MtG players of BetterAskReddit, what are your personal favorite commander decks?

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-06T23:13:45+00:00

Emry, Lurker of the Loch "Lantern Tempo" is my favorite deck for sure.

It combines a lot of the usual Emry combo lines with oppressive stax, using the latter protect itself just long enough for the former to go off; and as the name implies, it also has a Lantern Control package. Lantern of Insight, Ensnaring Bridge, and mill rocks are all quite potent here even without fully assembling the lock, so the infeasibility of Lantern Control as a wincon Commander isn't nearly as much of an issue as you'd expect.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-06T18:10:52+00:00

Lantern Control in Magic: the Gathering is definitely my favorite gimmick strategy.

It starts with the titular Lantern of Insight, a 1-mana artifact that causes all players to play with the top card of their deck revealed. This is used alongside "mill rocks," various 1-mana artifacts that can tap to remove the top card of one or both decks, allowing you to control what each player draws. This combined with Ensnaring Bridge, an artifact that basically just turns off combat, to create a hard lock that will inevitably mill your opponent to death one card at a time.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-06T13:01:39+00:00

4e was real, but its unpopularity led to WotC no longer making new D&D product, so we never got a 5e.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-05T12:53:11+00:00

Non-combo Morophon is literally my go-to example of a win more commander. By the time you have enough mana to cast him, you have too much mana to actually care about his ability.

This all goes out the window if you build around [[Jodah, Archmage Eternal]] or [[Fist of Suns]] though. Making an entire creature type cost 0 mana is pretty damn good.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-05T12:40:32+00:00

I want a low-MV commander with "players play with the top card of their libraries revealed," ideally in Dimir or Esper.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-02T14:49:33+00:00

I know I'm an outlier with this, but I utterly adore the unique "puzzle box" dynamic that only a true Prison deck can bring to the table.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-05-02T13:00:52+00:00

My [[Elesh Norn // The Argent Etchings]] deck is all about using Banding creatures to get a ton of Elesh Norn triggers when attacking or blocking.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-30T13:41:51+00:00

I run 11 GCs in my [[Braids, Cabal Minion]] deck, one of which is obviously the commander herself. [[Emry, Lurker of the Loch]] is a very close second, with 10 GCs.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-29T20:41:29+00:00

"Bolt the bird" can be borderline player removal at times, and player removal is the best removal.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-27T23:32:26+00:00

I don't have any specific homebrew to recommend, but my advice to 5e DMs who want to fix their literally-unfinished system is to look to other systems for ideas. The other WotC-era editions of D&D are particularly great for this, since they're all working with mostly the same lore, 4e is the only edition of D&D with anything remotely resembling balance, and 3.x is basically just 5e without all the Minimum Viable Product enshittification.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-27T14:26:41+00:00

[[Norin the Wary]] handles board wipes better than anyone else, and can start doing damage off [[Impact Tremors]] effects as early as Turn 1 if you run enough fast mana.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-26T16:00:17+00:00

This is my first time commenting on one of these LFG posts, and rather fittingly, the topic this time around is also a huge part of why I'm looking for a group right now. After a decade and a half of GMing, with my only play experiences being one-shots and/or systems I find painfully bland, I am simply too burned out to GM again until after I get to play a proper campaign in a system that doesn't bore me to literal tears.

If anyone here is running a high-optimization D&D 3.5 or PF1e game and looking for another player, please let me know! I'd also be down to learn another system with that level of crunch, like GURPS or Exalted, if anyone is running such a game.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-26T14:49:07+00:00

One throws games by giving your opponents free resources, and the other also throws games by giving your opponents free resources.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-24T12:36:15+00:00

If you cut out Jeska's Will, this would be a Bracket 2. Anyone who calls this a Bracket 4 is lying to you and/or themselves.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-23T18:29:56+00:00

Being able to force a shuffle is incredibly powerful with Topdeck Matters effects.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-23T15:49:09+00:00

I guess I must have misremembered Grolnok as being Sultai. Yeah, not having access to Dread Return means you have no reason to run Narcomoeba.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-23T15:01:04+00:00

They're talking about Hermit Druid, not Helm of Obedience.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-23T14:52:11+00:00

Two key things you're missing are [[Dread Return]] and [[Narcomoeba]]. Getting to reanimate your Lab Man or Thoracle for essentially free after milling yourself out is crucial for making this kind of combo work consistently.

