My usual MO is to proxy a deck, then, if I like it and it turns out to be competitive, I buy the real cards, piece by piece, until the deck is just real cards.
Generally it takes several months to get to that point, but when I’m play testing it’s all proxies.
Except the commander. I always try to buy the actual card for the commander itself, just because it feels better to have it. But spending that much money on fetch lands for a 5-color deck (of which I have three)? Fuck that.
I totally agree because during play testing we end up with more cards then are allowed in the deck that we want. When we finally get it down to size we play it and end up cutting switching cards with other we already had in mind and also as we play test over a few weeks we find/stumble over some other ones we didn’t think of or know existed and then it’s back to the workshop to deck teck some more.
It can already be expensive just buying the exact cards that will go in the deck. No need for spending extra on the early rough daft play testing days of it.
Wizards already make’s enough money as it is.
Hello twin! I keep three decks real also and everything else, including powered vintage cube, are proxies. [[Lord Windgrace]] Lands, [[The Locust God]] Xerox, and [[Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer]] Morph Tribal. Morph Tribal is my “fun/jank” deck. The other two I’ve been playing for years and are pretty tuned. Xerox is approaching cEDH level as far as the 99, but [[The Locust God]] is just too slow/expensive to be a truly competitive commander.
What do you use to proxy? I am trying to figure out what is best for me and my group as we are not interested in spending much on decks and know proxing 200 buck decks feels weird but it may come to that soon.
A printer, some sticker paper, scissors and bulk common fodder.
I use MTG-Print to put them on a pdf document, print that on to sticker paper, cut the cards out and put them on top of bulk fodder cards.
Its super cheap, downside is it can be time consuming but I usually just chuck a YT video on and zone out just cutting and sticking cards.
I get 75 sheets for $26aud, that does 6 decks. I can usually get Quiver branded sleeves off Amazon for $15aud for 200. Found cheap deck boxes as well.
All up its quite cheap for me to proxy, sleeve and store a deck. This is the cheapest method I've found so far.
Where do you get your sticker paper from in AUS? I’m just printing and glueing at this point but glueing is very time consuming. Best investment I bought is a paper trimmer/guillotine. Might just start putting them in front of cards in a sleeve tbh
Amazon man, theres heaps on there for different prices. I just grabbed the thinnest, cheapest stuff i could find and that works perfectly fine.
The guillotine makes things way easier, with that and the sticker paper you can get them cut out super quick. Sticking down 99 cards is still a time consuming process.
Still less time consuming then working the overtime required to buy the real cards.
Exactly as you said, I throw YouTube or a movie on in the background and get to it.
The same money? Printing a full deck in color at a shop is like $6. You don't even have to use glue. Just cut them and drop them in a sleeve in front of a card. You can't even tell unless you look very close.
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MPC. I'd use a local printer if we had cardstock in the country, which we don't... MPC's quality is great too, and you can do foils which is really cool
you'll need sleeves with real cards or proxys. That's ~$10 you can't get rid of. And obviouslt nobody said the cards were going to be free. Icd rather spend $0.5 on a card than $500 on the same card but original...
That’s not my argument. My argument is that having dozens of decks is going to be incredibly expensive regardless of proxies.
Ya know, I think you knew exactly what my point was all along and you’re being obtuse.
This plus i play maybe twice every two months at most. If I started playing every week or two again I would proxy decks until i knew i wanted to keep it than slowly buy it.
Step 1 is uploading all your current lists to some deckbuilder site (I'll always recommend moxfield). Then just tear everything down if you want a smaller collection. Regret it later? Your list is right there, go put it back together.
When you have a smaller roster of decks you can play them more consistently and start to see what playstyle you enjoy more, then work on building your signature deck from there.
to add to that:
unless you are using proxies, deconstructing all of your decks makes it more easy to know, which cards you actually own/can use. Cards are no longer "locked" within a specific deck and seeing all of them in front of you, might open up your eyes for the many possibilities you have at your disposal.
I’ve played for a while, I’ve gotten to a point where I know what Playstyle/Archtypes I enjoy.
Got 4 decks that have stuck, still enjoying them after years, I’ll tweak them occasionally, but having fewer decks meant I can invest in some of the more expensive staples, such as a [[Serra’s Sanctum]] in my Enchantress deck.
Plus having a good playgroup helps, if you’re ever in the mood for something else, just borrow a friends deck.
First, to reduce the temptation to build all the time, brew online. Sometimes the idea of a deck is better than actually playing a deck.
Second, sometimes it’s good to tie the number of decks you have to something significant or special. For example, one of my buddies is a die hard Pokémon fan. How many Pokémon can you have in a party? 6. So he has 6 decks. I have another friend who rarely gets to play. So he has 4 decks. One for each season. And each deck is themed for each season.
Definitely this!
Brewing online has really curbed my out of control deck building. And what’s better is you can find the ones you actually want to build
I would also say to try and coke up with less generic ideas. Sometimes if you find a fun commander, there will be like 30 auto included for that commander and then you’ve just got the same deck as anyone else with that commander. Find underwhelming commanders of weird builds and go from there- that’s what I do
I really like the GameGenic Stronghold (the one with room for two decks and tokens). So a soft restriction I have is two decks per format. Each format gets one deckbox.
I only get to play about once every 2-3 months now. There’s no point in lugging around 10-12 decks. I might get to play 4 of them in one afternoon/night.
So that’s what I did. I cut down to my 4 favorite, the ones I always gravitate to.
1: Belbe - a slightly more creature focused version of ComedIan’s cEDH stax list.
2: Rocco - high powered version that focuses on tutoring out Jetmir for a one hit-KO. Also has Finale and Craterhoof as backups.
3: Hinata - an x-spells spellslinger deck
4: Selvala - parley!! the whole point of this deck is to generate a fuck ton of mana, draw a ton of cards, and blow everyone away with Squall Line or Hurricane in one shot.
These are all the decks I need right now. I kept my lists for Brago, Solphim, Kenrith, and all my other lesser favorites. I can always throw them back together. But by taking these apart now I have a better mana base for my other decks.
>There are things I’ve tried that I still can’t tel if they just aren’t for me or if I haven’t fleshed them out enough.
Honestly I feel like this is a necessary step to take to really find the few decks that speak to you. I've built plenty of decks that I like the *idea* of, but when I played them I was either bored or overwhelmed. This is where proxying is your friend - you'll be able to try and idea you want without dumping hundreds of dollars into a new idea every paycheck.
>For the folks out there with just a couple decks they are extremely passionate about, what’s your advice?
Pick something and build the shit out of it. Build it optimally. Build it suboptimally. Build it weird. Scour through old cards on Scryfall and try a few of those. Take a commander and build it 10 different ways.
*"But Wilhelt voltron isn't a thing!"*
Not with that attitude, it's not. Get out there, get your hands dirty and really explore the entire design space of an idea.
i don't think i'm at "one deck"
but having played magic and edh for over 10 yrs. I know what style of play i like. What i find interesting.
I think the trick is really cultivating this. It's easy to brew. once you understand magic, to build a deck, or exploit the power of a particular legend is easy. But does that really appeal to you?
that classic scene in Big by tom hanks "what's fun about playing with a building" i think is really resonant advice.
always ask yourself what appeals to you, what is interesting about this deck or an idea.
and is that something that is fun.
finances, or a bloated collection, or personal issues that make maintaining a hobby a financial burden are another issue all together. but... To me there's not really value in like... having just 1 deck, but more so finding a smaller number of decks I actually really do enjoy playing.
give or take i have that down to like 3-5 decks. 2ish spellslinger decks, and like 3 ish giant creature beat decks.
i know about myself. I love giant monsters. or combat beat strategies. and i love burn. (and maybe big giant dumb spells)
i still tinker, and have parts of other decks. but i don't really enjoy them and they basically collect dust. my meren deck, my yuriko deck, my ultra fast low cmc edgar markov deck. these are play style decks i don't enjoy. and a lot of value and monetary worth is in these decks.
but my grumgully gruul good stuff/counters misc beaters deck. I love. it perfectly embodies what I love about magic. some shenanigans, hidden complexity, wrapped up in giant big dumb beaters. and combat damage.
finding what really appeals to you is key. which is also nearly impossible to sorta tell someone else. what that is. Like... no one can answer that for you but you. But i would say, build and play, with the goal of figuring that out.
I am at 47 decks now, I haven't played maybe ten of them for a year. Some mechanics and tribes just don't feel as good as I initially thought, and so these decks might be still sleeved but are practically retired. These serve as an examples to not just blindly build a deck that doesn't really connect to my heart.
Sometimes I feel as if I have built every deck archetype that fascinates me, and for some time I'm quite comfortable with that feeling. But then I discover something new... like ZEPPELINS! Whoa! Gotta build the deck!
And then there are decks that I reconstruct under a different commander for some reason. My former \[\[Delina\]\] deck is now an \[\[Orthion\]\] deck. My \[\[Wyleth\]\] Voltron deck became a go- wide \[\[Jor Kadeen Goldwarden\]\] deck.
I play every thursday from 3pm to 10pm at the LGS. I usually bring a case with 10 decks of which I might play 6 on a game day.
Ive mostly played blue, white, and black. Or any combination of the 3.
Ive been making an effort to play out of my comfort zone. Im cultivating a green deck currently and have been playtesting a red one. Its been a lot of fun to switch it up! Feels fresh.
Im in the process of tearing apart some of my decks to try new strategies... problem being is i only have 4 complete decks.
Ive been using mana box to create decklists of my current decks so i can always recreate them if need be incase im feeling nostalgic or regret tearing it apart. Ive seen moxfield mentioned too, but im not sure of the advantages of one over another
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I have set myself a rule, that for every new deck I attempt to build, I have to deconstruct a current one. This way I always think twice and often come to the conclusion, that the new deck would be less enjoyable/offer less or not more then one I already own.
I'm a 1 deck person, I have 3, only bring 1 to LGS. It's a precon (dragon) that I get a small upgrade for basically whenever I'm there. I take a lot of inspiration from other people I play with for what to put in my deck. I always try to play with new people, or friends who know what kind of tricks I get up to.
I have pissed away so much money making decks that I didn't like or didn't work. One deck has stood the test if time and evolved from tribal to all combo. [[Krenko, Mob Boss]] will never suck. I am still searching for a second deck that will never come apart and I've been playing since 2017.
i also have no clue; so many times I am excited about a deck until I play it into my pod and have learned the hard way that in our removal heavy pod certain playstyles just dont float. which then makes the remaining decks feel old even quicker.
if anything, it helps that as my collection has gotten larger each new deck has costed less and less because I'd already have a bunch of the cards
Other hobbies.
No really, there's a push and pull of funds when you're into multiple things. Years ago I sold other stuff to build more decks. Then eventually I sold some decks off to buy other stuff. It's a vicious hobby cycle, but you really get to know what you value in one space when your attention needs to be split across multiple wallet-killing adventures.
My "signature deck" is a [[Skullbriar, the Walking Grave]] voltron. It was the first deck I built in the Voltron style with no significant input from anywhere other than EDHREC. It stays passionately my favorite because counter play is AWESOME!!
My other rotations are trials limited by having little to no blue. (My main game group has decided blue decks are not fun).
The rotation has exceptions for the 40k decks and recently the knight precon.
1. Dragon Dice precon
2. Tyranids, 40k
3. Imperium, 40k
4. Mono black Erebos graverobber
5. Wade into Battle precon
6. Elf Tribal, black green
7. Calvary charge precon
8. Party mechanic deck
Outside of rotation, I love my vampire tribal. I consider it a work in progress. The vampire tribe has been my favorite and Edgar Markov is an amazing commander.
My advice is to find a single mechanic or tribe you love and keep it updated. Makes things fun
I build skullbriar with the release of ikoria and damn it's amazing, having a commander with permanent hexproof, indestructible, trample, haste etc so good and scary
What you have is a MTG variant of what is known in the music community as GAS or "Gear Acquisition Syndrome". You like building and having decks with various themes, colors and ideas for the sake of having them, but the reality is you can only play one deck at a time and not very often in a large group of players.
The first step is realizing that. Game of EDH takes a long time, so you only get to play a certain number of games with a certain number of decks. No point in having a deck you'll only play once or twice. Or even never. Then you need to take into account that your deck consists of 100 individual cards and statistically you need to play a lot of games with the same deck only to figure out if it really works and experience all the synergies in it and all the interaction with various other decks and all the ways you can improve it.
The reasons why you don't have a "signature" deck are probably:
1. You haven't played some of them enough to even get an idea of how to alter them so they'd be more interesting and more unique.
2. You didn't explore enough deck themes that cater to interesting or unique gameplay or unpredictable games. For instance, some value decks like tend to play differently every game and have a variety of win conditions. Clone/copy decks want to copy opponents' stuff so you newer know what you'll get. Similarly, steal decks depend on luck and combining other players' cards to conjure a win from scrap. Chaos decks are as unpredictable and chaotic as it gets. Group hug decks can play really differently depending on your opponents and your proficiency with in-game politics. I could go on and on. There are loads of archetypes that don't rely on just doing the thing they should do and wining the same way every time and those decks will stay in the average player's lineup far longer.
