Taylor: 0:10

What's up, Wizards? It's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:16

And I'm Sean. We're here to help you cultivate a great playgroup, great decks, and an openness to outside the box variants and homebrew rules.

Taylor: 0:23

Sean, what's something in the world of Magic that's got you excited right now?

Shawn: 0:27

Well, just a couple days ago there was a secret lair honoring the godfather of Commander Sheldon Minerva. Who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. Now I've never met him personally but I did have the pleasure of talking with him a little bit online. Usually about the band list or something I was not particularly pleased about. What always impressed him was he just had this great composure. He was always a gentleman. Despite probably taking a lot of attacks from people in the Magic community over the years for like, Why did you ban my favorite card? But basically, as a fitting tribute, I think, And in a, in a rare, I guess, in these days, moment for Wizards not being completely thirsty for, So much money. They're creating a secret lair that is not time sensitive unlike all of their other secret lairs These days where you have to like get in quick and people will scalp them. Thankfully, this is not It's Sheldon inspired cards that he helped to work on. He was working directly with Gavin Bearhay on this. For cards that really meant a lot to him, and I think are some, some bangers. The list of the cards of the seven that are being printed with new art, new quotes, all related to Sheldon Minnery, Arctopheres Protection, El Adamri's Vineyard, Command Tower, Sol Ring an Italian version of Greater Good, Ruhan of the Fomari Skinned as Sheldon the commander quote unquote because he had a deck that was like stop hitting yourself That was a very famous deck of his that ran red white blue sort of Akito style effects I feel like I didn't list all seven, but it's a great build. You can find it online The sale is starting on February 26th running through March 24th And if you order between that time you're supposedly guaranteed to get a copy It's like 39. 99 for the non foil and 49. 99 for the foil. But 50 percent of that goes to the American Cancer Society, with Wizards guaranteeing that at least they're going to get 250, 000 at minimum. And I imagine it's going to be a lot more, because the excitement for this is, is probably through the roof.

Taylor: 2:32

Absolutely. I think people have so much respect for him because he, Not only helped to establish Commander for what it was, but he stuck around and made sure that it was successful. He took part in Conventions, Magickons, all those other things that helped to create this format that we know and love. I think the last one was Ink Shield and it's got him on that one too.

Shawn: 2:51

Yeah, see that's the most important one in my world because I have a spirits deck and it's dedicated to Sheldon actually after his passing. We kind of, some of us made some decks like that. I would love to run the copy with him kind of sending out these inkling spirits into the world.

Taylor: 3:07

We know Sheldon as establishing this format that we love so much that we play every week or as often as we can. And it was through his starting of this that we had to learn to build some decks and that's what we're trying to talk about This week. What's our philosophy on building decks? so sean I am guilty of Finding a new commander and thinking that it's the coolest thing ever and i've got to build it right away I I typically follow that like what's hot, what's not kind of list. I see the cool things that are spoiled and I get excited for them just like everyone else does. I find myself not necessarily looking for new commanders based off of deep dives, but just what's newly released. So when it comes to brainstorming for decks, I go with what's popular. What about you? How do you go about picking a new commander to want to build around?

Shawn: 3:57

Well, we're going to bring some balance, I suppose. And there were I tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum. There's a young teenage boy within this 45 year old body of mine. That is like, eh, popular, gross. I want a commander that no one would play ever. Right. So like the lower on the EDH rec list that it is, the more excited I am to try and build it.

Taylor: 4:21

So, just from an overview of things, bird's eye view, when it comes to building a deck, I struggle a little bit, because what I end up doing is I go through my entire collection, and I literally touch every single card, and I think, does this bring joy to this deck? And I put it into a pile, and by the time I'm done, I've got this pile of like 200, 300 cards. Yeah, and it creates this problem. And so, I've had to switch the way that I build decks to go from touching every single card, to come up with a bit more of a structured approach. And we're going to break that down here in a little bit, but I have gone to following some sort of structured approach now so that I know that I'm hitting all the things I have to include. Card draw, ramp, so on and so forth. What about you? How did you start off building decks, and what are you doing now?

Shawn: 5:07

When I started building Commander decks, it was a horror show. I built decks from the original Elder Dragon. I didn't even know about color identity. I remember using a card called Naked Singularity it basically changes every color of mana to a different color. Nobody knows what they can produce anymore. And I put that in a three color deck, which I couldn't do because of the color identity rules, but I had no idea. And those decks were horrific. Like, it would take three hours to even pretend to get to the end of the game in a 1v1 match with me and my wife. So now I do have a pattern and it's a little bit different, I think, what Taylor's running with, but we're going to share both because you need structure. I'm a firm believer in that even if you're a super creative type, you're going to perform better if you're within a structure because otherwise you have those 300 cards and now you have to put 200 back at some point and you know, your life just becomes chaos,

