The Commander’s Chair – Hmm, Upgrades

By now, the new Commander decks should be available to everyone. I hope everyone reading this is able to pick up at least one of the decks. After you are done playing with these decks against each other in their natural state, you will want to make some improvements, so that you can start playing against regular Commander decks.

Tweaking a Commander deck is an ongoing process for every Commander player. There is not a “best deck” available like you get with competitive formats. For most Commanders there is not even a best build for their deck. Today I will be going over the basic method for upgrading your Commander deck using the preconstructed deck Mirror Mastery as an example.

Step 1: Review

Before you can start making changes to a deck, you need to know what is inside the deck already. You want to lay out the deck into categories. Normally people lay out the deck by Creature, Spells and Non-Creature Permanents. I do not think that gives you enough of a view to see the whole deck clearly. I lay out decks I play by card types (Instant, Sorcery, Ect.), then I also will create categories I find relevant to the deck. I will commonly add a Mana Fixing or Removal category when I first lay out a deck I have not seen. When I lay out the Mirror Mastery deck it looks like this;

	Commander:	1x Animar, Soul of Elements
	Creatures (24)	Instant (10)	Land (41)
	1x AEthersnipe	1x Brainstorm	1x Command Tower
	1x Artisan of Kozilek	1x Colossal Might	1x Evolving Wilds
	1x Avatar of Fury	1x Electrolyze	13x Forest
	1x Baloth Woodcrasher	1x Fire/Ice	1x Fungal Reaches
	1x Chartooth Cougar	1x Hunting Pack	1x Gruul Turf
	1x Conundrum Sphinx	1x Invigorate	1x Homeward Path
	1x Deadwood Treefolk	1x Prophetic Bolt	7x Island
	1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest	1x Ray of Command	1x Izzet Boilerworks
	1x Elvish Aberration	1x Spell Crumple	1x Kazandu Refuge
	1x Faultgrinder	1x Tribute to the Wild	8x Mountain
	1x Fierce Empath		1x Rupture Spire
	1x Hydra Omnivore	Sorcery (9)	1x Simic Growth Chamber
	1x Intet, the Dreamer	1x Call the Skybreaker	1x Temple of the False God
	1x Krosan Tusker	1x Chain Reaction	1x Vivid Crag
	1x Magmatic Force	1x Death by Dragons	1x Vivid Creek
	1x Magus of the Vineyard	1x Disaster Radius	1x Vivid Grove
	1x Nucklavee	1x Firespout
	1x Rapacious One	1x Hull Breach	Mana Fixing (11)
	1x Riku of Two Reflections	1x Ruination	1x Armillary Sphere
	1x Simic Sky Swallower	1x Savage Twister	1x Gruul Signet
	1x Spitebellows	1x Vengeful Rebirth	1x Izzet Signet
	1x Trench Gorger		1x Prophetic Prism
	1x Valley Rannet		1x Simic Signet
	1x Veteran Explorer	Enchantment (3)	1x Sol Ring
		1x Vow of Flight	1x Cultivate
	Artifacts (1)	1x Vow of Lightning	1x Collective Voyage
	1x Lightning Greaves	1x Vow of Wildness	1x Explosive Vegetation
			1x Garruk Wildspeaker 1x Kodama’s Reach

Step 2: Identify underachieving cards

Once you have the deck laid out in front of you, you can start setting aside cards that you could live without. Not every card you identify will be cut from a deck immediately, but it is good to see how much room you really have to work with. You do not have to be good at evaluating cards when you are performing this step. Just think back to previous games with the deck and try and remember which cards you drew and were disappointed to see. When I think back to some of the games I have played with and against the Mirror Mastery deck, I found the following cards a little disappointing.