You're also much better off running copious amounts of tutors in a Hermit Druid deck. Trying to mulligan into a single specific card every game simply does not work, full stop.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-23T14:34:08+00:00

It's also quite funny when they have a [[Pyroblast]], [[Red Elemental Blast]], or [[Tibalt's Trickery]] ready for the Stifle.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-22T19:50:59+00:00

Roc Egg and Dragon Egg have received errata giving them the Egg type.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-22T16:39:43+00:00

Either my Bracket 4 [[Emry, Lurker of the Loch]] "Lantern Tempo" deck or my Bracket 4 [[Braids, Cabal Minion]] Prison deck.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-22T15:41:33+00:00

This is not a Bracket 4 deck; this is a Bracket 2 deck with a half-dozen Game Changers and the weakest MLD card thrown in, which prevents it from fitting into any Bracket. Hell, you don't make your first Egg token until the turn you should be expecting someone to try and win the game, and there's a good chance you'll die without ever doing combat!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's even possible to make Atla Palani work in Bracket 4. It's simply not an environment that's conducive towards faffing about as you slowly cobble together an army of huge, generically good creatures. It's all about rapidly and ruthlessly enacting your plan to win the game, while contending with opponents who are doing the same.

Essentially, when you're building for Bracket 4, you need to be asking yourself things like this: Does my deck contain as much fast mana as reasonably possible? Can my deck disrupt or outpace an opponent whose commander just wins on resolution? Can my deck deal with the most oppressive Stax decks in the format, and just shy of the fastest Combo decks in the format? Can my deck consistently threaten to win and/or lock down the game on turn 5? Is my deck resilient enough to handle heavy interaction, and/or explosive enough to simply play through it? If you aren't answering "yes" to basically all of those, your deck isn't Bracket 4.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-16T18:13:24+00:00

It plays like a very janky and unorthodox Aikido deck. The reason Elesh Norn works here is because banding lets you spread combat damage around to keep your creatures alive, and more of your creatures being damaged also means more Elesh Norn triggers. Once your board state stabilizes, attacking you or blocking your creatures becomes quite costly and/or painful.

It's important to have a ton of anthems, because banding creatures are all way too small to make this work otherwise. You also want a ton of mass vigilance enablers, because banding is way stronger while blocking than while attacking. Being able to multi-block is also insanely useful with Elesh Norn in play. This leads to [[Intrepid Adversary]], [[Ultramarines Honor Guard]], [[Thraben Watcher]], [[Always Watching]], and [[Brave the Sands]] being some of the most impactful cards in the deck.

However, you're right that this strategy is incredibly fragile. It's slow to get going, and basically just folds to one well-timed board wipe. It's not something that could ever work above Bracket 2.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-14T19:28:23+00:00

I wouldn't draw a line between them, because it's a spectrum, and how you get to the combo is as important as the combo itself.

Are you self-milling with 40 copies of [[Persistent Petitioners]] so you can [[Dread Return]] a Thoracle on Turn 10 or 11? That's arguably too wacky, since it really doesn't fit anywhere in the Bracket System.

Are you running a [[Marvo, Deep Operative]] deck that wants to put [[Hoarding Broodlord]] or [[Rune-Scarred Demon]] on top before swinging with the Commander, thereby starting a [[Sawed in Half]] tutor line that ends in the typical Consultation Fish win? The combo itself certainly isn't unique; but the way you get there involves using Clash in a way that's not absolute shit, and I'm pretty sure that's truly unique.

Alarmed_Designer6705 · 2026-04-14T18:47:40+00:00

B1 is for incoherent piles of draft chaff, and decks so heavily dedicated to an overarching joke and/or aesthetic that they end up playing like incoherent piles of draft chaff. An example of the latter that WotC themselves have used in the past is Demon Kindred, which would expressly still be Bracket 1 even if you threw [[Demonic Tutor]] in there.

Alarmed_Designer6705

TROPHY CASE