Taylor: 6:03

Actually, a friend of ours in our group text, he's a bit newer to magic, he was asking kind of how we build decks and I jumped into the group chat and I told him what I do and I told him that we were going to be talking about this in this episode and I think like he said it's important to make sure you do certain things because you can put in your favorite cards but if you don't have card draw to get to it you might not ever see that card that you really want to play and that's the biggest feel bad is not getting to play the cards that you want to play. I think that we can look at what works well, what doesn't work so well, and how we came to this conclusion. So, I'm a big fan of Tomer at MTG Goldfish does a lot of budget pre con, upgrade guides, budget deck guides, and he always includes his template, like what he's looking for, and I think this goes a good way for having that sense of structure, making sure that you're doing certain things, and he's got a list of about eight things that you have to make sure that your deck can do. I'm doing something similar in the way that I like to build decks He has very specific number targets that he's trying to hit. I try to find a lot of Potential between cards. So hopefully my card can fill more than just one. Exactly more than one roll. So his first thing that he really wants to make sure you do is hit 50 mana, and that can be lands and ramp, some sort of split depending on the type of deck. A lot of lands and a few items of ramp, 37 to 13 lands to ramp there.

Shawn: 7:29

You can't go wrong with that. And his second metric is To have ten card draw spells. Cards that net you at least two cards in your hand. Which will help you get to those favorites that you have.

Taylor: 7:40

Yeah, and then you've got to eat your veggies with this one too. The next one he says is eight targeted removal. That can be creature removal, artifact removal, enchantment removal. And I'm really happy it includes countermagic. Because blue can't always deal with everything. But if you can stop that thing before it even hits the battlefield. You've removed that effectively.

Shawn: 8:00

Absolutely. If you don't counter the Atraxa or the Niv Mizzet, you're too late.

Taylor: 8:06

Well the new Niv Mizzets, you can't counter. So you gotta be careful.

Shawn: 8:10

But you can put it back in their hand.

Taylor: 8:12

Oh, so you're saying that Reprieve might be a way to target some removal here, maybe? Just saying. Reprieve is from Lord of the Rings, it's white and one, it says return target spell to hand, draw a card? Absolutely. I like that a lot, and that's what we're talking about. I want to find cards. That can blend those two lines. So it's not full on card draw, but it at least replaces itself, so you don't feel so bad playing it. Even for two mana.

Shawn: 8:35

The fourth metric is three board wipes. Creature like decks might want one more, creature heavy decks might want one less. There's always moments in the game where you just feel like, okay, I need to restart the game. Someone has gotten out of control. You have to run at least a number of board wipes. I think this is a pretty accurate number.

Taylor: 8:52

I think we've seen some really interesting board wipes lately, and especially in white, I see a lot of people playing Farewell. Before I tell you my opinion of it, how do you feel about Farewell?

Shawn: 9:02

My biggest, maybe hot take, I don't know is that it's another example of why wizards want super friend decks to ruin everyone's life. The only thing it doesn't exile is Planeswalkers.

Taylor: 9:16

Yeah, I hate it actually, because If you choose all modes, which most people are doing, which, hey, that's your prerogative, you can do it. I think of it as a slightly worse Cyclonic Rift. Because it's resetting the entire game from everyone, right? So you're getting rid of all the enchantments, you're getting rid of your artifact ramp, you're getting rid of the creatures that were on the battlefield. At least with Cyclonic Rift, the person who casts it, hopefully, has a board, and they can swing out, finish the game, let's shuffle up and play another one. I think with Farewell, we can get more into this later, but I think that it's an example of a card that maybe too many people are playing. If you're playing a Super Friends deck, go for it. But, that's a rough card deck encounter.

Shawn: 9:58

Yeah, I think Farewell does create a lot of feel bads. Even if you're exiling a graveyard that you don't think the person really cares a lot about, you don't know that. And if it doesn't bother you that much, why are you exiling it in the first place? The fact that it gives you the option to just remove everything from the game can really slow a lot of people down. Some people who are just doing totally innocuous or funny things, that's not even a threat to you.

Taylor: 10:21

They put it in the Doctor Who set as well. I've met some people that have started to play because of the Doctor Who set. And I think that's a card that's a little bit tricky to put in the hands of a new player because They might not have the best evaluation of the board and say oh, I've got the six mana to cast this Let me do what I can but then that resets the entire game in a way that doesn't help us get to that finish line and to find a winner

Shawn: 10:44

and we'll get to it soon but I much prefer over all a bunch of board wipes a different type of card and we'll talk about that in my personal metrics

Taylor: 10:52

Okay, the next one up from Tomer is Tassim graveyard recursion I think this is really important to be able to get things back from the bin be it a creature a land Whatever you might need and that recursion can come in different ways depending on how your deck wants to play.

Shawn: 11:08

Absolutely and two flexible tutors depending on your meta you might want more expensive ones, but even the cheap ones, like two mana and two black or something for getting any card, pretty powerful on a Ganon Commander.

