Attacking low to the ground and early is a keystone of aggro strategies, but so are on attack triggers. We have so many of these now, and they incentivize keeping our force swinging every turn. Commanders like Akiri, Fearless Voyager and Trynn, Champion of Freedom incentivize attacking in order to draw cards, make tokens, or do other things the deck is going to want to do. We also need to play one-sided board wipes wherever we have the option, because we can’t afford to lose our own board state. We’re also very in favor of a few key pump spells to help us finish out the game like Jazal Goldmane or Coat of Arms. Your off-curve spells should primarily be removal and counter-spells, as combat tricks are less relevant in an archetype that has fewer creatures.
Format Rules
Pre-errata they weren’t so much lurking as being deployed early and often. Now, imagine every deck has a Companion but it’s as if it had been tailor-made for your specific deck. Compared to EDH where your interaction is spread thin across all the other players, here all the ammunition is targeted at a single opponent – and naturally likewise theirs as your. As an Azusa gamer myself, it felt great to realise that you can self-Stone-Rain with Zuran Orb that’s found with Urza’s Saga to then bring all the lands back with Aftermath Analyst. I knew pauper decks the cards separately but I never had a chance to combine them.
In addition beware of awkward placement in decks cards that don’t fit the general focus of the deck; for example Grave Pact Is a great card but in a deck with no creatures the card would not do much. The previous would be an extreme example but there are many times where players will use awkward card in their deck for “what if” situations that they have encountered in the past. Game size – Does the deck perform consistently in any sized game? If so, why and how could you improve it to make up for any deficiencies?
Instead of selecting cards, you are given six ‘sealed’ packs which you must open and make the best possible deck out of. Some players are negative about Sealed and claim that it requires less skill than Drafting. Regardless of whether or not that is true, Sealed most definitely requires players to have substantial knowledge about how different cards can work together and Deck Building skills.
Strategy Tactics®
Most players get frustrated, curse the mana flood gods, lay down the second land, and then pass the turn. But Expert players know not to do this unless there is something that they could top deck next which would require both lands to be in play. By laying down 1 of your 2 lands, your opponent is now pretty sure that the remaining card is also a land. Maybe instead of drawing a second land, you instead draw an instant spell.
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An EDH deck works as a whole – if one card is weak in the role it needs to be filling or is forced to fill, the deck will be weakened. You need to find under-performing cards and replace them with something that does the job better or answers another shortcoming of the build. To address a dominating commander, consider using targeted removal, engage in political strategies, and collaborate with other players in your group. The ideal number of lands in an EDH deck usually falls between 36 and 40, depending on the deck’s mana curve and ramp sources. The Commander format encourages creativity, strategic manoeuvring, and the potential for epic plays.
You can then punish them for such a play with your haste creature on turn four. Even though better players will be familiar with the set and may anticipate that you are following up your Bodyguard with Legionnaire, these sort of tactics do often work against the average player. Let’s look at some more examples that further illustrate the concept. On Magic Arena it is easier to force stronger archetypes because the bots are very 1-dimensional and are often more equitable in their selections as a whole. On the other hand, 1-dimensional bots send extremely strong signals so it is easy to tell what is open going into the second pack. Whichever school of thought you choose for your next draft, make sure it is purposeful.
If they cost 4+ mana they will often be cast on curve, while cheap removal spells tend to be cast off-curve. For example, Lich’s Caress costs five mana and should be considered a 5-drop (your deck can’t support too many cards that cost this much!). Lightning Strike, on the other hand, costs just two mana but will rarely be played on your second turn. For that reason I suggest placing Lightning Strike in the off-curve category.
In poker, expert players nearly always have a close approximation of their odds of winning a hand. Magic shares a lot of qualities with poker, as you need to consider the possible cards your opponent might possess in a given situation and figure out how those cards will interact with what is on the board. The best players nearly always take a line of play that gives them the highest chance of winning when considering these factors. This is something that we are all constantly getting better at as we play and reflect. Perhaps not everyone is capable of juggling all of the variables and doing those calculations at the highest level, but there are some more basic tactics that everyone can implement.
Magic the Gathering, FNM is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site. I’m frequently trying to get more people at my university interested in the EDH format, so thank you for writing up these useful points that I can direct people to. But you can also get a bit more diversity if you branch out into something more interesting like Intuition.
To further elaborate when choosing cards one should try to be as general as possible for example avoid cards that say things like Go for the Throat or Doomblade that say destroy target non-blank creature. The reason for this is even though they are one mana less than cards like Murder and Hero’s Downfall they are infinitely worse against decks that play the type of creature excluded. Also another thing to exclude are cards like Choke or Virtue’s Ruin that negatively affect only one color type as you might not always face that color type.
It’s not a question of “is Mind Stone underperforming” it is instead “is my ramp package underperforming.” This allows you to look holistically at your deck and see where the shortcomings are. The ban list truly needs updating as Staff of Dom is no longer on it but other cards have been added. If you don’t want to spend the extra money, you can build from what you have and upgrade the deck over time. If your collection is comparatively limited, you might consider finding one of the preconstructed EDH decks, either from the original Commander series or from Commander 2013. C13 is still stocked in major retailers like Walmart and Target. You’re meant to defer to the Commander site for current ban information.
These decks will attack, but they don’t have to like aggro decks, and are more willing to conserve resources and work on developing board state where feasible. They often have engines that benefit their board passively from the passage of time, and as such they can play more removal and let their board build itself. They still want to protect their board state, and some of the cards from aggro decks that do this or simply counterspells can help with this, and one-sided board wipes are usually th best kind for midrange decks as well.