy for winning, you have more than likely merely dragged out the game to be longer than it needed to be.

Eh Idk about cutting single target removal. Might help you short term but when everyone catches up to that philosophy you're harming your pod overall. Because then everyone cuts removal and the strongest deck wins every time. It's a form of freeriding.

This is a solid video! Couple points I'd like to add. 1. Think about the play pattern of your decks and the playstyle you like. Some days i want to play a high mental bandwidth deck with tons of instant speed options. Other days are better as using up all my resources only on my turn and effectively off on other's turns. This matters for color and deck building so much. 2. Its okay to have weaknesses in your deck. Staples are great, however the format is moving towards synergy focus. 3. Your deck has to be complimented by your commander, not completed. Even with weaker leaders, its a great mindset to build in functional synergy. Plus it will get removed more if its too much of the decks focus. 4. Please pick underused commanders. Everyone sees the big bads and boogeymen often. A pregame action of taking everyone's evil eye isnt good.

Youre the first person ive seen to give a concise and comprehensive framework on how to pick cards within each card category. Many thanks!

I think each commander should be analyzed individually and built in a way that seeks synergies and not using the same recipe for all decks. That's why when I saw the Command Zone "build template", I almost abandoned the video 😅😅 Really good video man. I found your channel few weeks ago and i like your content. Your videos are very interesting and your analisys are enough deep too keeping the interest with out boring. Great work. P..D Poor Cackling Fiend, you used like bad example. Because of you maybe he will stops laughing. 😢😂.

I have to contest the notion that it gets "more fun" to run less interaction. We have these commanders that the grassroots have dubbed "Monolith" commanders, and you can't let them sit while you dig for an answer, cause by the time you find it in your slimmed down interaction deck, they will have amassed so many resources that you might as well just scoop. A good example of this is a game I had the other week, against a Xyris deck. Xyris player ramps hard out of the gate, gets a few support pieces down on turn 3 and plays Xyris on turn 4, where he eat a removal spell right away. This player, however, had already ramped so hard that he could just recast it the next turn, with blue mana open, and no one had any more interaction. 3 turns later, when someone next managed to find a board wipe, the Xyris player had 25 lands in play, 30 cards in hand (including 3 board protection spells and 4 counterspells, 40 snakes on the board, and both Craterhoof and Beastmaster Ascension in hand. It was fucked, because this snake was allowed to stick around. Now, the reason I told this little story is to illustrate: If you don't want to be table top Hitler who tries to dictate what other people are allowed to play and not in your presence - Obviously not a great person to be or to be around - you have but one realistic recourse, unless you want to condemn yourself to only playing monolith commanders: To play more interaction. Interaction is the great equiliser that lets slightly more niche and less kitchen-sink'y commanders hang at tables where there may be monolith commanders as well.

Awesome vid, been playing since og kamagawa :) but it’s good to refresh every now and then. My biggest pit fall is culling down to the 99. Adhd so bad I’m already starting on the next deck before the other is done.

Evaluating ramp is really important for those higher costed commanders so you can leap frog your turns. If you play two mana ramp on turn 2, then your four mana ramp and six mana commander can actually come down on turns 3 and 4 respectively.

I start a new deck with 40 lands. I HIGHLY recommend starting with 40 lands. It makes a huge difference in getting enough lands in your opening hand and the first few turns on the game. And if you want to cut a few lands later, no problem. My decks have 38 - 40 lands, including MDFC lands so it's really more like 36 - 38 pure lands. I used to have as few as 33 lands ... it worked sometimes but when I was not drawing enough lands, my opening game would be ruined. If being mana flooded later messes with your game, then just include a few lands you can cycle to draw a card.

Great video, Tempest! Out of all the MTG content creators I’ve found, I think your philosophy on deckbuilding and playing is the closest to my own, and it’s really cool to have a mirrored perspective to help me review my lists and playstyle. Are you going to be at MagicCon Chicago next month?

Please go over the new Precons!!! I'd love to see an upgrade guide from someone who cares about the game as much as you do! Thanks for the great vid.