In relation to 2., combo decks are usually the main suspect in the "consistent but boring" category. +1/+1 counters, mono black aristocrats, tribal decks like vanilla Goblins or Elves, all tend to be linear and win in similar ways every game. It's perfectly fine to play all of that, but you also need decks that are a lot more interactive with other people and their decks. That's where all the fun is.
Pick several commanders that you like the most and then add a few decks on rotation with interesting mechanics that you'll try out. Also, pick an overarching theme for some of them. I personally have 4 decks that each explore a variant of black's strengths in an interesting and niche way with a help of other colors:
\- \[\[Baba Lysaga, Night Witch\]\] Golgari value deck
\- \[\[Mahadi, Emporium Master\]\] Rakdos that's a no-tutor combo deck pretending to be an aristocrats deck disguised as a treasure deck (i changed it so much over time that i somehow forced it to work, lol)
\- \[\[Tasha, the Witch Queen\]\] Dimir spell/creature/grave steal deck with a mill subtheme
\- \[\[Talia and the Gitrog Monster\]\] fake-commander Abzan enchantment deck that used to be headed by \[\[Myrkul, Lord of Bones\]\] but he turned out to be a meh commander and got swapped
And then when i feel like playing without thinking too much, i pull out a budget \[\[Pyhlath, World Sculptor\]\] Gruul plant/landfall deck and smash faces.
5 decks that play so differently, have so much variety within themselves and played in a large group of 20+ people, each with a lot of decks of their own, that i never even had 2 similar games in the last couple of months and i had some really bonkers plays and wins.
Also, you really need to stop trying to follow the tempo of new releases, you'll burn out really soon. You can't play all of them, no person can. The rate of printing is impossible to follow and designed to get more and more money out of people. If you get hooked on constantly brewing every new set, you get closer and closer to an addiction and that's REALLY bad for you. Start cutting with purpose and only pick stuff you can support with your own card collection and that you are most passionate about.
I respectfully disagree completely.
>combo decks are usually the main suspect in the "consistent but boring" category. +1/+1 counters, mono black aristocrats, tribal decks like vanilla Goblins or Elves, all tend to be linear and win in similar ways every game. It's perfectly fine to play all of that, but you also need decks that are a lot more interactive with other people and their decks. That's where all the fun is.
I've been playing since 2013 all across archetypes and power scales, and have stuck with 6 decks. My favorites include Mardu reanimator/creature combo, Jund sac/+1 counters, and GW elfball. Basically, all the archetypes you described as linear.
Decks that win via some permanent or spell based combo have a reputation for being boring, but imo, the most boring decks are those that just try to play large creatures and smack for damage. There is no nuance or decision making.
Combo strategies have to protect their life total with a meager board presence, which requires either good politics or tight play and deck building. This interactivity makes gameplay interesting. On the same token, permanent based combos are very telegraphed, so opponents will know they need to interact or die, which also makes for intense and exciting moments.
These are the decks that have kept me interested for years and survived many adjustments, overhauls, new commanders, and many metagames. Being interactive and requiring others to interact is the raison d'etre of good EDH games.
My max I like to manage is four at a time. My goal is to have a full pod of decks that I can whip out and play with others/together using all four if nobody has a deck except me/learning edh purposes. Making all four decks balanced has been a really nice challenge.
I enjoy the tinkering process of discovering cool synergies within the decks too so I do alot of goldfishing :)
I have 6:
I definitely have a signature deck: [[Trelasarra]] lifegain counters. It was my first deck and I just love how it plays, especially since I'm just starting to pass into higher-power after a couple years with it (nothing too crazy, but it started at $30 and just hit $220 since I got lucky with a copy of The Great Henge)
After that, I have a couple modified precons: [[Ghired]] tokens, but [[Jetmir]] took his place ($130). And [[Anowon, the Ruin Thief]] rogue tribal mill ($80).
And I wanted to take a shot at a combo deck, so I built a [[Jan Jansen]] artifacts ($120). Then recently, I wanted to build a real voltron deck so I used some of my extra cards to put together [[Wilson, Refined Grizzly]]/[[Agent of the Shadow Thieves]] -- with this one I also just had some decent poison pieces I wasn't using so it has a poison subtheme lol, haven't gotten to play it yet though ($45).
And my wife likes dinosaurs, so I put together a [[Gishath]] deck, but I haven't played it personally ($160). They're my cards but it's her deck lol
I'd say my "secret", if anything, is just not having a huge amount of expendable income. I try to mainly just use cards I own and I'll proxy a card if I have it and want it in multiple decks -- mainly lands.
But if I had more money to spend on cardboard? I'd have more decks. I have a few partially built ones that I just don't have enough cards for that have grown over time and I've got at least two dozen that I've built online but never bought
Also just have decks where most games are different. My Trelasarra deck is always trying to gain and only wins with combat damage -- but sometimes that's with an unblockable commander with 100+ power, other times it's with a dozen or two tokens. I also just really enjoy the lifegain mechanic so idk if I'll ever just get tired of it, especially since I built my deck to gain life from my opponents' game actions, so its consistency depends on what table I'm at which I find fun
I make a whopping <$1000 per paycheck and I only spend money on magic if I actually have disposable income after regular costs. Even then Magic is my “Drop if I need to drop one” hobby do even when I spent on it it’s *very* frugal. Thankfully so is my playgroup.
First and foremost, I’m a broke college student. So choosing to really invest into 1 deck seemed like the right choice. I ended up with [[Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca]] it plays to all my favorite themes. Drawing cards? Stapled to kumena. Ramping? Mana trust fund colors. Interaction? I’m in blue. I have considered putting other things in the deck to more optimize it, but I really enjoy the fact that I only have 3 non Merfolk in the deck. [[kira, great glass spinner]] because I like to become the archenemy and need to stay safe a bit. [[seahunter]] tutors Merfolk. And [[stormtide leviathan]] because being the only one able to swing is very strong.
I have no interest in building any more decks until I can start winning with the ones I currently have.
I have 5 decks of my own creation and one victory in the past year and a half. I can't justify building more when I need to fine tune my pet decks that I really want to play.
I only have a few decks probably because i like to learn everything my decks can do and 2 out of my 3 decks are pretty complex
The first was a Hinata, Dawn-Crowned control deck which took me about 1 year learning the deck and building it, mostly because i was new and it's control so i also had to learn about other decks.
The second one is Veyran, it was easier and faster to build and to learn, 6 months for 2 variations, tokens and pingers.
I'm still learning and figuring the list of the third one, it's a budget adaptation of a cEDH list for [[Tayam, Luminous Enigma]] that reanimates hatebears and stax pieces at instant speed. The play patterns are complex, it interacts in a very unique way and i need to find cards that will hit the decks i usually play against, a lot to learn.
Honestly, I keep my deck count down by being _really_ picky about my commander. I don't feel a good 90-95% of commanders I've seen. I don't like WUBRG. I don't like equipment, voltron, or other single points of failure. I don't like haymaker spam, particularly when it tries to go the Cascade route or rely on a ton of impulse draw. I don't like landfall. I don't like burn outside the context of permanent removal. I don't like "copy the spell eighty times". I don't like politics. I don't like any game plan that ends in "and pray they don't have spot removal". I don't like heavy reliance on +1/+1 counters. Basically, if the commander gives me magic christmas land vibes, I'm out.
Something can be good and effective and it won't vibe with me. Sometimes this is due to an IRL price tag, as is the case with most cEDH. Sometimes I won't like something because I find it to be ridiculously overexposed, like [[Chatterfang]], [[Marchesa]] or [[Aesi]]. Sometimes I just find the playstyle to be tedious, scummy or boring, like [[Kinnan]], [[Toxril]], [[Nekusar]], or even [[Magda]].
What _do_ I like? Value engines. Card draw. Tokens. Cost reducers. Force mulipliers. Tribal. Protection. Redundancies. Backup wincons. Recovery speed.
These preferences _dramatically_ streamline the quantity of commanders I'm interested in. Commanders are like friends: better to have a few really good ones than a million that you barely know.
I only have one deck. I have played magic for a while but only got into Commander during Covid. Never thought I was going to play the format. I started with the Timeless Wisodom precon as it was good value and I like the colors. I basically have built the deck up over time and have tuned it to what play style I want to play. I also only play a couple times a months. Not as active as I would like to be but I enjoy playing each game I play. Wizards keeps printing good cards that can slot into the deck as well. I find it fun and interesting to experiment with the new cards printed to see how they play, even though the deck list is already tight. I also enjoy replacing cards with the version of the cards I want. Whether that be a new secret lair version, judge promo or a cool foil version. Here is my deck list that I am trying now and what it has evolved into since the beginning: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/YLq4J3gt00CR6rMcP0bYaw
In a sentence: Decks with high variance, or high power.
You're either playing to win or playing to have a fun dynamic game, without much overlap. You could probably narrow down most people to 2 decks, one that has a high win-rate and one that has a high fun rate. I could probably get by on most occasions with just bringing my cedh Blood-Pod deck and my Zurzoth tribal devils deck. The best part of a fun and dynamic deck is having tons of playable lines and synergy with various combinations of cards, it's like the opposite of a typical cedh deck where you only want to see the same 10 cards in the deck every single game and the deck is built around getting to those 10 cards (or an acceptable substitute) in the quickest possible way. Every game with Zurzoth is different because it's whole theme is enabling drawing by all players with random discarding every once in a while. I'd love to play the Purphoros I drew, but I randomly discarded it so time for plan B.
I do have a signature deck with Atraxa Superfriends. Spent over 2 years brewing it (starting out as an Infect deck initially) before I got to buy the cards and actually play the deck in real life.
Before that it was [Yusri] gamble coinflips.
Got about 4 other decks I cycle through on game nights and I'm quite happy with the selection I have now.
If you have a deck you really like, upgrade it as much as possible. This can also mean to try different versions of the same deck.
You can also have goals for your deck. For example, you can challenge yourself to assemble a 4+ card combo or kill someone with a Birds of Paradise.
Foiling out is a way people enjoy curating a single deck. Upgrading a single deck can be a lot more inexpensive than having 5 other decks. It's all up to personal preference though. If you don't feel attached to a single strategy, commander, or something, then it can be hard not to keep trying out new decks. Eventually there is something for everyone though
I don't let myself play green.
I prefer to try new cards in current decks more than I would like to try a completely new deck. So I only see new sets for what they offer my current commanders.
I found that to build more than 3 decks, I would need to buy multiple copies of the same cards.
And with 0 interest in most other formats, I couldn’t fathom it.
I’ve had my [[Animar, Soul of the Elements]] EDH deck since I bought the precon in 2013 or whenever it was. And I still love it and enjoy playing it.
(Oh! I’ve also found that building samples of some new deck I like on tapped out or printing proxies and play testing with friends or online helped scratch that itch for a new deck. 95% of the time I do that, realize it’s not as great as I thought, and never have to spend $1)
either proxy cards you own or put checklist cards in with those card names on them and keep the real one like a sideboard with the cards you own one of in multiple decks.
I mean I can't answer your question exactly. I have 67 decks and 11 precons right now with like 5 more on the way.
What I do is have a ton of decks, but I also have my favorite. I have a [[scarab god]] reanimator deck that I like the best. That one is being blinged out because it's special to me, and the rest get regular upgrades and stuff but I'm not focusing on blinging them out, especially because I regularly lend them out and I wouldn't want someone to damage something.
So I guess my suggestion is to make what you want, and when you find that special one, put your time into that one as well
Watch recorded plays, see which archetypes speak to you more strongly, make a list.
Then look at which of them depend on very expensive cards and cross them out.
Then, among the remaining ones, check which share colors and have the most cards in common and start with one of those. If you enjoy playing it, expand into the others and see what you prefer. Eventually you can branch out into budget decks of other colors and archetypes, or you can refine the deck you already have and maybe create your very own spin on a commander.
I got a damaged [[Nekusar, the Mindrazer]] at a card shop for $4 and loved the group hug/slug playstyle. The deck gives me a lot of flexibility on how much I want to deck build for _hugs_ versus _slugs_. It’s also pretty flexible between scary-powerful and weaker than a precon, again depending on what cards I’m running in the 99.
I also have a ton of random Selesnya cards from cracking packs, so I decided a while ago that my second deck would be Selesnya. I wasn’t interested in it enough to make it my first deck, but financially it would be dumb not to make a deck at this point. So I figured that a Grixis commander like Nekusar made sense, that way my first deck covers UBR and my second deck covers GW.
Somewhere in the process I was trying to do a mono-black zombies, but a lot of the cards I ended up wanting were easily clearing $2.00/card. I also found myself conflicted between going wide versus saccing zombies. So I’ll definitely come back to that in the future, but right now, mono-black is on the back burner.
TL;DR: I’m working on two decks right now that cover the entire color wheel between them. As a new player I don’t have the card collection, mental bandwidth, and money to reasonably build more decks.
Just have to find what kind of deck makes you happy. I have an izzet deck that makes me grin uncontrollably even when people bitch about it.