	Room to Improve
	Creatures (9)	Spells (15)
	1x Baloth Woodcrasher	1x Brainstorm
	1x Chartooth Cougar	1x Colossal Might
	1x Conundrum Sphinx	1x Electrolyze
	1x Elvish Aberration	1x Fire/Ice
	1x Magus of the Vineyard	1x Hunting Pack
	1x Rapacious One	1x Invigorate
	1x Trench Gorger	1x Prophetic Bolt
	1x Valley Rannet	1x Tribute to the Wild
	1x Veteran Explorer	1x Call the Skybreaker
		1x Chain Reaction
	Enchantments (3)	1x Death by Dragons
	1x Vow of Flight	1x Disaster Radius
	1x Vow of Lightning	1x Firespout
	1x Vow of Wildness	1x Savage Twister
		1x Vengeful Rebirth

Step 3: Find the Tutors

Just for a moment, we will leave the deck how it is. Before throwing cards into a deck, you want to shrink the pool of possible cards to throw into the deck. The easiest cards to find that improve decks are tutors. As long as you know you have a few good targets for your tutor you can feel confident about adding it to the deck. I would go through and find all the tutors you might be interested in playing. Here are some of the tutors I found when looking for the Mirror Mastery deck;

	Find it!
	Birthing Pod	Summoner’s Pact
	Bribery	Survival of the Fittest
	Brutalizer Exarch	Sylvan Tutor
	Chord of Calling	Time of Need
	Defense of the Heart	Tooth and Nail
	Fauna Shaman	Weird Harvest
	Green Sun’s Zenith	Wild Pair
	Hibernation’s End	Worldly Tutor
	Imperial Recruiter	Dizzy Spell
	Momir Vig, Simic Visionary	Knowledge Exploitation
	Natural Order	Muddle the Mixture
	Pattern of Rebirth	Mystical Tutor
	Primal Command	Personal Tutor

Step 4: Packages

Just adding one card to your deck is not going to make a huge difference. Powerful Commander decks are not powerful because they can play 1 really good card. Decks get their strength from how well the pieces of the deck work together.

What you want to do is add cards into your deck in groups or packages. You want packages of cards that you believe work well together as well as working with the Commander or within the Commander’s color identity. The best packages are made up of toolboxes and game winning combos. Here are examples of packages that could fit in the Mirror Mastery deck;

	Tooth and Nail Targets				The Alure of Combo
	Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker	Deceiver Exarch			Aluren	Man-o’-War	Tidespout Tyrant
		Pestermite				Shrieking Drake	Earthcraft
		Blightsteel Colossus				Æther Adept	Fable of Wolf and Owl
		Putrefax				Cloudstone Curio	Forgotten Ancient
	Terastodon	Woodfall Primus					Pandemonium
	Palinchron	Phyrexian Metamorph					Essence Warden
		Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger					Mana Echoes
		Riku of Two Reflections					Genesis Chamber
	Riku of Two Reflections	Worldgorger Dragon
		Palinchron
	Urabrask the Hidden	Blightsteel Colossus			Eternal Hatred
	Phyrexian Metamorph	Putrefax			Eternal Witness	Tidespout Tyrant	Mindslaver
					Mnemonic Wall	Crystal Shard	Time Stretch
					Academy Ruins	Cloudstone Curio
	Eternal Survival
	Survival of the Fittest	Brawn
		Genesis			The T Mage Twins
		Eternal Witness			Drift of Phantasms	Treasure Mage	Blightsteel Colossus
		Anger			Vedalken Æthermage		Planar Portal
		Squee, Goblin Nabob					Contagion Engine
							Mindslaver
							Akroma’s Memorial
	In case of emergency, add Curio and Aluren						Spine of Ish Sah
	Momir Vig, Simic Visionary	Coiling Oracle					Duplicant
		Wistful Selkie				Trinket Mage	Sensei’s Divining Top
		Cloud of Faeries					Sol Ring
		Man-o’-War					Brittle Effigy
		Eternal Witness					Relic of Progenitus
		Gilded Drake
		Pestermite
		Trinket Mage			Echoes of the Eldrazi
		Viridian Shaman			Mana Echoes	Spawnsire of Ulamog	Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
	The Lesser Targets					Pentavus	Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
		Edric, Spymaster of Trest				Myr Battlesphere	It That Betrays
		Gilder Bairn					Artisan of Kozilek
		Grazing Kelpie					Hand of Emrakul
		Jungle Barrier					Pathrazer of Ulamog
		Murkfiend Liege					Ulamog’s Crusher
		Mystic Snake
		Plaxcaster Frogling
		Trygon Predator			Not so Lost and Seeking Blood
		Winged Coatl			Azusa, Lost but Seeking	Crucible of Worlds	Walk the Aeons
						Life from the Loam	Strip Mine
							Constant Mists
	Infinite Mana for Infinite Fun
	Palinchron	Riku of Two Reflections
		Mana Flare			The Pinacle of Destruction
		Mana Reflection			Primeval Titan	Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle	Prismatic Omen
		Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger			Tolaria West	Vesuva	Scapeshift
	Making Plans
	Long-Term Plans	Sensei’s Divining Top
		Scroll Rack
		Soothsaying