Taylor: 11:21

Yeah, Diabolic Tutor to go and get whatever you might need is pretty good. I mean, that's hard to beat, especially if you're trying to build up a combo. We play, with our Rule 7 decks, a way that you, you can't run go and get anything. Right. But you can run tutors that let you get a specific thing, so like an Enlightened Tutor to go and get an Artifact or an Enchantment. We can typically find tutors that work in any deck for what that deck's trying to do.

Shawn: 11:47

I think people will find it very interesting, the reasons why we've done this. I think it makes the game a lot more interactive. We have One Graveyard Hate. Tomer says, since you need Graveyard decks, you need to keep them honest. You have to run at least one, so a bazooka bog or scavenger grounds or whatever.

Taylor: 12:06

The last one is a finisher, something that can win the game the turn you cast it. I think that people are starting to shy away from things like craterhoof behemoth, which is fine. I think that it's run its course, it was really popular for the heyday of EDH when it was first getting started. That's something that can help kind of in the game. I think every deck needs that

Shawn: 12:24

Sometimes the game just needs to end and that's okay If you're with friends, you'll shuffle up and you'll play another one and then you get your chance that turn But if somebody casts an insurrection That's fine. Like how many hours do we need this to go on? Right?

Taylor: 12:37

Yeah, and I think that's important too because Insurrection costing 10 mana. I think if you can't stop that Right Or, maybe you should let it happen. A friend that I've started to play with at the shop, he can recognize that, Okay, I'm not going to come back from this, I'd much rather just play another game and get to try out this new deck I've built, or whatever. And so even though he might be holding an Aetherize to bounce all the attacking creatures, What's the good in bouncing all those attacking creatures if the game's going to go on for another hour?

Shawn: 13:06

Absolutely. Like, an Insurrection is a great story for whoever cast it. So let them have it. It's fine.

Taylor: 13:11

That's Tomer's template that he uses. You've got one that I think plays off of this a little bit but run us through it. What's your personal deck building template here?

Shawn: 13:20

I think one of the things that I change up a little bit and I didn't go strictly off of Tomer's list, but I kind of looked at it and thought about, well, what are the things I actually care about in my deck building? The first is I run 10 mana rocks or ramp spells. I almost always run 40 lands. Usually it comes down to about 38 because there are some cards I want to squeeze in, but I run a lot of lands cause I hate not hitting my lands. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. And, unlike Arena Brawl, which has like some conspiracy theory against me, where no matter how well I build my deck or how many lands I play, I only draw two, in real life the numbers actually work out pretty well. If you run 40, you're pretty much going to hit all of your lands whenever you need them.

Taylor: 14:04

You can't play the game if you don't have the mana to cast those spells you want.

Shawn: 14:07

If you're trying to cast big dragons, you need lands. Right. So next I run four to five board wipes. This is a little bit higher than their list But I don't run as much targeted removal and I think because I don't like the value of a one for one Yeah, and I am very political in nature. So I tend to throughout the game Try to use that to pepper comments in Be like, Oh, what's that card you played? Let me read that out loud so that everyone at the table can hear how bad it is or whatever.

Taylor: 14:36

And so you can run a little bit of a little bit fewer target removal if other people are doing it for you. No, I'm not great at the politics. I come from playing like competitive. I like to win and I still do in commander. But, my, my constant line is, you gotta do what you gotta do. So every time you wipe my board, you had to do what you had to do.

Shawn: 14:58

It is, it is the escape hatch. I'm not gonna obviously board wipe myself if I'm in a good position, but if I have two opponents, say like you and somebody else, and for some reason they destroy your cool enchantment, You're not coming at me, you're going at them. Right. So I'm going to let that happen.

Taylor: 15:16

I am a vindictive player.

Shawn: 15:19

I think we all are, if we admit it, you know? Yeah. It's like if somebody ruins your cool thing, well, yeah, they're getting all the guns. And I'm just going to sit back with mana up and watch.

Taylor: 15:29

Right. And you usually can come out on top from that, you usually do.

Shawn: 15:33

So next up we've got Graveyard Hate. I like to do it targeted. I don't want to remove everyone's like with a farewell but I run at least two graveyard hate cards typically something like a bazooka bog scavenger grounds and or like a Relic of Progenitus or whatever the new hot version of that is intact so that I can remove Cards out of the graveyard. I also run this one's controversial. I run at least two targeted land destruction spells. Usually three. I run strip mine. I run those cards that people tend to shy away from because they hate LD, but let's face it, if there's a player going off with Nykthos, someone needs to take that out. And I'm gonna be the person who is happy to do it.

Taylor: 16:20

And I think, too, you're not abusing the Stripmine. Like, you're not also playing Crucible of Worlds and hitting that. And I think that Stripmine Demolition Field, Field of Ruin I'm a little less high on Field of Ruin now that we have Demolition Field, but it's cool because those are colorless cards that can go into any deck. Same thing for your Tormod Crypts and your Relic of Virginitas. These are cards that are great staples to put in your deck until you find the card that matches the identity. So in my Galta deck, I think it's Tranquil Frillback? Mm hmm. Tranquil Frillback. Yeah, you pay a little extra to it. Yeah, you pay an extra green and you can exile a target graveyard, and that It's a great replacement I want creatures to help reduce the cost of Galta, and this is, you know, finding that dual duty there. So I think it's great to start with some of these cards that you're mentioning, and then if they're the best option you've got, then you've got it. But you can also look for those other cards that might be great replacements that fit the theme of your deck.