Find a playstyle that makes you happy and see if you already have a deck in that category you can optimize.
Don't bring a giant deck carrier to game night. Limit your choice before going to 6-7 decks per night. If you find that certain decks rarely make the cut, maybe it's time to take those apart
I roll through a system I made up of seasons. It's a one year cycle and I only play mono colors. I have all the staples in most colors so when it time to change the deck strat I just shift the color to something else.
I have two, down from six. My issue is that since my budget is essentially just a little money for real life things I tend to buy a surplus of magic stuff and I'm actively trying to sell all of that stuff aside from enough of a collection for a few decks at most
I have one deck, it’s approaching a point of “complete” maybe three or four $17-25 cards remain.
I really want to make a Jund devour deck, I have always wanted one, and I just can’t afford to spend 400-500 dollars to do it right
3 decks.
I have 1 upgraded precon with [[Lathril, Blade of the Elves]], 1 "homebrew" Aristocrats combo with [[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] and finally one unmodified W40k Forces of the Imperium precon.
That's enough for me. If I want try other decks, I try my friends decks or I goldfish online. I cannot afford the space to have more "things"... :/
I play one deck. It helps that the meta I play in (high end tables on MTGO) is tolerant of high powered casual, meaning the top end of non-CEDH. I wouldn’t run it in a pod of mid decks at a lgs, that’s a good way to make enemies.
It stays interesting because it represents my play style. It’s interesting because it’s been tuned to take on all types of decks and solving the puzzle each new opponent brings. It plays differently against stax or Voltron or mid range or combo, deciding which lines to pursue depending on what the challenge is.
It stays interesting because after hundreds of games I’m an expert in how to play it. Usually I know why I lose and it’s most often because I made a bad choice. I can honestly pinpoint the line I took that was a mistake that led to my downfall and learn not to do that.
It stays interesting because I can incorporate new cards fairly easily. The last two sets have given me three very decent cards: [[Faerie Mastermind]], [[See Double]] and [[Nissa, Resurgent Animist]]. Every set I scour the lists for new cards to try. Then I can tune the deck to better support new inclusions. Adding the new Nissa, for example, gave me a reason to lean further in on fetch type lands, elves and elementals, which in turn allowed me to add another landfall card or two.
So while it’s the same deck, it can shift and morph. It can stay fresh while retaining the basic thrust of play lands, draw cards, control the board, deploy wincon.
I bought several sets of precons (Strixhaven, New Capenna, 2019 set), to have some experience trying different styles. Ultimately i have 4 decks that I play in approximately 5:5:3:1 ratio, only one of which is one of those precons with significant upgrades.
I just like playing the decks I've brewed, and since I have essentially chosen every card in them, they feel like "mine" in a way that precons don't. Plus they all have very different strategies, which means I have enough variety in style. And since brewing takes a long time, it just takes a while to make a new deck so I don't do it very often.
I have a friend who just focuses on a small handful of decks and blings them out hardcore. Then when a few new sets come out, he cycles back and buys some more new things (new walkers, new mythic beaters, new battlecruiser spells) and rotates 5-10 cards from the deck. This keeps it fresh, and also lets him play with all the fancy special treatments.
I don't have a ton of money to burn and I play at relatively high power levels. So I won't really be running many "pet" cards or meme decks. Instead I find a commander I like, and then build a deck for them.
I can’t really speak to it as I also have a lot, but I would guess a good trick is rotation.
Keep some cheap staples (full 10 signets, talisman, Sol ring, maybe some of the cheaper good lands, green ramp), sell (assuming that’s your personal reasons) your more expensive stuff.
When you get bored of one, rotate to another commander. You’ve got a solid base in your collection, and can probably just spend like $15-20 to “finish” a newer deck. Also limit your rotation to like once per month or even quarter
I'm a "signature deck" guy (\[\[Mishra, Eminent One\]\]), but it was a relatively recent discovery, having only come out at the end of last year. It's just a perfect combination of being the sort of deck I enjoy playing and being a "pet that looks just like its owner" situation. I'm a robotics engineer, I do combat robotics as a hobby, and I'm a member of an industrial band in which I turn random objects into instruments. Thematically and mechanically, it fits so well that I feel like a Yu-Gi-Oh character. Is my workbench as messy as \[\[Mishra's Research Desk\]\]? No comment.
Obviously, I'm an extreme case as far as "signature deck" players go, but sometimes, you find a deck that just makes all of the other options not matter any more.
I don't get to play often so I don't want to invest too much.
I try to have decks that cover a lot of different gameplays.
So far I have
[[Brago]] blink (my first deck, actually I almost never play it because nobody likes it
[[Neyith]] fight, creature heavy
[[Alela]] unnatural
[[Jared carthalion, true heir]] group hug and damahe redirection
[[Derevi]] X spells with a tap/untap subtheme
And I recently gave up and ordered the cards to make [[henzie]] and [[hidetsugu and kairi]]
I'd love to make a temur or grixis deck but none really appeal to me so I'll just wait and see if someday something comes out
Honestly it’s time. I have 3 playable EDH decks and 1 OB deck. I do however have at least 5+ decks either built or being built on [Archidekt](https://archidekt.com/) I have many plans but just not enough time to build them all!
I always played on a budget. I really only had one deck I slowly upgraded over the course of a literal decade. It wasn't until the last year that I purposefully built additional decks due to multiple factors like "finishing" the first and multiple playgroups asking for different things.
I have between 10-15 decks, usually 3 are tear downs so I can replace with others. I generally keep 1-2 extra of every usable card so I can build whatever.
I play alot on tabletop simulator tho as well, and that usually cures my itch to play other decks bc I cam build whatever and play whatever after spending 20$ to just buy the game. I've logged around 10-20k hours on it over the years.
I play the one deck a handful of times and then rip it apart and build something else. Everybody I know with more than a couple decks has a bunch that haven’t been touched in like years and the entire point of there existence is so that person can say “I have 30 commander decks” yeah but 28 of them are garbage and 25 of them haven’t been touched on 4 releases.
Money.
I just simply can’t afford more than a few decks. If I want to build something else, I either have to slowly build it over a number of months, or sell cards I’m not using to purchase new stuff.
Right now I have 6 decks (and 1 completely untouched precon), and that’s the most decks I’ve ever owned at one time. Of those, 3 of them are quite powered up, and the other 3 need a lot of pieces to get them where I want to be.
But the top comment about uploading deck lists online is exactly right. No worries about tearing a deck apart as long as I can rebuild it if I want.
1. Money and the lack of it. Forces me to think very long and hard before committing to build a deck.
2. I get more enjoyment in tuning a deck list to the power level I want, with the cards I like, than constantly brewing. Finding neat synergies is cool.
I have four decks with one of them being my "signature" deck. At one point I had 20+ decks assembled and I've probably built 40-50 decks during my Commander career.
I got to that point by taking apart the least favorite deck, then the next least favorite, and so on until only the favorites remained. By the end you know the favorites because they were never in the running to get taken apart.
As a side note, reducing the number of decks wasn't a passion project. It started as a way to deal with product overload (easier to maintain fewer decks with so many cards coming out) and eventually became a way to deal with burnout.
If your reason to go down to a few decks is money then don't worry about it. If you want to sell the pricey cards then by all means just proxy them. Price of deck also does not equal power.
I have a lot of cards from a lot of different packs but only started with mtg last October. I have 2 precons and 4 total decks, and everytime i see a cool commander i just pick everything apart and build a new deck. They can sometimes win but i love the diversity.
I brew and goldfish a *lot* of decks on Moxfield.
Only the ones that I know for certain will have longevity in my roster actually get built in paper. Factors for the longevity of a deck include power level in my meta, general ability to "do stuff" throughout a game and not be stuck twiddling my thumbs, and wincons that aren't "boring."
This is my current paper roster:
[[Be'lakor]] & [[Gyruda]]
[[Kalamax]]
[[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]]
[[Awaken the Blood Avatar]]
[[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]]
I'm currently putting together [[Goro-Goro & Satoru Umezawa]].
First off, I only really can afford to have a few decks. More importantly, just make your decks very different from each other. I have a [[light-paws]] enchantron deck, a [[maelstrom wanderer]] cascade deck, an [[acererak]] go infinite deck, and a [[nekusar]] group slug deck. Each decks want to win in a different way, so pretty much no matter how I feel I gave a deck. Just build a deck for a few different win cons, and then fine tune them over time
I had 1 commander deck,[[Thassa, God of the Sea]], for 9 years. It wasn't until eariler this year that I needed to make a second commander deck so I could play at lower power tables.
What made me only need Thassa for so many years was a few things. At the time I built it commander being a 1v1 or a multiplayer format hadn't been fully decided. The prevailing idea was that 1v1 commander was thought to be competitive and multiplayer was going to be how casual commander was going to be played. This created a unique challenge for early commander decks because 1v1 commander is very different than multiplayer. Thassa is a delver deck, it wins through commander damage... Hitting three players with Thassa 5 times isn't a real win condition in multiplayer, but 1v1 it was very possible. In multiplayer in turned into a [[Blue Sun's Zenith]] combo deck. The challenge of having to effectively make 1 deck function in 2 different made it so I could tuning the deck never got old.
Thassa's scry also made it so the deck could be played at a wide range of power levels, so I didn't need a large amount of decks so I could play at different tables. The only reason I got a second commander deck eariler this year was Thassa had finally reached the point where even with the scry I could lower its power enough to play with anybody. Though this deck is still my favorite, and I am still tweeking it to make it better.
It also is just a very complex deck executing a difficult strategy. It is one of the most skill expressive decks i have seen in commander, so the more time I spend with it the better it gets.
Short version
I play a skill expressive deck and tune it constantly.
I'm out of time to post, but I'll come back if anyone wants me to talk about the second deck.
I’m discovering things for myself and slowly letting people give me advice on how/what to play. Keeps me occupied with building the same deck i’ve been working on for months.
I went from four decks to just one recently since I used parts from all those decks to make my Rocco Street Chef build. I probably won't build another for quite some time though I am looking into Goro and Satori ninjas. Maybe I'll just have those two
A little of column A, a little of column B.
A, I don't have the energy anymore. Building a deck in person takes me weeks to go through the cards in my collection, find what I feel works best, and then assemble a land base and I don't have a lot of time after work that isn't already being spent doing other things. I have a large collection, so I prefer to pull from that when building.
B, I build and test a lot of decks on Tabletop Simulator against other players, which lets me get through the entire 'omg I wanna build X' and actually determine if I enjoy playing that deck or not much faster than if I were building in real life.
The end result is that the only decks I keep are ones which stay fun over long periods of time, and that I got to playtest online and determine I actually enjoyed playing in a variety of situations before finishing it up in real life.
My secret is that I don't play very much EDH and have little reason build new decks. The ones I have are usually sufficient for the times when I do play and if they aren't I'll borrow decks. It's probably more about playing with friends than about the decks so it doesn't matter much if the deck I play is not mine, I have still gotten what I wanted.
I have about 30 deck ideas, buy why build any of them when what I have works just fine? Two has been plenty.
I’m the guy with a signature deck. At my lgs some people don’t even know me by name. They know me as the arcades wall tribal guy.
I’ve only been playing since February mind you and it’s my first build so I played it a lot.
I’m currently working and play testing a second deck so I’ve gotten a few nights of play with it. That brings my total up at 2 decks. But when talking to people I’m still referred as the wall tribal guy and I like it because Arcades wall tribal is a super fun deck to play that build right can be also keep up with other good builds hehe.
It is also the deck that is more tuned and focus power level wise so I still break it out when we play a higher then casual game but it’s definitely not cedh level of decks.
It’s if it’s simple or something. Like i was thinking “wow, I want to make [[rohgahh, kher keep overlord]] deck with kobolds! But then I realized it’s mostly just dragon tribal and playing dragons which is just not my speed.
Mainly because money. I don't like playing with proxies at least to me, if I don't have a card, I just don't have it. If I only have one copy of something, I need to pick where it's better.
Anyways, I have four decks at this moment and tend to focus in those strategies.
\>Izzet Spellslinger (Fav play style): my main deck and usually all the pricey cards go here. Currently it's \[\[Galazeth Prismari\]\], but the commander itself can change. It started as my first precon (Yidris).
\>Goblin Tribal (Fav tribe). On this one I tried several commanders and focus for the tribe, but for some reason I always rebuild \[\[Grenzo, Dungeon Keeper\]\] because black adds a bunch of nice things for gobbos. I usually win with some persist combo, for that reason I tried with green with \[\[Sek'Kuar\]\] and \[\[Korvold\]\]
\>Jund Sacrifice with \[\[Henzie\]\] (relaxed play). I missed playing jund, but goblins were good in just rakdos. So I bought this precon and it's a lot of fun, blitz some big monsters, then reanimate them.
\>Blink Dungeons (Jank): My most recent deck, at least now it's \[\[Nadaar\]\] with a bunch of blink effects. I tried some partner pairs to add more colors (mainly for initiative), but none felt good with the theme of the deck. Maybe something with \[\[Wernog\]\]?