Great breakdown! In my Lord Windgrace deck I run 42 lands and 69 in Soul of Windgrace, and they both are scary decks

I think when talking about ramp and card draw you can include a lot of effects that don't strictly ramp you in terms of lands/mana rocks and traditional card draw, depending on the flavor and style of the deck. I have a mono red Ragavan deck in which I have specifically replaced all the usual mana rocks with treasures, and all card advantage with either loot effects or cast from exile effects. This stays on theme with pirates and gives me a lot of efficient options in mono red. More often than not, I actually find land ramp spells off the top of the green players library. So while the treasures are temporary, they do allow me to play my pirates ahead of curve, which snowball to let me create even more treasures, and card advantage, while also lowering my opponents life total. There are unorthodox options available in every color if you are willing to dig around for them.

I super agree with taking out some single target removal. I see all these lists online “you need tp run this many lands, this many draw cards, this much ramp, this many lands, and you add it all up and you get like 70~ cards and it’s like “you guys really leave only about a third of your deck to your actual synergy?” I know some cards like soul shatter are removal but also synergize with commanders like tergrid, but still.

Thanks for this!

New sub, happy to have found you on KZfaq shuffle.

yo this was a great video tysm

The way I’m thinking about your deck’s synergy and ability to function without your commander is to treat your commander like a Panharmonicon for the cards in your deck. Should that deck still work without it? Sure, a blink deck will still do things without Panharmonicon. But it really kicks into high gear once your commander hits the board, because it amplifies almost every other card in your deck.

Speaking into the Proper example of impulse drawing being better with your commander out, but people wanting to play straight card draw because it's better with out your commander: PLAY THE SYNERGISTIC STUFF! Opponents using a card to remove your commander which you then have access to for just 2 more mana means that they're naturally putting you up a card!

That sweater goes hard.

Awesome video, it's a godsend with me trying to brew my own Pantlaza version this week, first time I'm trying to build a deck myself! One question though, I went to your Archidekt and I can't find your Gishath and Atla Palani lists! I'd love to see it, could you maybe post it? Also, extra question, what's your opinion between Gishath and Pantlaza as your commander? Cheers and keep it up!(:

I find card-density to be super important for my own decks. Like, if I want removal in a dragon deck... I'll look for dragons that give me that. E.g. why play Toxic Deluge, when I can play Silumgar, Drifting Death? Toxic Deluve is the more powerful sweeper, but Silumgar is a Dragon that Synergizes with the rest of the deck (e.g. it costs 1 less from Ur-Dragon, it triggers Dragon Tempest and you can actually attack with it.) Often times these cards aren't as efficient as the pure roleplayers. E.g. Swords to Plowshares exiles a dude for just one white mana. But if I'm heavy on creature synnergies, I might play, say, Mangara of Corondor anyway. Again, obviously not as powerful or efficient, but I also don't draw a card of Swords to Plowshares, if I have a Beast Whisperer or Welcoming Vampire out. And I can just play Mangara to the table on any turn and just keep it there as a rattlesnake. Like, maybe I'll get around some day to building some deck with just generically good cards (good stuff TM) but most of the time, I just don't care for playing Rhystic Study, Swords to Plowshares, Cyclonic Rift and other so-called "auto-includes" because I'd much rather focus on my deck's theme, even if it makes statistically worse. I'm not building my decks to always be a 9 or 10. I'm building my decks to have a fun and varied play experience.

Sam and Frodo don’t have combos on edhrec?

Great video, but I do have a question about one of the things you said. You said that every deck should synergize with your commander in some way. What if you're the type of player that likes creatureless gameplay, and wouldn't use your commander really at all, but are forced into playing commander because no one seems to play anything else? It's rare for me to find anyone who plays anything other than commander. Everyone plays it. I'd much rather play Legacy or even Modern with friends, but almost no one wants to. Also what if there's no commander you like that has abilities you could take advantage of in your deck? What would your advice be for players like that(Like me)? Can't the commander just be there for flavor and the colors of choice and still be a strong deck?

I always run 33/34 lands

Can i put rhystic study in all my blue decks??

how to build a deck 1. have lots of money 2. win

Most of my decks come from KZfaq videos. I suck at building my own decklists.