Shawn: 17:16

An oldie but goodie that I think maybe could see some more play. It's a little on the slow side. Acidic Slime used to run in a lot of decks. Yeah. But just the flexibility of being able to destroy target land. Way better than you might think. Cause they're so, they keep printing new ones that are just busted. Next up I have combo win. For example I don't want to do two or three card combos, something like Deceiver or Exarch, Splinter Twin. I prefer to go for much bigger combos that are easier for people to interact with. The example might be Tesa, Orsoff, Scion, plus the Enchantment Darkest Hour, which turns all creatures black, plus a sac effect that you can do infinitely like a Viscerous Seer plus like a blood artist or something that might trigger when something dies. So you need like four or five pieces. And if somebody can't interact with that I feel okay at that point. Let's do the infinite thing. Let's end the game. Yeah, because I've given people plenty of opportunities to see it coming. Yeah, usually I'm talking trash about it as it's happening It's kind of like you guys just wait

Taylor: 18:19

You call attention to it when we play and people don't know it's coming until it's too late So I'm with you. I think it's important to have some sort of I win button. It might be a combo. It might be a creature with this massive ETB. It might be this one wild turn where you've got a ton of mana, but I think that every deck needs a way to end the game. And I think you're right. Having multiple pieces makes it so that a it's less likely to happen, but B people can probably interact with it on several different axes. And if they can't, then maybe the game does need to end.

Shawn: 18:51

I think it's important too, last piece about it is that if your deck has an anchor, you always know what to play towards. Whereas there's a lot of times I feel, especially new players, might be playing a deck and be like, I don't even know where I'm at in the game. I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm just kind of playing random cards. And this way at least you know you have something. To what am I drawing towards? Why am I, you know, paying this extra mana now to try and dig? Well, now you know. And that gives you kind of like a foothold in the game. Even if everything else has gone wrong for you. Last but not least, my favorite metric. And if you add all these up, they won't add up to 100. You just play whatever you want. But these are like the specific types of cards I always try to run. Yeah. I run, and this is a broad range, it really depends on the deck. Two to five fog or Akido effects. Akido being the martial art where you kind of use the person's energy against them. It's kind of like in the Sheldon Minnery style of oops, you hit yourself

Taylor: 19:49

deflecting palm, red, no white. You get to bounce that damage back at the source's controller. And so, oh great You're coming at me with this massive 60 60 Galta. What if that Galta hit you instead?

Shawn: 20:00

Right or even better yet with a new one that I've been playing Windshaper Planetar. Oh, what does that do? Four and a white for a 4 4 flying angel with flash You play it during the combat step and you can change the target that the attacking creatures are aimed at but basically what it does is that all of a sudden you're being attacked by crater hoof behemoth avengers in a car or whatever. A mountain of creatures. Well, now I can take all those creatures and I can slowly push them in a different direction and be like Windshaper Planetar comes down and says, what if you attacked this other person instead with 80, 100 power and just left me alone? And I think it's an amazing sort of effect. That's kind of why I don't run as many targeted removals or board wipes because I almost love when big creatures are on the battlefield because I run these effects and I'm like, Hit me. I dare you. I dare you to hit me. And I'll play them early, too, to let people know this is a deck that if I have open mana, there's a chance that what you think is going to happen is not.

Taylor: 21:06

I love those types of cards, too, because one of my favorites is like Reigns of Power. Blue, blue, and two. You get to steal somebody's creatures and attack with them. So it's like, great, you got to kill that person. I'm going to Reigns of Power after I let you do that and then I'm going to do it to you. Sorry.

Shawn: 21:22

And even simple fog effects, if somebody's doing the Crater Hoof Avengers Zendikar, they have tapped out. Yeah. Guess what that means? It's like, if you fog them, then they're wide open to the whole table after that.

Taylor: 21:36

And I think too, if you're willing to look for them, there are some fogs that have some cool utility as well. So in white, you've got Dawn Charm, which gives you different mode. There's a green one from Amonkhet, and it's green and one, and it fogs, or it has cycling too, and so, okay, maybe there aren't that many creature heavy decks, let me draw a card instead. Totally. Because I'd much rather have that utility of having it, and I could replace itself, than not have it at all. Absolutely. Let's talk about some things that don't work so well for building decks My first one is is don't just pull all those cards into a big giant pile because it's gonna be really hard To whittle down what you don't need I think it's really hard to go from the 300 cards you pulled the 200 cards you pulled to knock it down to a playable pile of 100 because You're going to be more tempted, I think, to play fewer lands. You're going to be more tempted to not have the appropriate card draw. Or you might run too many of a particular effect, and you're not thinking about that when you're actually whittling them down. You're thinking, oh, I really like this Blood Artist effect. Let me see how many of those I can get. Blood Artist by itself is pretty good and it might do all you need. Maybe toss in that Zulaport Cutthroat and it's fine. You probably don't need as many as having that giant pile would allow for.