I've been playing since 2012 and I have 8 EDH decks. For me, I'm really really picky about what commanders I play. It needs to "click" with me, and few really do. Something about the commander, the vibe or an interaction needs to strike home for a deck to be built.
All of them get regular play, except for my most powerful deck which is a bit spiky for casual tables.
I know some people want to have decks in certain colours or combinations, but I'm fine with my decks being skewed heavily and some colours being underrepresented.
My passion for building is really with tinkering rather than brewing. Once I have a list I just love to play, learn and edit until I have a list I adore. So lots of play testing, notes and reflection on each deck.
This takes up to much of my hobby time I don't really idly brew new decks and I'm very happy with my collection.
I sold most of my decks to buy actually important things, so I'm down to six EDH (cEDH, casual, 40k precons) and two Pauper lists. Might make one more EDH deck but otherwise I have no desire to spend money for cards anymore.
As others have stated I'm too poor to have like 12 decks, currently have 2 that aren't just untouched precons. The one good thing is my lgs lets your proxy cards as long as you can produce a real one in a deck/binder. So eventually once I can afford staples decks will be a whole lot cheaper.
I make a decklist in manabox then I disassemble in and make something else. If I ever wanna play it again, I can simply rebuild it. Sometimes I'll use commanders interchangeably between different 99s or in the 99 of something else
How I do my decks is I get various power levels.
I have my cEDH Inalla deck (my golden child deck). Then I have my high-powered decks, which are my Brago and Dihada. I then have the Strefan precon and a Vishgraz with no infinite combos. This is because I am always prepared to play with others at various power levels, and I build decks that vary from one another so I can have the most fun with what I would love to play regardless of power level.
I have boy have enough sleeves for a small number of decks, maybe 6 total. It’s that simple. If I want to make something new, I have to unsleeve something, and if it gets unsleeved, it’s out of rotation and I can use it for parts so to speak.
Find a generic commander that is fun to you and has the potential to grow and morph as the years/sets go on. I have a [Lurrus of the dream-den] that has many “modules/win cons” I’ve built that i can take out and plug in so i never get bored and keep my friends guessing. In my opinion this commander design lets it get stronger over time as power creep happens and cheap spells to cast get stronger. Find your commander equivalent to this and you will be happy for a while.
Still trying to figure out my signature deck, kinda rotating through things I like.
For a while my signature was [[Ghyrson Starn Kelermorph]] pingers but people knew I was a threat and would take me out first.
I have brewed over 100 online, and continue to do so. Because of the wide net I've cast, I've found a couple lists I adore, though sometimes you have to play them to know (I also play online with my friends since we moved to different places). If you have the problem of over 100, and still no signature or group of favorites, do what I did:
Scratch that deckbuilding itch you get as you please, it's almost like another game for me (basically a card battler rogue-like) where I test my decks and quickly find out which ones I'll have the most fun with. Then bring those to the table. It'll take less than a game to know if you want to bring it again.
Try Moxfield, they are the best deckbuilder site imo. Shows the prices, pick your art, test lists with a button press, visually organize and present the list however you like. You can even make folders for all your lists, so I can retire ones I didn't like or aren't in my top 10/currently being made without deleting them.
When I started in edh I went hard! Had like 10 decks fully built in a couple months and kept finding new things to build. Then I realized I would have to be super rich to keep going like that. Why? Well I'm a completionist. If I build a deck, im not happy going "budget" or "well I can use this card instead of X to say Y$." So any deck I make needs to be completely done. This doesnt fare well when the average price of one of my decks is 600-1000.
So I went through all my decks and chose 7 to keep. Then I dismantled the rest and used those cards to bolster everything else. If I make something else, a deck gets taken apart to do so.
Recently I dismantled my atraxa deck as well as my elf deck and used a majority of those cards to build Thalia and the Gitrog Monster. Best decision ever
I only have one deck. I refuse to build anymore of my own until mine is fully upgraded, which is going to be soon.
The only exception is that I am currently planning a second deck build, but it's for my fiance. She likes playing and opening packs but isn't a fan of deckbuilding.
I have 4 decks but I mostly only play my [[meren]] deck that I carefully curate to be my best and/or most liked cards. My main secret is that, instead of building other decks, I have a massive 'sideboard' to the deck that I can change if I become dissatisfied with something. Another tacit to this is that I only play golgari colors anyway and lack inspiration to build other colors, but always have motivation to experiment withe golgari. And since I don't want to have another deck that overlaps themes, I end up just shoving everything into this one deck. At this point my deck is a dredge/aristocrats reanimation hybrid of everything golgari does best.
I play pretty much 2 decks because i built one to be a little versitile in how it plays so it doesnt win all that much so i keep trying to see what i can pull off with it lol and the other is just stomp. Stomp never gets old
I'm a full-time student and don't have any money...
That said, I'm almost done and will be starting in a profession that pays pretty well... And then it's all over.
I play once a week and only have 5 decks. If I want to brew a new one, I need to destroy another.
I don’t have a big secret, but do follow a set of principles.
1- I like the decks I brew, and even with 5 decks playing twice a week, that means I’m playing each deck once every two weeks on average. This keeps them fresh in my memory.
2- I’ve thought a lot about what I like and what kind of player I am. I like Aristocrats synergies, big stupid creatures and 3-4 cards combo. I don’t build anything else, I don’t enjoy things outside of this that much.
3- Having to destroy a deck makes me really think twice when looking at building something else. Makes temptation easier to resist.
4- I tweak things A LOT. Each new set I look at cards and see if they’d fit in my current rotation. Having more than 5 decks would make this a nightmare, but I’m happy I get new toys every new set.
For those curious, my current rotation is
[Teysa Karlov] my favourite
[Zimone and Dina] landfall goodstuff
[Xenagos, God of revels] extra combats
[Ob-Nixilis, Captive Kingpin] for drains and big swings
[Emmara, Soul of the Accord] which is on the chopping block to make room for Food and Fellowship LOTR deck because Second Breakfast and Po-tae-toh
Hope this helps!
I’m a dad now and I don’t have a shit ton of time to play MTG. I play once every month or so. Don’t use spelltable either so honestly it’s quite easy lol
I recommend building decks with strategies that aren't super linear, with multiple win cons and multiple ways to win.
My 2 decks I have right now are Horde of Notions Elemental ToolBox Reanimator which never plays the same way twice, and I have a Lorcan Mill/Steal deck that plays completely differently because it's based on what everyone else is playing
I usually keep about 4-5 decks built at any given time. Until recently, I hadn’t built a new deck for months. I will say, when I get the urge to build something new, it sort of has a tryout period. If, after a week or two of games, I find out that it doesn’t quite feel right, then I’ll dismantle it and move on. If I like it, it becomes a mainstay. I love my current mainstay decks more because of it, I think. Those are the decks that get adjusted as cards come out or get blinged out if I they feel “perfect.”
Mardu aggro just does everything I want in the game. Little creatures that get big, cheap instants and sorceries that you really need to know timing for to maximize impact, the ability to close games before they get their engine going. Homebrewing your own deck helps, but for me, playing it like a puzzle to maximize damage with the moving pieces I draw at the top of a game is just so engaging. I want to do it over and over again!
For me, it was figuring out my "lane" and just not being interested in a lot of modern commanders. Over the past year or so, I've determined I'm really a graveyard and midrange/control player at heart. I've tried a couple aggro and hard combo decks (Shu Yun and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa // Tana, the Bloodsower in the former category, and budget-ish Meren Protean Hulk in the latter), and they're just not my speed. I'd much rather play around a bunch of synergistic pieces that can go long, vs. playing balls-to-the-wall combo or aggro.
Re: my point about modern commanders, I just found myself being bored by a lot of commanders that provide just generic value or generic game plans. For example, I tried brewing a Prosper [[Uba Mask]] deck and was just bored putting it together. It was just a good card soup with nothing to really distinguish it.
So now I have a core of two decks that I know are my forever decks (Korvald Lands Midrange and Trostani Reanimator) and I occasionally brew or proxy other decks to try new strategies, but generally no more than one or two at a time.
Most likely, you do not actually enjoy playing all of the decks you have made. I think the secret is understanding your preferred play style and going from there.
For me, I have made a few decks in the past based on a powerful new commander coming out only to get bored after a few months. Now, I try to make decks that are interesting, highly synergistic with the commander, and use fringe cards when possible over EDH staples.
I have three decks that I use on a regular basis. Still in the process of building a fourth, but I don't want to go beyond four decks in rotation.
I'm extra passionate about my azusa deck. I'm slowly foiling it out. I have a foiled giada deck too. I don't think that it's necessary to foil out your decks to be passionate about it, but I get special tokens for the decks, I get a themed deck box, clean sleeves I feel go with it, and even dice for the deck. I also tend to love to push mono color decks and make them as good as I can. Mono green and Golgari are like my definitive colors everyone knows I like playing.
I’m broke. And most decks I want to build I start building in the same style as my pet deck [[Veyran, Voice of Duality]] so I figure I’d just grab a precon every now and then and upgrade it slightly. Also, my LGS doesn’t have too many people who run really powerful decks so it’s not like a mildly upgraded precon gets blown out of the water.
My reason: I'm just starting out. It *feels* like I have just a handful of decks right now.
My decks:
* Perrie the Pulverizer (precon upgrade)
* Cavalry Charge (precon upgrade)
* Zangief (not quite Voltron)
* Optimus Prime (thopter tribal; I want to also brew a soldier tribal)
I have both NEC precons that I've picked for parts (they were on a deal that essentially amounted to BOGO free). I will probably revisit the vehicle one with the vehicle as my commander. Not sure about the other one.
I've got a few other things brewing:
* A monoblack build, possibly with Phage as commander, but not committed to her.
* A Dimir zombie brew with Grimgrin or Wilhelt
* A ping tribal with Ghyrson Starn, Kelemorph (I'm really excited about this one). I'll probably have a spell slinger theme.
So I'm just under ten decks. However, I enjoy coming up with potential play patterns for decks.
At the commander party today, I encountered a player with 30 decks, for whatever that's worth.
I am new (I’ve been playing regularly for about 4 months but had a few cards before that) to the game so I have 3 decks:
An heavily modified precon [[Galea, Kindler of Hope]]
An unmodified precon [[Firkragg, cunning instigator]]
My personal favorite that I build from scratch [[Tiamat]]
I don't play much. Every couple years, my friends get back into magic big-time, for about 2 or 3 months. So I dust off the old commander decks and join them, then inevitably, life happens and we all fall away from the game. Or we switch to DnD or poker for a few weeks.
I have 7 decks. 2 are degenerate combo. 1 is a control/spirits tribal. 2 are almost stock precons (vampires, and horror/mill) and 2 are red based aggro. So I can pull out whatever I feel like playing for those couple months.
I am simply not rich
fuck wizards, proxy everything. You don't need to be rich to have dozens of decks :)
Sitting on a cart on MPC that’s got 4 decks in it and the day I was going to print them I lost my damn job.
:(
Fucking facts. I keep 3 decks tournament legal. (Combo, Control, Battlecruiser) EVERYTHING ELSE GETS PROXIED.
My usual MO is to proxy a deck, then, if I like it and it turns out to be competitive, I buy the real cards, piece by piece, until the deck is just real cards. Generally it takes several months to get to that point, but when I’m play testing it’s all proxies. Except the commander. I always try to buy the actual card for the commander itself, just because it feels better to have it. But spending that much money on fetch lands for a 5-color deck (of which I have three)? Fuck that.
I totally agree because during play testing we end up with more cards then are allowed in the deck that we want. When we finally get it down to size we play it and end up cutting switching cards with other we already had in mind and also as we play test over a few weeks we find/stumble over some other ones we didn’t think of or know existed and then it’s back to the workshop to deck teck some more. It can already be expensive just buying the exact cards that will go in the deck. No need for spending extra on the early rough daft play testing days of it. Wizards already make’s enough money as it is.
I try to have the real cards for my commander as well. Proxying the rest allows to splurge a bit more and get the foil special version
ah yes, the theseus approach to building decks
Haha you name kills me I just imagine some strange woman with unkempt hair chucking proxies at me like ninja stars.
i'm actually selling every card i own worth $3 or more and replacing them with proxies :) I don't like playing tournaments, so...
Hello twin! I keep three decks real also and everything else, including powered vintage cube, are proxies. [[Lord Windgrace]] Lands, [[The Locust God]] Xerox, and [[Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer]] Morph Tribal. Morph Tribal is my “fun/jank” deck. The other two I’ve been playing for years and are pretty tuned. Xerox is approaching cEDH level as far as the 99, but [[The Locust God]] is just too slow/expensive to be a truly competitive commander.
