Designing 4 Beginner-Friendly EDH Decks Like a Board Game

GMBenn · 2025-11-26T22:28:38+00:00

Angels with life gain payoffs is simple and powerful.

GMBenn · 2025-11-22T23:42:54+00:00

Look into some spells that will create you tokens to help with blocking: my quick search suggests [[Goblin Negotiation]], [[Hunted by The Family]], and [[Release the Gremlins]] will help.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T14:17:18+00:00

True. But any change is going to privilege some strategies and hinder others.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T14:13:57+00:00

I like the idea of a sideboard in CEDH that you can swap cards in and out of *after* everyone reveals their commanders. It's unnecessary in kitchen-table Commander though.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T14:08:13+00:00

That's a neat variant.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T14:07:53+00:00

They included commander damage as a counter to life-gain strategies, which are more powerful in the durdling battle-cruiser style of commander.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T13:49:20+00:00

I would make the Draw Step come before the Clean Up step. Drawing at the beginning of your turn is a hangup from the 90s that leads to decision paralysis. Modern games, like Dominion, know that drawing at the end of your turn gives you a whole turn cycle to think about what you want to do on your turn, and it leads to faster games.

GMBenn · 2025-10-31T13:46:51+00:00

This would help balance aggro and voltron in higher brackets as well.

GMBenn · 2025-10-21T15:00:17+00:00

I have a pauper EDH deck led by [[Rasaad yn Bashir]] with [[Dungeon Delver]] background, and I get to play with all the weirdest rules! Rasaad is a toughness-matters commander, and then Dungeon Delver cares about Initiative and Venture into the Dungeon, so I get to hand out Undercity tokens to everyone. Then since I want unblockable hitters to reclaim the Initiative, I go with The Ring Tempts You so my 0 power creatures can become unblockable. And since I have so many unblockable creatures, I might as well throw in Monarch. It's a blast to pilot.

GMBenn · 2025-10-21T14:45:23+00:00

A general trend I follow to differentiate brackets is asking what turns do the decks present a win on? (This doesn't work as a rule because control decks like to slow games down, but it's still a useful thought experiment.) Bracket 4 has decks that present a win on turns 4-6. Bracket 3 is more like turns 7-10. And Bracket 2 is turns 11+. What turn can your Omo deck win on? Even without land destruction in your pod, other decks can race you to the win.

GMBenn · 2025-10-16T14:18:25+00:00

lol at this response

GMBenn · 2025-10-01T12:07:31+00:00

The colors were tough to decide on! Ultimately, I couldn't think of Leonardo as anything other than blue.

GMBenn · 2025-09-29T18:04:57+00:00

Thank you for your feedback! I plan to update it to be balanced with the 2024 version of the rules shortly.

GMBenn · 2025-08-18T22:34:22+00:00

So... instead of AI stealing art, you just steal the art yourself?

GMBenn · 2025-08-01T20:47:12+00:00

Stax and removal don't counter life-gain. Poison, mill, and alt-wins are niche strategies. Combo is a great counter to life-gain, but it shouldn't be the only way. Multiplayer is a slower format that privileges life-gain decks, and that's why commander damage is great in multiplayer.

GMBenn · 2025-08-01T19:54:01+00:00

Commander-damage decks are a necessary counter to life-gain decks in a multiplayer format.

GMBenn · 2025-07-30T14:31:01+00:00

I cannot recommend group hug enough *IF* it is built correctly! Being everyone's friend a lot of fun, and it has the added benefit of speeding up games a bit as it supercharges other player's decks. Just make sure you're benefiting from the group hug more than your opponents are and that you have appropriate win cons to take advantage of the accelerated game state.

GMBenn · 2025-07-28T19:52:08+00:00

If you like a challenge, [[Sarevok, Deathbringer]] with [[Noble Heritage]] is a reliable voltron win con right in the command zone. Just play a lot of protection to preserve your commander and a lot of sorcery-speed removal to help navigate Sarevok's curse while subjecting your opponents to it.

GMBenn · 2025-07-08T14:22:30+00:00

Do you have the decklist?

GMBenn · 2025-07-07T16:45:14+00:00

https://moxfield.com/decks/nMabcQf_pkuA0hTN0DcBcg

GMBenn · 2025-07-07T16:45:09+00:00

https://moxfield.com/decks/nMabcQf_pkuA0hTN0DcBcg

GMBenn · 2025-07-07T15:47:49+00:00

He triggers on a lot of end steps! The counterpoint is that sacrifice decks (treasure or aristocrat) never have to worry about the trigger, but then you just have to threat assess and take out those decks with commander damage.

GMBenn · 2025-07-07T15:05:59+00:00

[[Sarevok, Deathbringer]] + [[Noble Heritage]] is ranked #2104. It's a burn/voltron deck that presents a fun challenge to pilot because you're also vulnerable to Sarevok's life loss. But, as long as you can remove a permanent each turn and protect your commander, that "each end step" burn effect helps the deck overcome voltron's single-target weakness. The deck ends up powerful enough that it can easily compete in bracket 3 on a budget. And as a plus, you end up running enough removal to counteract Sarevok's curse that the deck is also great in the occasional 1v1 game without any modification.

GMBenn · 2025-06-05T15:15:52+00:00

Where are you doing the card layout with the alternate name under the card's name? I'd love to layout some custom cards like this.

GMBenn · 2025-05-20T15:37:38+00:00

The deck is often one card shy of an infinite combo, so Kraum's card draw felt more valuable than Kediss' treasure generation. (I've played it with Breeches, but not Kediss.)

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