Borja Lorente's Garden

Commander Deck Briefs

10 min read

Template

  • How Does It Win?
  • The Weak Points:
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience
    • Skill Expression
    • Raw Power
  • Iconic Cards

Young Pyromancer’s Token Flurry Slurry

  • Link: https://moxfield.com/decks/AmJQUyqwcUWJhSa6mIQhLg

  • Commander: [Kykar, Wind’s Fury]

  • How Does It Win? In the early turns, play cards like Young Pyromancer, that put small tokens on board, or otherwise reward you for playing instants and sorceries. When you have a couple of those, use big spells like Counterspells to create a huge army of monks, draw a lot of cards, and chip away at your opponents. When you’re ready to strike, play your commander (Narset), then make all your tokens big with a flurry of small cantrips like Brainstorm and Crash Through, and swing with overwhelming force.

  • The Weak Points:

    • The individual cards in your deck don’t do much on their own. Deciding whether to use a cantrip early or save it up for a massive turn later is a big part of the challenge (and the fun) of running this deck.
    • Plus, the deck relies on building up a board of creatures, so cards that kill all creatures are devastating. As a result, you should probably save your counterspells for defensive use (to prevent someone from blowing you out), instead of using them to get in the way of other players’ plans.

  • Stats

    • Recommended Experience: You should be comfortable with the rules, with playing at instant speed (on other players’ turns), and have an intuition of what a cantrip is.
    • Skill Expression: Extremely high. Sequencing in this deck matters quite a bit, because most cards trigger most other cards, so the more efficiently you order your plays, the more power you’ll have.
    • Raw Power: I have no idea (haven’t really played this deck yet), but it’s probably middle of the pack.

  • Iconic Cards

    • Young Pyromancer
    • Brainstorm
    • Crash Through

Atarka’s Big Dragonstorm

  • How Does It Win?
    • In the early turns, you build a board of mana acceleration with cards like Dragonlord’s Servant, and other cards that are useful for dragons, such as Crucible of Fire. When you have 5 or 6 mana, you’ll usually start casting big, scary dragons, and attacking people. At 7 mana, you play Atarka almost always, and start taking out players. Remember that Atarka’s ability applies to all dragons, regardless of whether Atarka herself is attacking.
  • The Weak Points:
    • The deck takes a while to get off the ground. Most of your dragons are very impactful, but very expensive. As a result, the deck doesn’t really get going until you have at least 6 mana. To that end, don’t be worried if your hand contains 4 or 5 lands and one big dragon. Remember, you only need 3-4 dragons to win the game, but you have to get to a high number of lands to cast them.
    • The deck doesn’t draw many cards. Your dragons are very impactful, but weak to being killed with a “kill all creatures” card. As such, remember that you don’t have to play all the cards in your hand all the time. Usually, 3 or 4 dragons are more than enough to scare everyone and be back-breaking, so you can keep the rest in your hand to re-build if they ever blow up your board.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: Probably the easiest deck to play,
    • Skill Expression: Low, as you’ll see a limited number of cards in your deck.
    • Raw Power: Medium on a 5-player game.
  • Iconic Cards
    • Atarka, the commander, pretty much sums up the strategy.
    • Dragonlord’s Servant
    • Crucible of Fire