Shawn: 22:56

Yeah, absolutely. That, the synergy is I think what you miss when you have a 300 card pile. Right. You're thinking like, I really like Fireballs. Well, if you have six Fireballs You're really slow, you know? Like there's a reason why you have different card types because you need them to all act at different points in the game to get you to your end game kind of stage.

Taylor: 23:18

My second thing that I think doesn't work well for when people are building new decks is thinking that you're done with the deck building process. You have to play that game. You have to try and goldfish it by yourself. You have to try it on different platforms But I think that you really need to recognize that part of deck building is adjusting you played the game once what went well what didn't go? Well, how could you put all that together and how can you adjust your deck based off of that?

Shawn: 23:45

Yeah agreed and I think that kind of leads into my one point on like what doesn't work. Well, at least for me I've noticed that some people try to build the perfect deck from the get go without kind of playing it first Yeah, and I guarantee you're gonna play some cards and then think to yourself Why did I put this in here? This is not doing anything for me right now And that's okay. Like I feel like you've come at it sub optimally first Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good so to speak. Put the deck together with cards that you own but maybe you don't have the perfect versions and then you'll learn like the play patterns and you'll be like, oh I really don't want this or I see some other cards. I'm like, that would be amazing in here It's just a process and if you embrace the slowness of it just like with food if you cook it slow It's gonna come out so much better. Yeah, if you try to zap it with a microwave,

Taylor: 24:37

right? And I think too, you've got a note on here about playing on arena. So tell us about why playing on arena is a good thing.

Shawn: 24:45

I've been playing arena since it's on set and it helps me one understand the new cards because they are super complicated Yeah, you have a machine telling you this is how this card with 20 lines of text works Then you'll go into the game store in a much more confident position and be able to recognize when new players are playing those cards As well against you second it gives you an idea of the play pattern. You won't have all the best cards You don't have soul ring on brawl but you can deck build confidently. You can see how the deck works. You can see what it wants and Stop yourself before you ever even get to the paper stage I've got so many brawl decks that I would never even dream of playing Yeah, but it's just because that day it was like make a blue green deck and create, you know The whatever the reward was that day and I was like, well, I have to choose a blue green commander Let me choose something new Yeah And then so it just opens your mind to like some newer options because there's like 350 commanders that come out every year Right.

Taylor: 25:43

Before we started recording, I was talking to you about a brawl deck that I really like and it's Ratadrapic. It's the Orzhov, Legendary Matters. It creates copies of creatures that are legendary after they die. I love that deck, but only on brawl because my goal in that is to have Mondrak out, have Tesa that doubles the death triggers, and I want to make as many copies of legendary creatures when they die as possible. I would hate to track that in paper. And I think that's the other thing. Arena gives me the outlet to play that deck that I want to play. Yeah. But I don't have to worry about remembering all the triggers, because Arena does it for me. And if I had to do that in person, nobody wants to sit there while I try and do the math, trying to double my tokens after the ability triggered twice, and then I get to double them again, and remembering, oh, I also have This Sir Conrad that's pinging everyone and that's kind of tough to play through and I think that that's something that's really important for Deck builders to recognize is are you going to be an expert on your deck on the first play through probably not? But you have the tools to get better at it You know go to moxfield go to architect go to brawl and try and play test those decks and see do I like the play Pattern like you said Am I familiar with the play pattern so I know what to expect?

Shawn: 27:05

I also think, too, going along with that, don't feel bad about playing 1v1 with commander decks if it's a new deck. Right. Like, bring two new decks to the table if your friends are there early and you're still waiting on players from the group. Whip out two decks and be like, hey, can you help me playtest these? It's going to be a much quicker game, you're going to have time to kind of figure it out. And it's a much better environment than under pressure with like three other players at the table Some of you might not know being like, okay What is the 80th trigger? I forgot to do right and just feeling bad the whole time Yes, I think other people feel bad but I think the player trying to compute all that feels bad too because They're not trying to waste anybody's time. They're just like this is a complicated math

Taylor: 27:48

equation Yeah, and nobody's gonna get mad at you for playing your game I think that's important to remember and that's part of a good play group is people should Encourage you to try new things and support you But I think in return there's a responsibility on you as the deck builder to respect their time and also Take that Kindness that they're giving you and be kind back by being prepared, you know having the tokens you need having the dice You need whatever for that deck

Shawn: 28:16

Do you want to get into? Some of your other methods that you might have tried besides the MTG goldfish.

