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Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced: Building Three Commander Decks with Purpose

 

 

 

Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced:

 Building Three Commander Decks with Purpose

The last video I did in this format landed well, so I'm sticking with it — three decks, three skill levels, one philosophy tying them together.

"Beginner" Isn't an Insult

Let's get this out of the way first: when I say "beginner," I don't mean "less than." I mean simple in structure — and simple is a feature, not a compromise.

Case in point: Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim. Out of my thirty-some Commander decks, my ongoing goal has been to simplify — to make games move faster and smoother. It's already a lot to track your own deck's plan, let alone three opponents' plans at the same time. Complexity adds up fast, and not always in a fun way.

So when I got the commission for this deck, I went back to basics: strip gameplay down to its core rules and build from there. Play cards that reward you just for putting them on the board. This deck runs twenty lifegain cards — meaning the simple act of casting creatures already puts you ahead. That cushion buys you time to survive and eventually close the game out.

It's also got aristocrat synergies layered in, which pay you off for doing what you're already doing anyway — casting creatures. Extort and other aristocrat effects drain your opponents while padding your life total, buying you more turns to hang in there and get the win, or at least avoid being the first one out.

The idea behind "beginner" here: learn the rules of the game so you can eventually learn how to break them. That's where intermediate comes in.

Intermediate: More to Track, More to Weigh

Kudo, King Among Bears looks like a straightforward go-wide "bear" strategy at a glance — and it is one. But it's got layers. Certain cards add +1/+1 counters to your own creatures while simultaneously shrinking your opponents' creatures down to a base 2/2. That interaction requires more thought and more careful sequencing than it first appears.

Both this deck and the beginner deck are intentionally built at Bracket 2 — a baseline the people who commissioned them can upgrade from over time, while staying consistent enough to hold up in a fair game.

Fifteen cards in this deck add +1/+1 counters, and underneath that go-wide plan is a quieter aggro strategy: get your cheap-to-cast commander down early, then hold up mana for cheap removal (think Bushwack-style effects) to strip away opposing creatures before they can build a board state.

What I like about this one: it's a control deck that doesn't touch blue. Most people expect control to come out of a blue deck. This one's doing it in green.

Advanced: Bracket 3 and the Combo Lines

The final deck is my Bracket 3 build, and it's where things get more intentional about hidden value. I kept tutor count low on purpose — I don't want to telegraph what I'm doing turn to turn.

A few of my favorite lines in this deck:

  • Approach of the Second Sun into Diabolic Tutor to close out the game

  • Dark Depths paired into a token-generation plan

  • My personal favorite: Tainted Remedy + Beacon of Immortality

There are a few more combo pieces I'm still working into the list, so consider this deck a living document — more to come as it develops.

Got questions about any of the specific card choices in these three decks? Drop them below and I'll dig into the details in a future video.

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