Step 5: Reconstruction

Eventually you will have to put the deck back together with the new pieces you have found or bought. Between the tutors and the packages, you should have a pretty large list of cards you can add to the deck. Adding any of the tutors or any of the packages should give you a significant upgrade to the preconstructed decks. When I am buy cards or trading cards, I like to try and gather the pieces with all of this in mind.

Individual packages always seem to have one card that is harder to find, or more expensive than the rest. I prefer to see which key pieces I already own and include the packages that include those cards. For example, if I already own a Survival and an Aluren, I will grab as many pieces as I can from the “Eternal Survival” and the “Alure of Combo” packages and put them into the deck.

As time goes on, we can add packages that cross over with each other until the deck becomes streamlined. After a month or so of playing with Mirror Mastery you will find yourself with a much more powerful deck. Something that might look closer to this;

	Commander:	Animar, Soul of Elements
	Creatures (35)	Instant (2)	Land (41)
	AEthersnipe	Mystical Tutor	12x Forest
	Anger	Long-Term Plans	7x Island
	Artisan of Kozilek		8x Mountain
	Avatar of Fury	Sorcery (5)	Academy Ruins
	Blightsteel Colossus	Hull Breach	Command Tower
	Brawn	Ruination	Evolving Wilds
	Deadwood Treefolk	Tooth and Nail	Fungal Reaches
	Deceiver Exarch	Time Stretch	Gruul Turf
	Drift of Phantasms	Dizzy Spell	Homeward Path
	Edric, Spymaster of Trest		Izzet Boilerworks
	Eternal Witness	Enchantment (3)	Kazandu Refuge
	Faultgrinder	Defense of the Heart	Simic Growth Chamber
	Fierce Empath	Survival of the Fittest	Temple of the False God
	Genesis	Aluren	Vivid Crag
	Gilded Drake		Vivid Creek
	Hydra Omnivore	Artifacts (5)	Vivid Grove
	Intet, the Dreamer	Lightning Greaves
	Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker	Cloudstone Curio
	Krosan Tusker	Mindslaver
	Magmatic Force	Sensei’s Divining Top
	Man-o’-War	Scroll Rack
	Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
	Nucklavee	Mana Fixing (10)
	Palinchron	Gruul Signet
	Pestermite	Izzet Signet
	Phyrexian Metamorph	Simic Signet
	Putrefax	Sol Ring
	Riku of Two Reflections	Cultivate
	Simic Sky Swallower	Collective Voyage
	Squee, Goblin Nabob	Explosive Vegetation
	Treasure Mage	Garruk Wildspeaker
	Trinket Mage	Kodama’s Reach
	Urabrask the Hidden
	Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
	Wistful Selkie

The list above is still far from a streamlined, cutthroat deck, but it is strong enough to give other decks a fair fight. I would expect that most Commander decks you will run into are close in power level to the new list. This process can be repeated any number of times and whenever you feel your deck needs a boost of strength.

One of the sites founders and administrators, Luis, has found himself in a bit of a cash shortfall. To try and afford going to GP Montreal, he is running a fundraiser to get the money he needs. The prizes you could win for helping him out include a promo Jitte and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Check out all the details here – HELP LUIS!

If you would like any help with a decklist, want to be featured in an article, or have any comments you don’t feel comfortable posting on this page I can be reached through email, Twitter, and Facebook. I love helping people with their decks as well as receiving feedback. So, don’t be shy.

-STP

@swordstoplow

seanpatch@hotmail.com

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