Taylor: 28:22

Yeah, so Tomer's outline is great, and I think it's a great place to start because he does a great job in his articles of Including what comes in a pre con and how it's broken down and it helps you to find out Okay, do I have enough mana sources? Do I have enough card draw? It's a great place to start what I have switched to is the 8x8 method and I think this is based in drafting. There's a draft method that does something similar but this is adapted for Commander and I'll post a link in the show notes to the website that I got this from but I've been using this for a while now and the numbers are slightly different but if you have your commander and you start with a base of 35 lands you do eight piles of eight cards that's 64 more cards that puts you at a hundred right right And so, the idea behind the 8x8 is you have 8 groups of 8 cards, and each grouping does a particular job. So you need to have the core 4 that's going to be ramp, card draw, interaction of some sort, that can be board wipes as well, and then your personal favorite cards, because we can't forget to play those cards we want to play. And I think that too often, I try to optimize my deck, and that takes out the fun of it. So for instance, the deck I'm working on right now is the new Aurelia that came out of Murders of Karloff Manor. And I really want to play the Comet Stellar Pup from the Infinity set. I want to play a goofy space dog that's making some squirrels, and it plays in. You know, if I get to attack with three creatures with Aurelia, I get to draw a card. And so I made it a point to put that Comet Stellar Pup card in my personal favorites. And that way I don't forget to play these cards I want to play. The other four columns are going to be whatever your deck's trying to do. So for instance, I'm taking Aurelia and I'm trying to make it a tokens deck. So I need to have a column that has token makers. Absolutely. So I've got Krenko in there, I've got other things that make tokens. And then the next one is a token enhancer. So how can I make my tokens stronger or do more damage or whatever? And so we've got our perforers in there. We've got war leaders calls, so on and so forth. And so you need to fill out the remainder of those because if you're playing, say a reanimator deck, one of those columns should be like the biggest, baddest reanimate targets you can have. Absolutely. Because if you're not again, drawing towards something or playing towards a particular goal, then your deck's going to lose focus.

Shawn: 30:55

Yeah, I love the looseness of the structure because it allows for creativity. It allows for your favorite cards like Comet that you should be playing if you want EDH to feel good at the end of the day Yeah, like if you get to play Comet you may not win that game But you got to play Comet right that is gonna stick more than the wins and losses column, I believe.

Taylor: 31:17

And it takes a little bit more upfront work because you have to figure out what those Second four columns are going to be, but once you know like what your commander's trying to do Those are the columns should kind of fill in themselves And if they don't then maybe reevaluate maybe you should look for a different commander that does something similar But might give you a bit more guidance and so it makes your deck building process easier

Shawn: 31:41

That could be a great test to be honest like if you can't think of the other four columns Maybe this isn't the deck for you. Yeah, I'm not really sure what it wants to do anyway And that might not be on you, that might just be, it's a commander that's kind of unfocused.

Taylor: 31:56

Right. I think, too, you know, we made a joke about how many legendary creatures are coming out. And I think that too often, the legendary supertype gets slapped onto a card, and does it make for a great commander? No, not always, I don't think. Like the new Rakdos. It's great because you get to target somebody and it forces them to sacrifice things and you get to draw cards, but That's a one off effect, and I think that's one of those cards that fits better in the 99, than as being, you know, the lead singer, the head honcho for your commander deck.

Shawn: 32:29

Yeah, and a little secret that's just from the design standpoint, is that oftentimes the Legendary Supertype gets used to prevent a card from being too overwhelming in constructive formats. Because if they don't make it legendary, then you can play 4 of, but if they make it legendary, then you might only be able to put 2 or 3 in your 60 card constructed deck. So, sometimes, Taylor is absolutely right. It's a legendary creature in name only. It was kind of made that way for a specific need at the time not because it was a legendary worthy card.

Taylor: 33:01

I think people are really concerned that Wizards is building and designing the card spaces straight for commander. And while I do think that that is happening for sure, yeah, I think that this Ractor's card, as much as I like it, I don't think that that's something that was built entirely for the commander table. Are there going to be people who find great ways to abuse that? Absolutely. You know, there are some really creative deck builders out there, but you make a really good point that sometimes they do still have to worry about standard. And other constructed formats.