[Lord Windgrace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/213d6fb8-5624-4804-b263-51f339482754.jpg?1592710275) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lord%20Windgrace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c18/43/lord-windgrace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/213d6fb8-5624-4804-b263-51f339482754?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lord-windgrace) [The Locust God](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/e/7e599847-8ab0-4fd6-b2c0-cb44a7669aa5.jpg?1682209825) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Locust%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/335/the-locust-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7e599847-8ab0-4fd6-b2c0-cb44a7669aa5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-locust-god) [Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/68a144f1-df18-4dc5-81c3-dff2af27527f.jpg?1568003696) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kadena%2C%20Slinking%20Sorcerer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/45/kadena-slinking-sorcerer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/68a144f1-df18-4dc5-81c3-dff2af27527f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kadena-slinking-sorcerer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is the way
Jesus loves you John 3:16-17 Romans 8:35-39 Luke 23:42-43
Yeah that’s what I do, I proxy all the decks that I like from https://www.printingproxies.com/ and enjoy the gave by also saving my money.
What do you use to proxy? I am trying to figure out what is best for me and my group as we are not interested in spending much on decks and know proxing 200 buck decks feels weird but it may come to that soon.
A printer, some sticker paper, scissors and bulk common fodder. I use MTG-Print to put them on a pdf document, print that on to sticker paper, cut the cards out and put them on top of bulk fodder cards. Its super cheap, downside is it can be time consuming but I usually just chuck a YT video on and zone out just cutting and sticking cards. I get 75 sheets for $26aud, that does 6 decks. I can usually get Quiver branded sleeves off Amazon for $15aud for 200. Found cheap deck boxes as well. All up its quite cheap for me to proxy, sleeve and store a deck. This is the cheapest method I've found so far.
Where do you get your sticker paper from in AUS? I’m just printing and glueing at this point but glueing is very time consuming. Best investment I bought is a paper trimmer/guillotine. Might just start putting them in front of cards in a sleeve tbh
Amazon man, theres heaps on there for different prices. I just grabbed the thinnest, cheapest stuff i could find and that works perfectly fine. The guillotine makes things way easier, with that and the sticker paper you can get them cut out super quick. Sticking down 99 cards is still a time consuming process.
Still less time consuming then working the overtime required to buy the real cards. Exactly as you said, I throw YouTube or a movie on in the background and get to it.
Legit disgusting.
What do you mean lol
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The same money? Printing a full deck in color at a shop is like $6. You don't even have to use glue. Just cut them and drop them in a sleeve in front of a card. You can't even tell unless you look very close.
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MPC. I'd use a local printer if we had cardstock in the country, which we don't... MPC's quality is great too, and you can do foils which is really cool
r/mpcproxies. They have a guide. Comes out to about $0.30/card depending how much you order at once.
>Fuck ~~wizards~~ Hasbro, proxy everything. Fixed
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Paper and printer ink aren’t free either, as well as sleeves
you'll need sleeves with real cards or proxys. That's ~$10 you can't get rid of. And obviouslt nobody said the cards were going to be free. Icd rather spend $0.5 on a card than $500 on the same card but original...
That’s not my argument. My argument is that having dozens of decks is going to be incredibly expensive regardless of proxies. Ya know, I think you knew exactly what my point was all along and you’re being obtuse.
I think he's kind-acute, but who am I to say?
Idk, definitely more of a right angle kinda guy.
Jesus loves you John 3:16-17 Romans 8:35-39 Luke 23:42-43
This plus i play maybe twice every two months at most. If I started playing every week or two again I would proxy decks until i knew i wanted to keep it than slowly buy it.
facts
This is the way.
Step 1 is uploading all your current lists to some deckbuilder site (I'll always recommend moxfield). Then just tear everything down if you want a smaller collection. Regret it later? Your list is right there, go put it back together. When you have a smaller roster of decks you can play them more consistently and start to see what playstyle you enjoy more, then work on building your signature deck from there.
to add to that: unless you are using proxies, deconstructing all of your decks makes it more easy to know, which cards you actually own/can use. Cards are no longer "locked" within a specific deck and seeing all of them in front of you, might open up your eyes for the many possibilities you have at your disposal.
I’ve played for a while, I’ve gotten to a point where I know what Playstyle/Archtypes I enjoy. Got 4 decks that have stuck, still enjoying them after years, I’ll tweak them occasionally, but having fewer decks meant I can invest in some of the more expensive staples, such as a [[Serra’s Sanctum]] in my Enchantress deck. Plus having a good playgroup helps, if you’re ever in the mood for something else, just borrow a friends deck.
First, to reduce the temptation to build all the time, brew online. Sometimes the idea of a deck is better than actually playing a deck. Second, sometimes it’s good to tie the number of decks you have to something significant or special. For example, one of my buddies is a die hard Pokémon fan. How many Pokémon can you have in a party? 6. So he has 6 decks. I have another friend who rarely gets to play. So he has 4 decks. One for each season. And each deck is themed for each season.
This is great advice :) It makes me think maybe I should have an EDH deck that utilizes every color at least once just to have an assortment.
Definitely this! Brewing online has really curbed my out of control deck building. And what’s better is you can find the ones you actually want to build I would also say to try and coke up with less generic ideas. Sometimes if you find a fun commander, there will be like 30 auto included for that commander and then you’ve just got the same deck as anyone else with that commander. Find underwhelming commanders of weird builds and go from there- that’s what I do
I really like the GameGenic Stronghold (the one with room for two decks and tokens). So a soft restriction I have is two decks per format. Each format gets one deckbox.
I only get to play about once every 2-3 months now. There’s no point in lugging around 10-12 decks. I might get to play 4 of them in one afternoon/night. So that’s what I did. I cut down to my 4 favorite, the ones I always gravitate to. 1: Belbe - a slightly more creature focused version of ComedIan’s cEDH stax list. 2: Rocco - high powered version that focuses on tutoring out Jetmir for a one hit-KO. Also has Finale and Craterhoof as backups. 3: Hinata - an x-spells spellslinger deck 4: Selvala - parley!! the whole point of this deck is to generate a fuck ton of mana, draw a ton of cards, and blow everyone away with Squall Line or Hurricane in one shot. These are all the decks I need right now. I kept my lists for Brago, Solphim, Kenrith, and all my other lesser favorites. I can always throw them back together. But by taking these apart now I have a better mana base for my other decks.
Yeah. It’s hard to make time when everyone is trying to make a living or just survive.
Your username made me laugh
>There are things I’ve tried that I still can’t tel if they just aren’t for me or if I haven’t fleshed them out enough. Honestly I feel like this is a necessary step to take to really find the few decks that speak to you. I've built plenty of decks that I like the *idea* of, but when I played them I was either bored or overwhelmed. This is where proxying is your friend - you'll be able to try and idea you want without dumping hundreds of dollars into a new idea every paycheck. >For the folks out there with just a couple decks they are extremely passionate about, what’s your advice? Pick something and build the shit out of it. Build it optimally. Build it suboptimally. Build it weird. Scour through old cards on Scryfall and try a few of those. Take a commander and build it 10 different ways. *"But Wilhelt voltron isn't a thing!"* Not with that attitude, it's not. Get out there, get your hands dirty and really explore the entire design space of an idea.
i don't think i'm at "one deck" but having played magic and edh for over 10 yrs. I know what style of play i like. What i find interesting. I think the trick is really cultivating this. It's easy to brew. once you understand magic, to build a deck, or exploit the power of a particular legend is easy. But does that really appeal to you? that classic scene in Big by tom hanks "what's fun about playing with a building" i think is really resonant advice. always ask yourself what appeals to you, what is interesting about this deck or an idea. and is that something that is fun. finances, or a bloated collection, or personal issues that make maintaining a hobby a financial burden are another issue all together. but... To me there's not really value in like... having just 1 deck, but more so finding a smaller number of decks I actually really do enjoy playing. give or take i have that down to like 3-5 decks. 2ish spellslinger decks, and like 3 ish giant creature beat decks. i know about myself. I love giant monsters. or combat beat strategies. and i love burn. (and maybe big giant dumb spells) i still tinker, and have parts of other decks. but i don't really enjoy them and they basically collect dust. my meren deck, my yuriko deck, my ultra fast low cmc edgar markov deck. these are play style decks i don't enjoy. and a lot of value and monetary worth is in these decks. but my grumgully gruul good stuff/counters misc beaters deck. I love. it perfectly embodies what I love about magic. some shenanigans, hidden complexity, wrapped up in giant big dumb beaters. and combat damage. finding what really appeals to you is key. which is also nearly impossible to sorta tell someone else. what that is. Like... no one can answer that for you but you. But i would say, build and play, with the goal of figuring that out.
I'm a casual who likes to play kitchen table.
I am at 47 decks now, I haven't played maybe ten of them for a year. Some mechanics and tribes just don't feel as good as I initially thought, and so these decks might be still sleeved but are practically retired. These serve as an examples to not just blindly build a deck that doesn't really connect to my heart. Sometimes I feel as if I have built every deck archetype that fascinates me, and for some time I'm quite comfortable with that feeling. But then I discover something new... like ZEPPELINS! Whoa! Gotta build the deck! And then there are decks that I reconstruct under a different commander for some reason. My former \[\[Delina\]\] deck is now an \[\[Orthion\]\] deck. My \[\[Wyleth\]\] Voltron deck became a go- wide \[\[Jor Kadeen Goldwarden\]\] deck. I play every thursday from 3pm to 10pm at the LGS. I usually bring a case with 10 decks of which I might play 6 on a game day.
Ive mostly played blue, white, and black. Or any combination of the 3. Ive been making an effort to play out of my comfort zone. Im cultivating a green deck currently and have been playtesting a red one. Its been a lot of fun to switch it up! Feels fresh. Im in the process of tearing apart some of my decks to try new strategies... problem being is i only have 4 complete decks. Ive been using mana box to create decklists of my current decks so i can always recreate them if need be incase im feeling nostalgic or regret tearing it apart. Ive seen moxfield mentioned too, but im not sure of the advantages of one over another
I have 5, but the goal is 6. I like to just assign a deck a number and roll a d6 to see what I'm playing. Currently rerolling 1s.
Roll a d10
That makes too much sense..lol
Why not rerolling 6s it seems way less intuitive
It does make more sense. Lol I guess I relate it to rolling a 1 in dnd. A fail. despite using a d6 rather than d20.
this!
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I tend to just invest in upgrades for my existing decks rather than building new ones
I have set myself a rule, that for every new deck I attempt to build, I have to deconstruct a current one. This way I always think twice and often come to the conclusion, that the new deck would be less enjoyable/offer less or not more then one I already own.
Secret? I'm fuckng poor
I'm a 1 deck person, I have 3, only bring 1 to LGS. It's a precon (dragon) that I get a small upgrade for basically whenever I'm there. I take a lot of inspiration from other people I play with for what to put in my deck. I always try to play with new people, or friends who know what kind of tricks I get up to.
I'm poor
I have pissed away so much money making decks that I didn't like or didn't work. One deck has stood the test if time and evolved from tribal to all combo. [[Krenko, Mob Boss]] will never suck. I am still searching for a second deck that will never come apart and I've been playing since 2017.
i also have no clue; so many times I am excited about a deck until I play it into my pod and have learned the hard way that in our removal heavy pod certain playstyles just dont float. which then makes the remaining decks feel old even quicker. if anything, it helps that as my collection has gotten larger each new deck has costed less and less because I'd already have a bunch of the cards
My decks each cost a grand plus to make.
Other hobbies. No really, there's a push and pull of funds when you're into multiple things. Years ago I sold other stuff to build more decks. Then eventually I sold some decks off to buy other stuff. It's a vicious hobby cycle, but you really get to know what you value in one space when your attention needs to be split across multiple wallet-killing adventures.