Minn’s Blue Shenanigans

  • How Does It Win?
    • Ideally, you want to play a mana-producing spell in turn two, and Minn + a cantrip on turn three.
    • After Minn is out, your main goal is to draw two cards on every player’s turn. Pay close attention to which cards are instants in your deck, which cards allow you to draw on other player’s turns, and try as hard as you can to create one illusion per turn.
    • Feel free to use these illusions as defense early on, while you set up your card-drawing engine.
    • When your illusions are big, you start straight up killing people with them. Alternaltively, you can also kill people with Chasm Skulker or Psychosis Crawler.
  • The Weak Points:
    • The deck doesn’t do much without Minn. Minn is your main source of defense and offense. Protect her at all costs.
    • This deck is more mana-hungry than it seems. Some decks run out of cards to play, so having more mana yields diminishing returns. This is not one of them. Remember, you’re trying to draw two cards a turn. You’re going to have a full hand a lot of the time, so you should have mana to cast as many spells as possible. Aim for 12 blue mana at least before you stop playing lands.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: You should be extremely comfortable playing on other people’s turns (or excited to try), and comfortable with the different phases of the turn (upkeep vs draw phase), for instance. Tiny edges like that can mean the difference between drawing one or two cards, and thus having big or small illusions.
    • Skill Expression: Very high
    • Raw Power: Probably mid, this is more a fun Rube-Goldberg machine deck than a competitive deck.
  • Iconic Cards
    • Minn
    • Rewind
    • Frantic Search
    • The Draw on their turn card
    • Psychosis Crawler
## Ezuri's Wild Evolution
  • How Does It Win?
    • You use early mana creatures like Llanowar Elves to cast Ezuri as fast as possible.
    • Then, you gain as many experience counters as possible by playing other small creatures or proliferating.
    • You create a machine of putting +1/+1 counters.
    • You play a creature that gets around blockers, such as Herald of the Streams
    • You kill people with your huge, unblockable creatures.
  • The Weak Points:
    • This deck relies a lot on Ezuri being alive. Use your counterspells and defenses to protect him, and re-cast him as soon as you can. Sometimes, it’s good to wait to cast him until you can play him and leave mana up for a counterspell.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: This deck is fairly straightforward, but may contain cards in other languages or with old mechanics from Magic’s history. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you draw something you don’t understand, it’s a casual game.
    • Skill Expression: Higher than it seems, but not super-high. The most impactful decisions are how to keep Ezuri alive, and how to balance developing your mana and your board vs. trying to take people out.
    • Raw Power: Probably in the stronger end of the pool.
  • Iconic Cards
    • Ezuri
    • Spark Double, to copy Ezuri
    • Herald of the Streams
## Inquisitorial Battlecruise - **How Does It Win?** - This is a classic control-ish deck. You win by being slower than the rest, playing cards that are more expensive, but more impactful than the other decks. It wants to play cards that do 20% more than the rest of the decks, and so slowly build up card advantage and control over the board. - Eventually, it wins by creating an army of tokens and giving them static buffs like Ultramarines Honour Guard and "They shall know no fear" - **The Weak Points:** - It can be slow to set up, because cards are generally expensive, and mana costs are quite awkward. Just remember that it's okay to feel a little behind in the first 3-4 turns, and it's okay to spend them playing mana-generating artifacts and other set-up. - Because responses to threats are so expensive, you often won't be able to respond to multiple things. Deny the witch, for instance, can respond to pretty much anything, but it's 4 mana that is difficult to cast, so you have to choose carefully what to deal with. If you can get someone else at the table to deal with something, do so. - **Stats** - **Recommended Experience**: Less than what it looks like. The main difficulty is playing like a control player, which is transferrable across games. If you have played a control deck in other card games like Hearthstone or Lorcana, many of the concepts apply. - You should be comfortable with instants though. - **Skill Expression**: Quite high. Because most cards are kind of expensive, every card you play matters, and you often won't get to take that many actions in a turn. Evaluating the game state and how to stay alive, while grinding a resource advantage, is vital. - **Raw Power**: Medium - **Iconic Cards** - Marneus Calgar - Deny The Witch - Severina Raine - And they shall know no fear
## John Benton's Crushing Group Hug
  • How Does It Win?
    • Play Sergeant John Benton on turn 2 if possible with llanowar elves, or in turn 3 with protection.
    • Try to keep it alive, and hit someone each turn, making him grow bigger and re-filling your hand.
    • Use politics to make people not block and not retaliate if you attack
      • After all, they’re going to draw cards too, right?
    • Remember that dealing 21 damage with your commander will kill someone, regardless of your life total.
  • The Weak Points:
    • Your commander is your only real creature and way to win, so you’ll need to keep him alive. It’s usually good to keep at least one piece of protection up to protect when it’s not turn.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: Medium.
    • Skill Expression: Very few decisions to make, but every decision matters. Who to attack and what cards to play when are the biggest determinants of success.
    • Raw Power: Probably the most powerful
  • Iconic Cards
    • Sergeant John Benton
    • Giant Growth
    • Feat of Resistance
    • Hyena Umbra

Isshin’s Double Attack Triggers

  • Link: https://moxfield.com/decks/3v2gWuooEUq5zYazcLeBeg
  • How Does It Win?
    • Try to get a 2-cost or a 3-cost creature with strong attack triggers (e.g. “When this creature attacks…”) down as soon as possible.
    • Then, play Isshin, and start beating people over the head.
    • Then, play powerful enchantments and creatures that buff your whole team, and KEEP ATTACKING!!
    • Also note that Mobilize is a very strong mechanic here. It’ll trigger twice!
  • The Weak Points:
    • A board wipe will kill you. There are two or three spells that give all your creatures indestructible, save them!
    • On the same vein, remember that you don’t have to play all your creatures at once. It’s fine to save some to rebuild later.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: Beginner-friendly.
    • Skill Expression: Medium
    • Raw Power: High
  • Iconic Cards:

Loot Landfall

  • Link: https://moxfield.com/decks/YLfUPFVb8kCE6ZAXlqfsrg
  • Commander [Loot, Exhuberant Explorer]
  • How Does It Win?
    • You play stuff that has Landfall, and then use the spells that go get lands to trigger Landfall a bunch of times in a turn.
    • You can also use cards that let you play lands from a graveyard to use [Terramorphic Expanse] again and again for as many Landfall triggers as possible.
    • Then, you hit them in the face with your big creatures.
  • The Weak Points:
    • It has very little removal and card draw. Your card draw is mostly activating Loot again and again.
  • Stats
    • Recommended Experience: Very Beginner-friendly
    • Skill Expression: Low
    • Raw Power: Medium
  • Iconic Cards
    • [Scute Swarm]
    • [Tifa Lockhart]

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