Shawn: 33:32

Every once in a while. So, what's this

Taylor: 33:35

next effect you've

Shawn: 33:37

got here? Okay, so, I don't really have, per se, a deck building strategy other than the one I kind of outlined earlier that was sort of loose in the type of cards I want to run. But, what I wanted to highlight was that in November 2022, Sam Black, a Magic pro player of some renown he turned content creator for Commander. And He's coming from outside of the box. So I always appreciate thought experiments that come from outside the box. Because I think we do have a tendency as human beings to fall into ruts. To fall into, I have to play 10 mana rocks, I have to play 4 board wipes, etc. It's nice to be able to step back from that and reevaluate depending on the commander. Because I think your commander is very specific in what it wants to do. And if it's a 2 mana commander, I don't want to be running 2 mana rocks. Because I'm going to come to a point where I have a 2 mana rock and I have a 2 mana commander and they're both able to be played and I'm in conflict with what the deck wants to do. I'd much rather be running Llanowar Elves, 1 mana things, Utopia Sprawl, whatever, than my 2 mana commander, than having this rock come into conflict with it. Right. So, what San Black basically said in his video, and we'll post the link in the description, is That if your commander runs this low curve, consider, instead of running all those extra mana rocks, just running straight 40 lands. To ensure that you constantly hit your mana drops. Because, for instance, if you're running that 3 mana elf El I can't remember his name now. He's like, every time a creature hits a player, then it's a Simic card. Oh, he's one of the first annoying cards, where they basically play all 1 1's in the deck. Yeah. So he's three mana. Edric, Spymaster of Trust. Edric, Spymaster of Trust. Thank you so much. If you're running an Edric, Spymaster of Trust deck, you don't want ten mana rocks in that, because those aren't creatures that hit the opponent.

Taylor: 35:33

And, if you're casting that mana rock on turn two, did that help you actually get your commander out on turn three?

Shawn: 35:41

No, it didn't yeah And you want that turn three commander to hit the table and have two creatures already on the table to draw two cards Yeah, yeah, so I think it's just important to use this philosophy not just for mana rocks But like really think about what does my deck want me to do? Yeah, imagine yourself playing it out or just goldfish it online or play it on brawl and be like what are the Tropes that I've fallen into in deck building That I can skirt around or maybe I can do something different with this deck and just try it out There's no harm trying. It's a casual format and you might find that you've Unlocked some sort of code for that one commander That can put you at the next level.

Taylor: 36:25

I think it's really important Like you said to think about what that deck is asking you to do what the commanders Kind of forcing you to do. I'll post the Google Sheets that I made for the Aurelia deck and put that in the show notes as well so people can see I've got my columns, I've got my vegetables, I'm doing the thing that I need to do, but I also get to have some fun along the way. Alright, I think that this next one is something that everybody should be careful about. And I think that the people at EDH Rec will tell you the same thing. Absolutely. And it's this idea of the average deck list. So, the guys at EDH RecCast, they'll point this out, and they'll talk about it. And I think it's really important to know that if you hit average deck, and you're looking at how everybody else is building the deck, two things are going to happen. One, you're going to be playing the same deck as everyone else. And that might not, like, spark a sense of joy, it might not bring you fun, maybe they're not playing that really cool card that you wanted to include because you had a good memory of it when you cracked it in your draft for when the set released. And then two, I think sometimes we'll see some weird inclusions that don't make sense, but they somehow stuck on. And so if you go back and you listen to our Sarkhan Soul of Flame deck list episode, then you'll see a great example there when it comes to Crucible of Fire. We talk about why it doesn't actually do what Sarkhan wants it to do. Right. But it's played in 50 percent of decks.

Shawn: 37:53

I think with so many pre cons coming out in every set too, what the EDH guys have mentioned before, and we should just highlight here briefly, is that those average deck lists often include Cards that were with the pre con itself. Yeah, they are not the optimal versions or maybe the most fun versions and sometimes in pre cons They just throw in kind of random reprints or cards that are like if you want it to go a different direction With the deck you could play this instead right, but that's not synergistic with the commander necessarily.

Taylor: 38:24

I Think Wizards is doing a great job with pre cons and making them a bit more focused now. That's true I've kept the Boros Tokens matter deck from all will be one and it has been startlingly good out of the box and I've decided I'm gonna keep it as a pre con and I think that's a great deck to have in my bag if somebody is playing kind of lower power maybe they're new to the game it does some really cool things but it's easy to combat if you've met some of these metrics you know It struggles against board wipes. Yeah, what's it weak against? It struggles against board wipes for sure. It doesn't produce flyers and Most of the tokens that are gonna get double strike from Neali are 1 1s And so they're really, you know, chipping in for 1 2 damage once Neali hits the field And so I think that's the biggest thing is I'm not always preparing these big massive threats I'm creating lots of little ones and those are often times easy to block. So I think that's what it's weak against, but it's much more focused. I mean, out of the box, it's got some great token creators in there in court of grace. I get to make some angels out of that. And then those four fours turn into double striking four fours.

Shawn: 39:36

It's great. That's when you know you're living the dream. Yeah. Fantastic.

Taylor: 39:40

So some pre cons, they're great for this effect, but like you said, I think that some pre cons have cards that are. More for reprint purposes than synergy purposes. And those have that holdover effect where people think, Oh, I have to play card X because it's included in the average deck.

Shawn: 39:58

Break down your pre con with the 8x8 method. See if it fits those 8 metrics. See if there's cards that Sit outside of those boxes and those might be the ones that are, you know, just there for reprint value Or just there to like send the deck in a new direction. Feel free to take those out as you're adjusting at home.

Taylor: 40:16

Let's start to wrap it up. What are some final thoughts you have when it comes to deck building Sean?