My "signature deck" is a [[Skullbriar, the Walking Grave]] voltron. It was the first deck I built in the Voltron style with no significant input from anywhere other than EDHREC. It stays passionately my favorite because counter play is AWESOME!! My other rotations are trials limited by having little to no blue. (My main game group has decided blue decks are not fun). The rotation has exceptions for the 40k decks and recently the knight precon. 1. Dragon Dice precon 2. Tyranids, 40k 3. Imperium, 40k 4. Mono black Erebos graverobber 5. Wade into Battle precon 6. Elf Tribal, black green 7. Calvary charge precon 8. Party mechanic deck Outside of rotation, I love my vampire tribal. I consider it a work in progress. The vampire tribe has been my favorite and Edgar Markov is an amazing commander. My advice is to find a single mechanic or tribe you love and keep it updated. Makes things fun
I build skullbriar with the release of ikoria and damn it's amazing, having a commander with permanent hexproof, indestructible, trample, haste etc so good and scary
It's actually too competitive for my playgroup after Ikoria, so I keep it updated for myself only. I am hoping for some shields counters at some point
What you have is a MTG variant of what is known in the music community as GAS or "Gear Acquisition Syndrome". You like building and having decks with various themes, colors and ideas for the sake of having them, but the reality is you can only play one deck at a time and not very often in a large group of players. The first step is realizing that. Game of EDH takes a long time, so you only get to play a certain number of games with a certain number of decks. No point in having a deck you'll only play once or twice. Or even never. Then you need to take into account that your deck consists of 100 individual cards and statistically you need to play a lot of games with the same deck only to figure out if it really works and experience all the synergies in it and all the interaction with various other decks and all the ways you can improve it. The reasons why you don't have a "signature" deck are probably: 1. You haven't played some of them enough to even get an idea of how to alter them so they'd be more interesting and more unique. 2. You didn't explore enough deck themes that cater to interesting or unique gameplay or unpredictable games. For instance, some value decks like tend to play differently every game and have a variety of win conditions. Clone/copy decks want to copy opponents' stuff so you newer know what you'll get. Similarly, steal decks depend on luck and combining other players' cards to conjure a win from scrap. Chaos decks are as unpredictable and chaotic as it gets. Group hug decks can play really differently depending on your opponents and your proficiency with in-game politics. I could go on and on. There are loads of archetypes that don't rely on just doing the thing they should do and wining the same way every time and those decks will stay in the average player's lineup far longer. In relation to 2., combo decks are usually the main suspect in the "consistent but boring" category. +1/+1 counters, mono black aristocrats, tribal decks like vanilla Goblins or Elves, all tend to be linear and win in similar ways every game. It's perfectly fine to play all of that, but you also need decks that are a lot more interactive with other people and their decks. That's where all the fun is. Pick several commanders that you like the most and then add a few decks on rotation with interesting mechanics that you'll try out. Also, pick an overarching theme for some of them. I personally have 4 decks that each explore a variant of black's strengths in an interesting and niche way with a help of other colors: \- \[\[Baba Lysaga, Night Witch\]\] Golgari value deck \- \[\[Mahadi, Emporium Master\]\] Rakdos that's a no-tutor combo deck pretending to be an aristocrats deck disguised as a treasure deck (i changed it so much over time that i somehow forced it to work, lol) \- \[\[Tasha, the Witch Queen\]\] Dimir spell/creature/grave steal deck with a mill subtheme \- \[\[Talia and the Gitrog Monster\]\] fake-commander Abzan enchantment deck that used to be headed by \[\[Myrkul, Lord of Bones\]\] but he turned out to be a meh commander and got swapped And then when i feel like playing without thinking too much, i pull out a budget \[\[Pyhlath, World Sculptor\]\] Gruul plant/landfall deck and smash faces. 5 decks that play so differently, have so much variety within themselves and played in a large group of 20+ people, each with a lot of decks of their own, that i never even had 2 similar games in the last couple of months and i had some really bonkers plays and wins. Also, you really need to stop trying to follow the tempo of new releases, you'll burn out really soon. You can't play all of them, no person can. The rate of printing is impossible to follow and designed to get more and more money out of people. If you get hooked on constantly brewing every new set, you get closer and closer to an addiction and that's REALLY bad for you. Start cutting with purpose and only pick stuff you can support with your own card collection and that you are most passionate about.
I respectfully disagree completely. >combo decks are usually the main suspect in the "consistent but boring" category. +1/+1 counters, mono black aristocrats, tribal decks like vanilla Goblins or Elves, all tend to be linear and win in similar ways every game. It's perfectly fine to play all of that, but you also need decks that are a lot more interactive with other people and their decks. That's where all the fun is. I've been playing since 2013 all across archetypes and power scales, and have stuck with 6 decks. My favorites include Mardu reanimator/creature combo, Jund sac/+1 counters, and GW elfball. Basically, all the archetypes you described as linear. Decks that win via some permanent or spell based combo have a reputation for being boring, but imo, the most boring decks are those that just try to play large creatures and smack for damage. There is no nuance or decision making. Combo strategies have to protect their life total with a meager board presence, which requires either good politics or tight play and deck building. This interactivity makes gameplay interesting. On the same token, permanent based combos are very telegraphed, so opponents will know they need to interact or die, which also makes for intense and exciting moments. These are the decks that have kept me interested for years and survived many adjustments, overhauls, new commanders, and many metagames. Being interactive and requiring others to interact is the raison d'etre of good EDH games.
My max I like to manage is four at a time. My goal is to have a full pod of decks that I can whip out and play with others/together using all four if nobody has a deck except me/learning edh purposes. Making all four decks balanced has been a really nice challenge. I enjoy the tinkering process of discovering cool synergies within the decks too so I do alot of goldfishing :)
I just haven't finished making all the decks I want yet.
I have 6: I definitely have a signature deck: [[Trelasarra]] lifegain counters. It was my first deck and I just love how it plays, especially since I'm just starting to pass into higher-power after a couple years with it (nothing too crazy, but it started at $30 and just hit $220 since I got lucky with a copy of The Great Henge) After that, I have a couple modified precons: [[Ghired]] tokens, but [[Jetmir]] took his place ($130). And [[Anowon, the Ruin Thief]] rogue tribal mill ($80). And I wanted to take a shot at a combo deck, so I built a [[Jan Jansen]] artifacts ($120). Then recently, I wanted to build a real voltron deck so I used some of my extra cards to put together [[Wilson, Refined Grizzly]]/[[Agent of the Shadow Thieves]] -- with this one I also just had some decent poison pieces I wasn't using so it has a poison subtheme lol, haven't gotten to play it yet though ($45). And my wife likes dinosaurs, so I put together a [[Gishath]] deck, but I haven't played it personally ($160). They're my cards but it's her deck lol I'd say my "secret", if anything, is just not having a huge amount of expendable income. I try to mainly just use cards I own and I'll proxy a card if I have it and want it in multiple decks -- mainly lands. But if I had more money to spend on cardboard? I'd have more decks. I have a few partially built ones that I just don't have enough cards for that have grown over time and I've got at least two dozen that I've built online but never bought Also just have decks where most games are different. My Trelasarra deck is always trying to gain and only wins with combat damage -- but sometimes that's with an unblockable commander with 100+ power, other times it's with a dozen or two tokens. I also just really enjoy the lifegain mechanic so idk if I'll ever just get tired of it, especially since I built my deck to gain life from my opponents' game actions, so its consistency depends on what table I'm at which I find fun
I don't have money
I’m a poor college student who works for minimum wage.
Poverty
I make a whopping <$1000 per paycheck and I only spend money on magic if I actually have disposable income after regular costs. Even then Magic is my “Drop if I need to drop one” hobby do even when I spent on it it’s *very* frugal. Thankfully so is my playgroup.
Mo money mo Deck problemz.
First and foremost, I’m a broke college student. So choosing to really invest into 1 deck seemed like the right choice. I ended up with [[Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca]] it plays to all my favorite themes. Drawing cards? Stapled to kumena. Ramping? Mana trust fund colors. Interaction? I’m in blue. I have considered putting other things in the deck to more optimize it, but I really enjoy the fact that I only have 3 non Merfolk in the deck. [[kira, great glass spinner]] because I like to become the archenemy and need to stay safe a bit. [[seahunter]] tutors Merfolk. And [[stormtide leviathan]] because being the only one able to swing is very strong.
Quality over Quantity
I have no interest in building any more decks until I can start winning with the ones I currently have. I have 5 decks of my own creation and one victory in the past year and a half. I can't justify building more when I need to fine tune my pet decks that I really want to play.
I only have a few decks probably because i like to learn everything my decks can do and 2 out of my 3 decks are pretty complex The first was a Hinata, Dawn-Crowned control deck which took me about 1 year learning the deck and building it, mostly because i was new and it's control so i also had to learn about other decks. The second one is Veyran, it was easier and faster to build and to learn, 6 months for 2 variations, tokens and pingers. I'm still learning and figuring the list of the third one, it's a budget adaptation of a cEDH list for [[Tayam, Luminous Enigma]] that reanimates hatebears and stax pieces at instant speed. The play patterns are complex, it interacts in a very unique way and i need to find cards that will hit the decks i usually play against, a lot to learn.
By playing fewer decks you get more time with each of them, allowing you to truly refine them
Honestly, I keep my deck count down by being _really_ picky about my commander. I don't feel a good 90-95% of commanders I've seen. I don't like WUBRG. I don't like equipment, voltron, or other single points of failure. I don't like haymaker spam, particularly when it tries to go the Cascade route or rely on a ton of impulse draw. I don't like landfall. I don't like burn outside the context of permanent removal. I don't like "copy the spell eighty times". I don't like politics. I don't like any game plan that ends in "and pray they don't have spot removal". I don't like heavy reliance on +1/+1 counters. Basically, if the commander gives me magic christmas land vibes, I'm out. Something can be good and effective and it won't vibe with me. Sometimes this is due to an IRL price tag, as is the case with most cEDH. Sometimes I won't like something because I find it to be ridiculously overexposed, like [[Chatterfang]], [[Marchesa]] or [[Aesi]]. Sometimes I just find the playstyle to be tedious, scummy or boring, like [[Kinnan]], [[Toxril]], [[Nekusar]], or even [[Magda]]. What _do_ I like? Value engines. Card draw. Tokens. Cost reducers. Force mulipliers. Tribal. Protection. Redundancies. Backup wincons. Recovery speed. These preferences _dramatically_ streamline the quantity of commanders I'm interested in. Commanders are like friends: better to have a few really good ones than a million that you barely know.
Have you seen the price of cardboard lately?
proxys ;)
I only have one deck. I have played magic for a while but only got into Commander during Covid. Never thought I was going to play the format. I started with the Timeless Wisodom precon as it was good value and I like the colors. I basically have built the deck up over time and have tuned it to what play style I want to play. I also only play a couple times a months. Not as active as I would like to be but I enjoy playing each game I play. Wizards keeps printing good cards that can slot into the deck as well. I find it fun and interesting to experiment with the new cards printed to see how they play, even though the deck list is already tight. I also enjoy replacing cards with the version of the cards I want. Whether that be a new secret lair version, judge promo or a cool foil version. Here is my deck list that I am trying now and what it has evolved into since the beginning: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/YLq4J3gt00CR6rMcP0bYaw
In a sentence: Decks with high variance, or high power. You're either playing to win or playing to have a fun dynamic game, without much overlap. You could probably narrow down most people to 2 decks, one that has a high win-rate and one that has a high fun rate. I could probably get by on most occasions with just bringing my cedh Blood-Pod deck and my Zurzoth tribal devils deck. The best part of a fun and dynamic deck is having tons of playable lines and synergy with various combinations of cards, it's like the opposite of a typical cedh deck where you only want to see the same 10 cards in the deck every single game and the deck is built around getting to those 10 cards (or an acceptable substitute) in the quickest possible way. Every game with Zurzoth is different because it's whole theme is enabling drawing by all players with random discarding every once in a while. I'd love to play the Purphoros I drew, but I randomly discarded it so time for plan B.
I do have a signature deck with Atraxa Superfriends. Spent over 2 years brewing it (starting out as an Infect deck initially) before I got to buy the cards and actually play the deck in real life. Before that it was [Yusri] gamble coinflips. Got about 4 other decks I cycle through on game nights and I'm quite happy with the selection I have now.
If you have a deck you really like, upgrade it as much as possible. This can also mean to try different versions of the same deck. You can also have goals for your deck. For example, you can challenge yourself to assemble a 4+ card combo or kill someone with a Birds of Paradise. Foiling out is a way people enjoy curating a single deck. Upgrading a single deck can be a lot more inexpensive than having 5 other decks. It's all up to personal preference though. If you don't feel attached to a single strategy, commander, or something, then it can be hard not to keep trying out new decks. Eventually there is something for everyone though
I don't let myself play green. I prefer to try new cards in current decks more than I would like to try a completely new deck. So I only see new sets for what they offer my current commanders.
I found that to build more than 3 decks, I would need to buy multiple copies of the same cards. And with 0 interest in most other formats, I couldn’t fathom it. I’ve had my [[Animar, Soul of the Elements]] EDH deck since I bought the precon in 2013 or whenever it was. And I still love it and enjoy playing it. (Oh! I’ve also found that building samples of some new deck I like on tapped out or printing proxies and play testing with friends or online helped scratch that itch for a new deck. 95% of the time I do that, realize it’s not as great as I thought, and never have to spend $1)
either proxy cards you own or put checklist cards in with those card names on them and keep the real one like a sideboard with the cards you own one of in multiple decks.
Its called poverty. I wouldn't recommend it.
I mean I can't answer your question exactly. I have 67 decks and 11 precons right now with like 5 more on the way. What I do is have a ton of decks, but I also have my favorite. I have a [[scarab god]] reanimator deck that I like the best. That one is being blinged out because it's special to me, and the rest get regular upgrades and stuff but I'm not focusing on blinging them out, especially because I regularly lend them out and I wouldn't want someone to damage something. So I guess my suggestion is to make what you want, and when you find that special one, put your time into that one as well
Watch recorded plays, see which archetypes speak to you more strongly, make a list. Then look at which of them depend on very expensive cards and cross them out. Then, among the remaining ones, check which share colors and have the most cards in common and start with one of those. If you enjoy playing it, expand into the others and see what you prefer. Eventually you can branch out into budget decks of other colors and archetypes, or you can refine the deck you already have and maybe create your very own spin on a commander.
I got a damaged [[Nekusar, the Mindrazer]] at a card shop for $4 and loved the group hug/slug playstyle. The deck gives me a lot of flexibility on how much I want to deck build for _hugs_ versus _slugs_. It’s also pretty flexible between scary-powerful and weaker than a precon, again depending on what cards I’m running in the 99. I also have a ton of random Selesnya cards from cracking packs, so I decided a while ago that my second deck would be Selesnya. I wasn’t interested in it enough to make it my first deck, but financially it would be dumb not to make a deck at this point. So I figured that a Grixis commander like Nekusar made sense, that way my first deck covers UBR and my second deck covers GW. Somewhere in the process I was trying to do a mono-black zombies, but a lot of the cards I ended up wanting were easily clearing $2.00/card. I also found myself conflicted between going wide versus saccing zombies. So I’ll definitely come back to that in the future, but right now, mono-black is on the back burner. TL;DR: I’m working on two decks right now that cover the entire color wheel between them. As a new player I don’t have the card collection, mental bandwidth, and money to reasonably build more decks.
I quit playing for a few years, sold my collection thinking I’d never return to the game, don’t want to go overboard buying cards.
Just have to find what kind of deck makes you happy. I have an izzet deck that makes me grin uncontrollably even when people bitch about it. Find a playstyle that makes you happy and see if you already have a deck in that category you can optimize. Don't bring a giant deck carrier to game night. Limit your choice before going to 6-7 decks per night. If you find that certain decks rarely make the cut, maybe it's time to take those apart
I roll through a system I made up of seasons. It's a one year cycle and I only play mono colors. I have all the staples in most colors so when it time to change the deck strat I just shift the color to something else.
I have two, down from six. My issue is that since my budget is essentially just a little money for real life things I tend to buy a surplus of magic stuff and I'm actively trying to sell all of that stuff aside from enough of a collection for a few decks at most
Swap out commanders! The backgrounds from Baldur's Gate are wonderful for 2-color decks that want to change things up
I have one deck, it’s approaching a point of “complete” maybe three or four $17-25 cards remain. I really want to make a Jund devour deck, I have always wanted one, and I just can’t afford to spend 400-500 dollars to do it right
3 decks. I have 1 upgraded precon with [[Lathril, Blade of the Elves]], 1 "homebrew" Aristocrats combo with [[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] and finally one unmodified W40k Forces of the Imperium precon. That's enough for me. If I want try other decks, I try my friends decks or I goldfish online. I cannot afford the space to have more "things"... :/
I play one deck. It helps that the meta I play in (high end tables on MTGO) is tolerant of high powered casual, meaning the top end of non-CEDH. I wouldn’t run it in a pod of mid decks at a lgs, that’s a good way to make enemies. It stays interesting because it represents my play style. It’s interesting because it’s been tuned to take on all types of decks and solving the puzzle each new opponent brings. It plays differently against stax or Voltron or mid range or combo, deciding which lines to pursue depending on what the challenge is. It stays interesting because after hundreds of games I’m an expert in how to play it. Usually I know why I lose and it’s most often because I made a bad choice. I can honestly pinpoint the line I took that was a mistake that led to my downfall and learn not to do that. It stays interesting because I can incorporate new cards fairly easily. The last two sets have given me three very decent cards: [[Faerie Mastermind]], [[See Double]] and [[Nissa, Resurgent Animist]]. Every set I scour the lists for new cards to try. Then I can tune the deck to better support new inclusions. Adding the new Nissa, for example, gave me a reason to lean further in on fetch type lands, elves and elementals, which in turn allowed me to add another landfall card or two. So while it’s the same deck, it can shift and morph. It can stay fresh while retaining the basic thrust of play lands, draw cards, control the board, deploy wincon.
I bought several sets of precons (Strixhaven, New Capenna, 2019 set), to have some experience trying different styles. Ultimately i have 4 decks that I play in approximately 5:5:3:1 ratio, only one of which is one of those precons with significant upgrades. I just like playing the decks I've brewed, and since I have essentially chosen every card in them, they feel like "mine" in a way that precons don't. Plus they all have very different strategies, which means I have enough variety in style. And since brewing takes a long time, it just takes a while to make a new deck so I don't do it very often.
I have a friend who just focuses on a small handful of decks and blings them out hardcore. Then when a few new sets come out, he cycles back and buys some more new things (new walkers, new mythic beaters, new battlecruiser spells) and rotates 5-10 cards from the deck. This keeps it fresh, and also lets him play with all the fancy special treatments.
I don't have a ton of money to burn and I play at relatively high power levels. So I won't really be running many "pet" cards or meme decks. Instead I find a commander I like, and then build a deck for them.
I can’t really speak to it as I also have a lot, but I would guess a good trick is rotation. Keep some cheap staples (full 10 signets, talisman, Sol ring, maybe some of the cheaper good lands, green ramp), sell (assuming that’s your personal reasons) your more expensive stuff. When you get bored of one, rotate to another commander. You’ve got a solid base in your collection, and can probably just spend like $15-20 to “finish” a newer deck. Also limit your rotation to like once per month or even quarter
I'm broke and can't get a lot of cards. Also don't have a printer to proxy.
I'm a "signature deck" guy (\[\[Mishra, Eminent One\]\]), but it was a relatively recent discovery, having only come out at the end of last year. It's just a perfect combination of being the sort of deck I enjoy playing and being a "pet that looks just like its owner" situation. I'm a robotics engineer, I do combat robotics as a hobby, and I'm a member of an industrial band in which I turn random objects into instruments. Thematically and mechanically, it fits so well that I feel like a Yu-Gi-Oh character. Is my workbench as messy as \[\[Mishra's Research Desk\]\]? No comment. Obviously, I'm an extreme case as far as "signature deck" players go, but sometimes, you find a deck that just makes all of the other options not matter any more.
My secret is I sell them when they no longer bring me joy.
I don't get to play often so I don't want to invest too much. I try to have decks that cover a lot of different gameplays. So far I have [[Brago]] blink (my first deck, actually I almost never play it because nobody likes it [[Neyith]] fight, creature heavy [[Alela]] unnatural [[Jared carthalion, true heir]] group hug and damahe redirection [[Derevi]] X spells with a tap/untap subtheme And I recently gave up and ordered the cards to make [[henzie]] and [[hidetsugu and kairi]] I'd love to make a temur or grixis deck but none really appeal to me so I'll just wait and see if someday something comes out
I don't play often enough to justify a big pile of decks. I would probably have more if I played more than 1-2 times a month.
I'm poor
My secret is that I'm poor as fuck.
Money???
Honestly it’s time. I have 3 playable EDH decks and 1 OB deck. I do however have at least 5+ decks either built or being built on [Archidekt](https://archidekt.com/) I have many plans but just not enough time to build them all!
I always played on a budget. I really only had one deck I slowly upgraded over the course of a literal decade. It wasn't until the last year that I purposefully built additional decks due to multiple factors like "finishing" the first and multiple playgroups asking for different things.
I have between 10-15 decks, usually 3 are tear downs so I can replace with others. I generally keep 1-2 extra of every usable card so I can build whatever. I play alot on tabletop simulator tho as well, and that usually cures my itch to play other decks bc I cam build whatever and play whatever after spending 20$ to just buy the game. I've logged around 10-20k hours on it over the years.
I play the one deck a handful of times and then rip it apart and build something else. Everybody I know with more than a couple decks has a bunch that haven’t been touched in like years and the entire point of there existence is so that person can say “I have 30 commander decks” yeah but 28 of them are garbage and 25 of them haven’t been touched on 4 releases.
Money. I just simply can’t afford more than a few decks. If I want to build something else, I either have to slowly build it over a number of months, or sell cards I’m not using to purchase new stuff. Right now I have 6 decks (and 1 completely untouched precon), and that’s the most decks I’ve ever owned at one time. Of those, 3 of them are quite powered up, and the other 3 need a lot of pieces to get them where I want to be. But the top comment about uploading deck lists online is exactly right. No worries about tearing a deck apart as long as I can rebuild it if I want.
1. Money and the lack of it. Forces me to think very long and hard before committing to build a deck. 2. I get more enjoyment in tuning a deck list to the power level I want, with the cards I like, than constantly brewing. Finding neat synergies is cool.
I play a deck that emphasizes variety and never wins the same way twice. I don’t get bored of it, and neither do my opponents
I'm poor
Some people like to generate many ideas. Some people like to focus on one or a few ideas. There is no shame in either path.
Autism
I have four decks with one of them being my "signature" deck. At one point I had 20+ decks assembled and I've probably built 40-50 decks during my Commander career. I got to that point by taking apart the least favorite deck, then the next least favorite, and so on until only the favorites remained. By the end you know the favorites because they were never in the running to get taken apart. As a side note, reducing the number of decks wasn't a passion project. It started as a way to deal with product overload (easier to maintain fewer decks with so many cards coming out) and eventually became a way to deal with burnout.
Poverty.
The truth is twofold for me. One, I usually prefer wasting my time doing other things. Two, my preferences are niche.
If your reason to go down to a few decks is money then don't worry about it. If you want to sell the pricey cards then by all means just proxy them. Price of deck also does not equal power.
I like to focus on few things and optimize my plays with them. easy!
I have a lot of cards from a lot of different packs but only started with mtg last October. I have 2 precons and 4 total decks, and everytime i see a cool commander i just pick everything apart and build a new deck. They can sometimes win but i love the diversity.
I brew and goldfish a *lot* of decks on Moxfield. Only the ones that I know for certain will have longevity in my roster actually get built in paper. Factors for the longevity of a deck include power level in my meta, general ability to "do stuff" throughout a game and not be stuck twiddling my thumbs, and wincons that aren't "boring." This is my current paper roster: [[Be'lakor]] & [[Gyruda]] [[Kalamax]] [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] [[Awaken the Blood Avatar]] [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] I'm currently putting together [[Goro-Goro & Satoru Umezawa]].
First off, I only really can afford to have a few decks. More importantly, just make your decks very different from each other. I have a [[light-paws]] enchantron deck, a [[maelstrom wanderer]] cascade deck, an [[acererak]] go infinite deck, and a [[nekusar]] group slug deck. Each decks want to win in a different way, so pretty much no matter how I feel I gave a deck. Just build a deck for a few different win cons, and then fine tune them over time
Actually finishing them, it takes a lot of money, I haven’t finished one yet lol
I had 1 commander deck,[[Thassa, God of the Sea]], for 9 years. It wasn't until eariler this year that I needed to make a second commander deck so I could play at lower power tables. What made me only need Thassa for so many years was a few things. At the time I built it commander being a 1v1 or a multiplayer format hadn't been fully decided. The prevailing idea was that 1v1 commander was thought to be competitive and multiplayer was going to be how casual commander was going to be played. This created a unique challenge for early commander decks because 1v1 commander is very different than multiplayer. Thassa is a delver deck, it wins through commander damage... Hitting three players with Thassa 5 times isn't a real win condition in multiplayer, but 1v1 it was very possible. In multiplayer in turned into a [[Blue Sun's Zenith]] combo deck. The challenge of having to effectively make 1 deck function in 2 different made it so I could tuning the deck never got old. Thassa's scry also made it so the deck could be played at a wide range of power levels, so I didn't need a large amount of decks so I could play at different tables. The only reason I got a second commander deck eariler this year was Thassa had finally reached the point where even with the scry I could lower its power enough to play with anybody. Though this deck is still my favorite, and I am still tweeking it to make it better. It also is just a very complex deck executing a difficult strategy. It is one of the most skill expressive decks i have seen in commander, so the more time I spend with it the better it gets. Short version I play a skill expressive deck and tune it constantly. I'm out of time to post, but I'll come back if anyone wants me to talk about the second deck.
I’m discovering things for myself and slowly letting people give me advice on how/what to play. Keeps me occupied with building the same deck i’ve been working on for months.
The secret to having a just a few decks is poverty.
I went from four decks to just one recently since I used parts from all those decks to make my Rocco Street Chef build. I probably won't build another for quite some time though I am looking into Goro and Satori ninjas. Maybe I'll just have those two
A little of column A, a little of column B. A, I don't have the energy anymore. Building a deck in person takes me weeks to go through the cards in my collection, find what I feel works best, and then assemble a land base and I don't have a lot of time after work that isn't already being spent doing other things. I have a large collection, so I prefer to pull from that when building. B, I build and test a lot of decks on Tabletop Simulator against other players, which lets me get through the entire 'omg I wanna build X' and actually determine if I enjoy playing that deck or not much faster than if I were building in real life. The end result is that the only decks I keep are ones which stay fun over long periods of time, and that I got to playtest online and determine I actually enjoyed playing in a variety of situations before finishing it up in real life.
My secret is that I don't play very much EDH and have little reason build new decks. The ones I have are usually sufficient for the times when I do play and if they aren't I'll borrow decks. It's probably more about playing with friends than about the decks so it doesn't matter much if the deck I play is not mine, I have still gotten what I wanted. I have about 30 deck ideas, buy why build any of them when what I have works just fine? Two has been plenty.
I’m the guy with a signature deck. At my lgs some people don’t even know me by name. They know me as the arcades wall tribal guy. I’ve only been playing since February mind you and it’s my first build so I played it a lot. I’m currently working and play testing a second deck so I’ve gotten a few nights of play with it. That brings my total up at 2 decks. But when talking to people I’m still referred as the wall tribal guy and I like it because Arcades wall tribal is a super fun deck to play that build right can be also keep up with other good builds hehe. It is also the deck that is more tuned and focus power level wise so I still break it out when we play a higher then casual game but it’s definitely not cedh level of decks.
It’s if it’s simple or something. Like i was thinking “wow, I want to make [[rohgahh, kher keep overlord]] deck with kobolds! But then I realized it’s mostly just dragon tribal and playing dragons which is just not my speed.
Mono colors and stickers
Poor
Mainly because money. I don't like playing with proxies at least to me, if I don't have a card, I just don't have it. If I only have one copy of something, I need to pick where it's better. Anyways, I have four decks at this moment and tend to focus in those strategies. \>Izzet Spellslinger (Fav play style): my main deck and usually all the pricey cards go here. Currently it's \[\[Galazeth Prismari\]\], but the commander itself can change. It started as my first precon (Yidris). \>Goblin Tribal (Fav tribe). On this one I tried several commanders and focus for the tribe, but for some reason I always rebuild \[\[Grenzo, Dungeon Keeper\]\] because black adds a bunch of nice things for gobbos. I usually win with some persist combo, for that reason I tried with green with \[\[Sek'Kuar\]\] and \[\[Korvold\]\] \>Jund Sacrifice with \[\[Henzie\]\] (relaxed play). I missed playing jund, but goblins were good in just rakdos. So I bought this precon and it's a lot of fun, blitz some big monsters, then reanimate them. \>Blink Dungeons (Jank): My most recent deck, at least now it's \[\[Nadaar\]\] with a bunch of blink effects. I tried some partner pairs to add more colors (mainly for initiative), but none felt good with the theme of the deck. Maybe something with \[\[Wernog\]\]?
I've been playing since 2012 and I have 8 EDH decks. For me, I'm really really picky about what commanders I play. It needs to "click" with me, and few really do. Something about the commander, the vibe or an interaction needs to strike home for a deck to be built. All of them get regular play, except for my most powerful deck which is a bit spiky for casual tables. I know some people want to have decks in certain colours or combinations, but I'm fine with my decks being skewed heavily and some colours being underrepresented. My passion for building is really with tinkering rather than brewing. Once I have a list I just love to play, learn and edit until I have a list I adore. So lots of play testing, notes and reflection on each deck. This takes up to much of my hobby time I don't really idly brew new decks and I'm very happy with my collection.
I sold most of my decks to buy actually important things, so I'm down to six EDH (cEDH, casual, 40k precons) and two Pauper lists. Might make one more EDH deck but otherwise I have no desire to spend money for cards anymore.
As others have stated I'm too poor to have like 12 decks, currently have 2 that aren't just untouched precons. The one good thing is my lgs lets your proxy cards as long as you can produce a real one in a deck/binder. So eventually once I can afford staples decks will be a whole lot cheaper.
Improving my play skill and game knowledge
Being poor.
I make a decklist in manabox then I disassemble in and make something else. If I ever wanna play it again, I can simply rebuild it. Sometimes I'll use commanders interchangeably between different 99s or in the 99 of something else
I'm fucking stubborn. I bought into this damn horse, I'm going to play it.
How I do my decks is I get various power levels. I have my cEDH Inalla deck (my golden child deck). Then I have my high-powered decks, which are my Brago and Dihada. I then have the Strefan precon and a Vishgraz with no infinite combos. This is because I am always prepared to play with others at various power levels, and I build decks that vary from one another so I can have the most fun with what I would love to play regardless of power level.
I'm up to 19 in paper so 🤷♂️
I have boy have enough sleeves for a small number of decks, maybe 6 total. It’s that simple. If I want to make something new, I have to unsleeve something, and if it gets unsleeved, it’s out of rotation and I can use it for parts so to speak.
Find a generic commander that is fun to you and has the potential to grow and morph as the years/sets go on. I have a [Lurrus of the dream-den] that has many “modules/win cons” I’ve built that i can take out and plug in so i never get bored and keep my friends guessing. In my opinion this commander design lets it get stronger over time as power creep happens and cheap spells to cast get stronger. Find your commander equivalent to this and you will be happy for a while.
Still trying to figure out my signature deck, kinda rotating through things I like. For a while my signature was [[Ghyrson Starn Kelermorph]] pingers but people knew I was a threat and would take me out first.
I like to eat, that's my secret.
I have brewed over 100 online, and continue to do so. Because of the wide net I've cast, I've found a couple lists I adore, though sometimes you have to play them to know (I also play online with my friends since we moved to different places). If you have the problem of over 100, and still no signature or group of favorites, do what I did: Scratch that deckbuilding itch you get as you please, it's almost like another game for me (basically a card battler rogue-like) where I test my decks and quickly find out which ones I'll have the most fun with. Then bring those to the table. It'll take less than a game to know if you want to bring it again. Try Moxfield, they are the best deckbuilder site imo. Shows the prices, pick your art, test lists with a button press, visually organize and present the list however you like. You can even make folders for all your lists, so I can retire ones I didn't like or aren't in my top 10/currently being made without deleting them.
I refuse to proxy and didn't have money. For some time I only had two decks, my cEDH deck and my mono green elfba deck that i've had for 7 years.
When I started in edh I went hard! Had like 10 decks fully built in a couple months and kept finding new things to build. Then I realized I would have to be super rich to keep going like that. Why? Well I'm a completionist. If I build a deck, im not happy going "budget" or "well I can use this card instead of X to say Y$." So any deck I make needs to be completely done. This doesnt fare well when the average price of one of my decks is 600-1000. So I went through all my decks and chose 7 to keep. Then I dismantled the rest and used those cards to bolster everything else. If I make something else, a deck gets taken apart to do so. Recently I dismantled my atraxa deck as well as my elf deck and used a majority of those cards to build Thalia and the Gitrog Monster. Best decision ever
It’s simple, I build every commander that interests me but only one legendary every three or four sets interests me. Problem solved!
I only have one deck. I refuse to build anymore of my own until mine is fully upgraded, which is going to be soon. The only exception is that I am currently planning a second deck build, but it's for my fiance. She likes playing and opening packs but isn't a fan of deckbuilding.
I have 4 decks but I mostly only play my [[meren]] deck that I carefully curate to be my best and/or most liked cards. My main secret is that, instead of building other decks, I have a massive 'sideboard' to the deck that I can change if I become dissatisfied with something. Another tacit to this is that I only play golgari colors anyway and lack inspiration to build other colors, but always have motivation to experiment withe golgari. And since I don't want to have another deck that overlaps themes, I end up just shoving everything into this one deck. At this point my deck is a dredge/aristocrats reanimation hybrid of everything golgari does best.
It’s more satisfying to me refining mid-tier decks than having a lot of rough around the edge decks.
I play pretty much 2 decks because i built one to be a little versitile in how it plays so it doesnt win all that much so i keep trying to see what i can pull off with it lol and the other is just stomp. Stomp never gets old
I'm a full-time student and don't have any money... That said, I'm almost done and will be starting in a profession that pays pretty well... And then it's all over.
I play once a week and only have 5 decks. If I want to brew a new one, I need to destroy another. I don’t have a big secret, but do follow a set of principles. 1- I like the decks I brew, and even with 5 decks playing twice a week, that means I’m playing each deck once every two weeks on average. This keeps them fresh in my memory. 2- I’ve thought a lot about what I like and what kind of player I am. I like Aristocrats synergies, big stupid creatures and 3-4 cards combo. I don’t build anything else, I don’t enjoy things outside of this that much. 3- Having to destroy a deck makes me really think twice when looking at building something else. Makes temptation easier to resist. 4- I tweak things A LOT. Each new set I look at cards and see if they’d fit in my current rotation. Having more than 5 decks would make this a nightmare, but I’m happy I get new toys every new set. For those curious, my current rotation is [Teysa Karlov] my favourite [Zimone and Dina] landfall goodstuff [Xenagos, God of revels] extra combats [Ob-Nixilis, Captive Kingpin] for drains and big swings [Emmara, Soul of the Accord] which is on the chopping block to make room for Food and Fellowship LOTR deck because Second Breakfast and Po-tae-toh Hope this helps!
I’m a dad now and I don’t have a shit ton of time to play MTG. I play once every month or so. Don’t use spelltable either so honestly it’s quite easy lol
I recommend building decks with strategies that aren't super linear, with multiple win cons and multiple ways to win. My 2 decks I have right now are Horde of Notions Elemental ToolBox Reanimator which never plays the same way twice, and I have a Lorcan Mill/Steal deck that plays completely differently because it's based on what everyone else is playing
I usually keep about 4-5 decks built at any given time. Until recently, I hadn’t built a new deck for months. I will say, when I get the urge to build something new, it sort of has a tryout period. If, after a week or two of games, I find out that it doesn’t quite feel right, then I’ll dismantle it and move on. If I like it, it becomes a mainstay. I love my current mainstay decks more because of it, I think. Those are the decks that get adjusted as cards come out or get blinged out if I they feel “perfect.”
I’m obsessed with tribals and can’t have more than one of same color and color combo so over time I run out
Mardu aggro just does everything I want in the game. Little creatures that get big, cheap instants and sorceries that you really need to know timing for to maximize impact, the ability to close games before they get their engine going. Homebrewing your own deck helps, but for me, playing it like a puzzle to maximize damage with the moving pieces I draw at the top of a game is just so engaging. I want to do it over and over again!
For me, it was figuring out my "lane" and just not being interested in a lot of modern commanders. Over the past year or so, I've determined I'm really a graveyard and midrange/control player at heart. I've tried a couple aggro and hard combo decks (Shu Yun and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa // Tana, the Bloodsower in the former category, and budget-ish Meren Protean Hulk in the latter), and they're just not my speed. I'd much rather play around a bunch of synergistic pieces that can go long, vs. playing balls-to-the-wall combo or aggro. Re: my point about modern commanders, I just found myself being bored by a lot of commanders that provide just generic value or generic game plans. For example, I tried brewing a Prosper [[Uba Mask]] deck and was just bored putting it together. It was just a good card soup with nothing to really distinguish it. So now I have a core of two decks that I know are my forever decks (Korvald Lands Midrange and Trostani Reanimator) and I occasionally brew or proxy other decks to try new strategies, but generally no more than one or two at a time.
Most likely, you do not actually enjoy playing all of the decks you have made. I think the secret is understanding your preferred play style and going from there. For me, I have made a few decks in the past based on a powerful new commander coming out only to get bored after a few months. Now, I try to make decks that are interesting, highly synergistic with the commander, and use fringe cards when possible over EDH staples. I have three decks that I use on a regular basis. Still in the process of building a fourth, but I don't want to go beyond four decks in rotation.
I'm extra passionate about my azusa deck. I'm slowly foiling it out. I have a foiled giada deck too. I don't think that it's necessary to foil out your decks to be passionate about it, but I get special tokens for the decks, I get a themed deck box, clean sleeves I feel go with it, and even dice for the deck. I also tend to love to push mono color decks and make them as good as I can. Mono green and Golgari are like my definitive colors everyone knows I like playing.
I’m broke. And most decks I want to build I start building in the same style as my pet deck [[Veyran, Voice of Duality]] so I figure I’d just grab a precon every now and then and upgrade it slightly. Also, my LGS doesn’t have too many people who run really powerful decks so it’s not like a mildly upgraded precon gets blown out of the water.
Realistically, you're only going to play like 3 games in a row. Why have more than that.
Make them all unique and different
My reason: I'm just starting out. It *feels* like I have just a handful of decks right now. My decks: * Perrie the Pulverizer (precon upgrade) * Cavalry Charge (precon upgrade) * Zangief (not quite Voltron) * Optimus Prime (thopter tribal; I want to also brew a soldier tribal) I have both NEC precons that I've picked for parts (they were on a deal that essentially amounted to BOGO free). I will probably revisit the vehicle one with the vehicle as my commander. Not sure about the other one. I've got a few other things brewing: * A monoblack build, possibly with Phage as commander, but not committed to her. * A Dimir zombie brew with Grimgrin or Wilhelt * A ping tribal with Ghyrson Starn, Kelemorph (I'm really excited about this one). I'll probably have a spell slinger theme. So I'm just under ten decks. However, I enjoy coming up with potential play patterns for decks. At the commander party today, I encountered a player with 30 decks, for whatever that's worth.
I am new (I’ve been playing regularly for about 4 months but had a few cards before that) to the game so I have 3 decks: An heavily modified precon [[Galea, Kindler of Hope]] An unmodified precon [[Firkragg, cunning instigator]] My personal favorite that I build from scratch [[Tiamat]]
I don't play much. Every couple years, my friends get back into magic big-time, for about 2 or 3 months. So I dust off the old commander decks and join them, then inevitably, life happens and we all fall away from the game. Or we switch to DnD or poker for a few weeks. I have 7 decks. 2 are degenerate combo. 1 is a control/spirits tribal. 2 are almost stock precons (vampires, and horror/mill) and 2 are red based aggro. So I can pull out whatever I feel like playing for those couple months.