When you are building your commander decks your first decision that you need to make is what color combinations you are going to play.
My favorite colors in order are Green, Blue, White, Red, and finally Black. Usually my decks are G/x or G/U/x, the deck that I will be talking about is my Bant deck (green, white, blue). When building a commander deck, after you have chosen your color combination, your next biggest choice is what general you want to play. There are many good generals to choose from and choosing the right general can greatly improve your chances of winning a game. Heading over to the Gatherer I do a quick search to find who my available generals are,
Angus Mackenzie, Arcades Sabboth, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Jenara, Asura of War, Phelddagrif, Rafiq of the Many, Ragnar, Roon of the Hidden Realm, Rubinia Soulsinger, and finally Treva, the Renewer
Now when you choose your general, you want to keep in mind how those decks will be perceived by your opponents. Having your general be non-threatening is the tactic that I try to go for when I build a deck, mostly because I hate decks where the game plan is to win through general damage (I use general damage as a last resort, going most games without casting my general at all)
| General |
|---|
| Arcades Sabboth |
In my opinion, one of the most underused tools in a commander's toolbox are sacrifice outlets. The three that I use in this deck are Diamond Valley, High Market, and Greater Good. If you can afford it, diamond valley is an amazing land that goes into most commander decks because of the large amounts of life that it can gain you. The thing that makes sac outlets so good is that they can be done at instant speed in response to a path to exile, or a field wipe like wrath of God. Giving you a small boost in life, or extra cards if you're using greater good and also keeping your creatures out of exile from those Path to exiles because you sacrificed them before they got exiled. They are also useful for gaining a lot of value, with sac outlets you can sacrifice your eternal witness and then use Sun Titan to bring it back and return a large creature, instant, or sorcery back to your hand.
With all of the graveyard interaction I have, it looks like I just lose when someone plays Angel of finality on me, but that's what the eldrazi titans are for (kozilek, Ulamog). Survival of the fittest, and greater good are two instant speed ways in order for me to discard a titan for them to trigger and their ability to shuffle my graveyard back into my library.
Another neat card that deserves an explanation in this deck is Rings of Brighthearth. Rings is one of the most overlooked card when deck building, but it is outrageously good. It copies activated abilities of Planeswalkers, Lands, and even your sac outlets. What makes it so good is that it copies the ability, but not the costs (anything that comes before the ":" in the textbox) and so with greater good, sacrificing the creature is a part of the cost, and then you get to copy the ability of drawing x cards and discarding 3. The copied ability will remember all costs paid. Planeswalkers work in a very similar way, using an ability has a "cost" of +x or -x. For example, a freshly cast Freyalise will enter the battlefield with 3 loyalty, you activate her +2 ability and copy it with rings. You will get two 1/1 elves and Freyalise will go to 5 loyalty. With rings, you can fetch 2 lands off of your fetchlands at the cost of 1 life and 2 colorless Mana, if you can't afford fetchlands for your commander decks this works just the same with evolving wilds. Remember though that it does not work with cards like Selvala because it produces Mana and so it counts as a Mana ability.
Alchemist's Refuge, if you have this card in play, your turns are usually very simple. You draw for turn, decide to attack or not, then pass the turn. It's the player to your right who has to deal with you basically stealing their turn by playing everything at their end step. YOU NEVER SHOULD CAST THINGS AT SORCERY SPEED IF YOU HAVE THIS CARD ON THE BATTLEFIELD. Also this card works with Day's undoing to make it so that it doesn't get exiled by itself.
Karmic Guide and Angel of Serenity make a pretty easy recursion loop, throw in a Greater Good and you have a great card draw engine as well.
Thank you for taking the time to read my Commander deck tech, ill be coming out with more commander posts and maybe some modern homebrews in the future.
Melagro