Shawn: 40:21

for me first and foremost I want to have fun if I'm winning or losing, because in Commander you lose 75 percent of the time. If you're sitting in pods of four, on average you're going to lose 75 percent of the time. With Sarkin, maybe only 50 percent of the time. Humble brags. But I don't care like how good the deck is or how bad the deck is like I built a deck that never won a single game Based on hundred handed one a terrible card from Theros. Yeah, but I made it my own I actually altered a lot of the cards in it by hand and it was just super fun to build and construct and to show off And more than most of the decks I've built honestly, I became kind of known for that deck in the local play group and store This guy that built a deck with nothing but hands in it. So For me, I use deck building. It's my creative flourish. Yes I love winning a game just as much as most people love but there's other things to EDH There's the social aspect. There's the political aspect. I mean, whatever it is that you find fun with EDH build your decks around that Don't focus so much on like is this the best deck?

Taylor: 41:29

I think to counter that just a little bit, I think that my, like when you're building a deck, you, you want to optimize it to a certain point, right? You want to make sure that your deck functions. And so for my thought, okay, I recognize I'm not going to win every game, but I need to know how my deck is like planning on winning. Yeah. If, if I'm just hoping for the best. I'm only ever going to get the worst right and so this is coming from me who I wanted to win at Standard FNMs. I wanted to win at different tournaments and things like that And so I needed to know like what my deck was supposed to be doing hmm, and so if you're a little too loosey goosey with it, and you don't have that plan I think you're going to be setting yourself up for a really bad time at the table. And I think that puts a bit of a bad taste in players mouths when they think, Oh, I worked really hard on this deck, and, and they ganged up on me. Well, maybe they didn't. Maybe you just put out one really scary threat and people had to take care of it. And that's unfortunate. But, I think if you're building a good deck and you have some interaction, maybe you're able to counter that spell that's going to destroy your creature. Maybe you're going to be able to Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares, they're biggest blockers, so you can come through. You gotta know, am I gonna win through combat damage? Then make sure that combat damage happens. If you wanna build in a combo finish, make sure that you have a way to build that combo and have some redundancy for it. And protect it. And protect it. Absolutely.

Shawn: 42:57

Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like, let me, I guess, adjust the previous phrase. Yes, I primarily focus on creativity with some decks. But I think that I learned to ride the bike before I learned to do tricks with the bike. Like, it's very important for, especially any beginning deck builder, these metrics are great at helping you create a deck that works. Because honestly, there's nothing worse than having a creative deck that doesn't do anything at all. When you thought it would. Because it's kind of heartbreaking. You spend all your time and energy building this beautiful picture, and no one gets to see it. Because it just doesn't even operate on the level of most EDH decks.

Taylor: 43:43

You know I played that Precon out of the box against somebody who worked really hard on a new deck, and my deck did its thing, because like I said, I think Wizards is doing a better job. Right. But then this newer player, their deck was so unfocused, it didn't get to do its thing, and I felt bad, but then I had to think to myself, Well, I'm playing a Precon. Notoriously lower powered, and it's, that's why I'm keeping it the way it is, because I think it's great to have a deck that can play at a lower powered table, so it gives people that opportunity to learn to play their decks as well. So. Follow a template is what we're saying. Yeah, it gives you the structure you need So you can build your bike first

Shawn: 44:21

Absolutely before you put on the little like what do you call the things that go on the side of the wheel or whatever? It's on these trick bikes.

Taylor: 44:27

I don't know but that's just bmx. You're ready for bmx

Shawn: 44:30

You're ready for bmx after a while. One suggestion that I just thought of not in our show notes or anything, but something I would like to recommend if you're building new decks or you're new to deck building See if your playgroup, who may have some older or more veteran players to the format, see if they would be willing to do a deck swap game. This is a type of thing that can help. If you're playing their deck, which is built synergistically and has a point to it, you will recognize the intricacies from the inside out, which is a much better learning method. And they can play your deck and kind of, if you're okay with it, Give you some advice or tips like I might put this in instead or there's a card that didn't do a whole lot when I had it in my hand. You might want to consider trying something new.

Taylor: 45:16

We've done that a bunch of times. I remember Playing your old Surak dragon deck. Oh This is an older one and I just remembered getting a place I thought man, he has some great ideas and how this deck works and what's going on with it

Shawn: 45:31

that was your first deck, wasn't it, Serac Dragonclaw?

Taylor: 45:34

It was, and it was not anywhere near as good as what you had.

Shawn: 45:37

He's got Flash, which is the most important piece of that commander. True.

Taylor: 45:41

True, true. I think that wraps us up for this episode.

Shawn: 45:45

If you have questions or thoughts or things that maybe we missed, you know, just feel free to send us an email at rule zero, the number zero. podcast at gmail. com

Taylor: 45:55

you can also find us on twitter at rule zero podcast feel free to tweet at us let us know your thoughts we'd love to hear from you and don't forget

Shawn: 46:03

in magic there's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve