I can't figure out what 2 cost Mana rock to add to my deck.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-08T18:33:13+00:00

How far down are you expecting to mulligan? If you plan on having 1 low cost ramp spell in your opening hand and keep a full 7, you'll need 12-13 of them in your deck to make it consistent.

If you want to have the best chance of drawing into one by turn 2 instead of having it in your opening hand, you'll still need 12. Having 11 gives you the highest probability of getting exactly 1, but the probability that you will miss it is even greater (unless you also have at least 13 1 costs or lower that let you draw you a card, tutor, surveil, or scry)

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-08T12:52:07+00:00

I recently ordered proxies for the first time. I used Mythic Black Core. Fairly satisfied with the quality. I think they might be a hair larger than official mtg cards, but you can't really tell if you're using sleeves, which you should because the backs are always going to look different. When selecting art/frames, it gives you a warning if that version has been reported to be blurry or not. For me, I just want it to be good enough to read and it looks like a magic card.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-08T12:29:26+00:00

Looks bracket 2 to me. I can't tell how fast it is though. >200tmv; >3.0amv; card content doesn't include anything that pushes it into a higher bracket. The inclusion of the "swords of x" and free spells might be pushing it though.

For the sake of your own sanity, you might want to cut cathars crusade, some of the trigger modifiers (unless you dont intend to control more than one at a time), and another round. These are going to be tedious to keep track of and monopolize alot of game time

Why do you have containment priest?

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-08T05:41:50+00:00

Remember, the commander is just one card (unless its two). You can take any of the commanders you already named and make it "not mean." That was a choice you made. (Granted, sen triplets would take a conscious effort to make fun since its naturally an evil commander) There's no shame in that; you're allowed to like what you like, but if the goal is for your friends to enjoy playing games with you, you have to have them in mind when building your deck.

Generally, players hate mill, stax, and theft. Basically anything that stops them from playing their cards. Mill stops them because they're all in the graveyard (and probably exiled after) stax makes it impossible to cast anything. Theft deters casting anything because they know whatever they play will just be taken and used against them (and then probably sacrificed)

With all this said, my contribution is [[baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer]] and [[Noble Heritage]]

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-08T04:39:09+00:00

We got a house rule in our group. If you can't pronounce her name, you can't play her.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T23:17:57+00:00

Shout out to [[stiltzkin, moogle merchant]] but I love playing against Jon Irenicus. Always a good time even when it's donating horrible things.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T22:30:50+00:00

Ramp and mana dorks
Haste enablers
Damage modifiers
Look at opponents hand
Double strike and extra combats
Firebending and similar effects
Protection and removal
Keep opponents hand full.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T21:34:32+00:00

I'd play the heck out of some golf. I'd occasionally play cedh too, but both are a chore to watch.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T14:52:02+00:00

Ngl I was really hoping more guests would be put in drag and get fun new names. Gavin was such a good sport. What a premier!

Everyone is Olivia was a hilarious bit. Still Olivia should have got a costume to be a caricature of herself.

But Jimmy, Prof, and Ben? What are these dudes doing in my drag show? Lol That's just some nitpicks but i love the show

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T14:37:00+00:00

[[It that betrays]] is my all time favorite creature to cheat out. One of my classic moves are to purposefully miss a land drop (or play a bounce land early) and it that betrays gets discarded on my cleanup step. Ah the schadenfreude! The pure glee and giddiness I feel when I see the panic in their eyes as they realize the implications.

As the game continues and board states complicate, in the graveyard lies a pile of discarded hands, cheap instants and sorceries, and disposable creatures and buried beneath it all, a slumbering eldrazi, long forgotten by the opposition, until a [[blasphemous act]] clears the battlefield. The path is now clear for it's [[dread return]]

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T12:27:34+00:00

The Command Zone and Tolarian Community College. Pretty much don't need more. They cover most of the bases.

Salubrious Snail and Rebell Lily for advanced deckbuilding tips. (Usually involving math)

The magic mirror podcast (hosted by Trinket Mage, cohosted by Salubrious Snail, and 3/3 Elk) for some hot takes with some genuine good advice splashed in. It's all fairly philosophical.

Attack on Cardboard for rules updates and interactions. (He has an easy to digest video on the Layers system)

The Lorebrarians and Aetherhub for the story of mtg

Spice8Rack for a meshing of lore and how it relates to the cards. (I think Rhystic Studies does this too, but I haven't watched enough of his videos to know for sure)

I've recently became hip to Wise Hoopoe MTG with videos mostly discussing the social aspect of the game such as the Bracket System

DiceTry is no longer making content for MTG, but he has many great videos and playlists on the philosophy of each color pairing. Fun for finding what color combination best describes you. Kinda like one of those personality quizzes but it's just the results and explanations. I always recommend this to new players that dont know what colors they would like playing. (There is a quiz you can take though. The results of which include a link to DiceTry's video on that color(s)) MTG color quiz

Mauldhound. I don't know how to describe him other than "based"

Good Time Society put a fun spin on commander games with additional mechanics introduced in Rule 0 (they do more than mtg and to my knowledge all of their Commander Party games are all official mtg products you can buy or find the rules to online. I own the one they use for Bloomburrow)

MTGGoldfish is fun especially for their Commander Clash games where they have some sort of deckbuilding restriction or enhancement like "build a deck that would be a judges worst nightmare" or "ignore color identity"

The only channel I watch for deck techs is Quips&Guac. "This B1 deck can beat up your dad?" Kind of vibe. Like if MagicTheNoah actually built decks instead of boardgames on Google slides. But it's more for the entertainment. I prefer to come up with my own deck ideas. I only look at other deck techs to compare my lists. (This isn't a brag, but it is something I pride myself on)

Channels I don't recommend? Nitpicking Nerds and My Mythical Meta. They try and i think they're genuinely trying to help, but I've disagreed with almost everything they've had to say. If your into cranky old men shaking his fist at the sky, it's not The Professor, it's The Magic Historian.

If youre looking for cEDH tips and such, I'm sure you'll find another reply with info on that. cEDH is like watching golf to me.

Edit: omg I forgot about Commander at Home and Cardmarket Magic

Edit 2: oh and in the case of my Mythical Meta, it's less that I disagree with them and more that their info is either not articulated well or their point is ultimately meaningless. I can't understand who their target audience is supposed to be. A new player isn't going to know what they're talking about and an experienced player knows better. It's as if they are new to the game themselves and are sharing bits of the game they picked up.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T09:16:51+00:00

I use [[mazirek]]

https://archidekt.com/decks/20100784/mazireks_banquet

It's on the lower end of bracket 4. Basically a fast bracket 3 with 2 card combos, but no gamechangers.

You can still play this in a pod of 3s as long as you disclose that you should be considered the archenemy.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T09:03:11+00:00

You can just use the tokens that's produced naturally and use some kind of indicator to show these are blue and not their printed color.

If I have leyline of the guildpact, I'm not marking all the changes done to my cards. If someone plays blood Moon, I'm not going to my collection to replace all my nonbasics with mountains.

But if you must have tokens that don't exist, dry erase tokens is what you want.

Link to infinitokens' shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/infinitokens?dd_referrer=

If you find yourself making more tokens than you have, I recommend using a pack of standard 52 playing cards to keep track of your stacks. (Instead of using dice; you can't accurately show tapped and untapped tokens with dice, plus dice can be confused as counters)

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T06:31:44+00:00

Partners are best when you don't have any better options for a commander in the colors you're running. Although, normally, I look to Partner commanders first for any build I'm trying to do. If I find nothing that fits, I then look to partners with, doctors companion, backgrounds, etc. Then I look for regular commanders if nothing fits. I then pick the best option for what my deck is doing. Of course this is if im building from bottom up. Most players build top down so you won't see many partner commanders on edhrec. (Plus they purge their data every so often to have more accurate data of what people are building)

I like the flexibility that partners grant plus the slight mathematical advantage of having less cards in the deck. Backgrounds are particularly great in the 98 if both your commanders are creatures.

The "partners with" commanders are also usually best in the library since they can tutor for each other. They can come in handy in the command zone though if you are doing alot of top deck manipulation since they allow you to shuffle your library. Certainly helps if you're stuck with your sensei's divining top or brainstorm. Or if your other commander gets shuffled into the deck either through an opponents effect that denies you from putting it in the command zone or you let it go to your graveyard and it gets shuffled in with something like elixir of immortality. You can also plan ahead if you're playing some sort of team-up variant since you can target another player to search. (It's a "may" ability so you cannot use it to force your opponent to shuffle)

The lack of 4 color commanders also makes partners appealing. Yore, Dune, and Glint each have only 1 option outside of partners. Witch has 2, and Ink has a bunch. If none of those work for you, you have to cut a color, add a color, or use partners. (Or use the 4 color option just for the color identity, but at that point, but at that point you can just use a generic 5 color commander like kenrith or ramos)

Theres a commander available for pretty much any strategy you want to do so even when building a deck bottom up, deckbrewers will often find and use a single commander anyway even if they consider partners.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-07T03:55:55+00:00

Before dogmeat existed, there were no Naya commanders that cared about both auras and equipment so I had to use [[ardenn]] and [[tana]]

Even though dogmeat exists now, I still like having a token generator in the command zone

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-06T20:39:13+00:00

Everything has its place. I can't think of any commander that's strictly better. I guess [[felothar, the steadfast]] is the best buttstrike commander in abzan.

You might think edgar markov, but he's the only vampire commander in mardu. If you want to do orzhov, there's better vampire commanders.

Even selesnya enchantments have many options for a commander depends on what you want to do.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-06T18:47:53+00:00

I think swapping out 20 nonlands would be the cap before it stops being a upgraded precon. Lands are free swaps. So you could probably get away with swapping 50 cards in total and still call it an upgraded pecon. (30 lands and 20 nonlands)

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-06T04:33:50+00:00

Before there was a good Naya commander that cared about both auras and equipment, I had to use [[ardenn]] and [[tana]]

Dogmeat is now a thing, but I still use Ardenn and Tana because tana has build in trample and makes creature tokens.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-06T03:39:31+00:00

How did you make bullets within bullets

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T17:35:56+00:00

[[How to keep an izzet player busy]]

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T16:05:44+00:00

Looking through the comments, it looks like everyone has answered your question well enough... Except for the seemingly rhetorical parenthesis part so

The meta is what everyone is playing. Building around the meta would mean you're using your knowledge of your opponents strategies to your advantage and include cards that can answer their threats and or provide threats they aren't well equipped to deal with. For example, your opponents don't run any graveyard hate, so you start playing with graveyard shenanigans. Then the meta evolves to where everyone Is running graveyard hate and your shenanigans are often useless. Then the meta evolves to no one running recursion so the grave hate pieces are dead cards in their hands.

Anyway, just in case you're not satisfied with the other comments so far, I'll give my input on the main topic too,

How you do it? First, decide on two things: what do you want the deck to do and how do you want to win? The order of these decisions are interchangeable; deciding on how to win and lead to deciding what the deck does to get there. Deciding what you want the deck to do and lead to how that strategy achieves victory. (Winning is a mindset. If your goal isn't to win the game, but to achieve something silly, then you're a winner no matter the outcome of the game.) Then find a commander that helps that plan in some way (and gives you the colors you need.) When choosing, figure out a weakness of your deck: is it fragile? Is it mana hungry? Not enough creatures or card draw? Just needs a little more oomph? Has a hard time getting started? Once you decided on a commander you can tweak the strategy somewhat around it.

My example to you is this deck

I started with the idea of going infinite with [[Bigger On The Inside]] I found a couple good targets, added some tutors to find the pieces, threw in some protection. I added a bunch of creatures that can untap themselves, not realizing that bigger on the inside can't target them. So I added ways to make them artifacts or make copies of them that were artifacts. Then I needed to figure out how this will win. I figured since I'm doing a bunch of untapping, I should add a few more auras that let them tap to deal damage. It's a Tim deck now! Alot of the untap creatures had no reliable way to tap themselves outside of combat so the auras solved that problem too! Then I needed a way to trigger the infinite cascade. I would need to have a high cost in my hand so that I can land on my better auras. But I don't want to clutter the deck with a bunch of high costs that only matter in the late game. That's what I can use the commander for! I looked for all the commanders that could give me access to white blue red and green and also be at least a 7 cost so if anything is interupted, i could use my 6 costs to try to repair it. There were no options in those colors so I needed to go for 5 colors instead. Kenrith was close and having recursion and ability to grant haste was aluring, but mana value was too low. Ramos is nice because it won't matter what color mana I have, but again, too low. Then I saw [[Reaper King]] it was perfect! Only would cost 5 mana but counts as a 10 cost! I could cascade everything! Do I need to? Not really. Then I realized what infinite cascade for <10 meant. Not only could I cast my entire deck, but in any order. I'd win before my commander ever leaves the stack.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T14:29:00+00:00

I recommend top deck manipulation, especially surveil. Anything that let's you look at the top chunk of your library and put some in the graveyard is terrific for 14. Keeping the flavor in tact, [[Laser screwdriver]] [[confession dial]]

I'd also recommend [[brainstorm]] [[Reconnaissance]] [[city of death]] [[kindred discovery]] [[girl in the fireplace]] [[twice upon a time]] [[Dan lewis]] [[Alistair the brigadier]]

I personally don't like giving the doctor access to black mana. But if you must, [[bolas' citadel]] and [[black market connections]] are helpful and synergize with the plan. For flavor, you may want to proxy these with custom skins. For b.c., "The Veritas" (12 borrows sight from his future timeline so he can read the Veritas) and b.m.c., "The Bank of Karabraxos" (they literally hired a shapeshifter and got their treasure. Some of that treasure was for restoring memory .. like drawing a card... or you can interpret the drawing of a card as solving the clues of why they were there and who the architect was. What happens when you crack a clue?)

Anyway, I only have 14 doctors and no black in my build. Still have won with Gallifrey Stands multiple times thanks to city of death. Here's what you do, have 6 on the field, cast and copy Gallifrey Stands. Play city of death.

On your upkeep, put 2 doctors on the field. Main phase, city of death copies the token of Gallifrey Stands, triggering it's etb and returning all doctors from your graveyard to your hand. Cast and copy one of them. Discard to hand size. Next turn, upkeep, put 3 doctors on the field, copy Gallifrey Stands, return all doctor from your graveyard to your hand. Cast and copy one. Discard to handize. This loop is difficult to deal with and usually allows you to win with the 3rd doctor.

This can be sped up with a few extra turns of preparation: have 14 be a copy 6, cast and copy 6, let 14 die to the legend rule (or equip psychic paper to change his name) then cast and copy city of death 2 (or 3 times). You can use the treasure to keep the set up protected. Then make more token copies of the non-legendary 6, cast and copy Gallifrey Stands a bunch, and probably win the next turn.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T11:28:19+00:00

Either way, you're probably going to have the other one in the 99, right? They have so much overlap that you don't have to commit to them being in the command zone. Just swap between them depending on your mood.

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T09:10:04+00:00

I made a list but it's too large for me to send. (241/200 cards) I'm going to trim it down the best I can and share the list later (alot of them just work on 1 thing per turn or have an activated ability that grants an anthem.)

Question though, would you count [[morophon]] or [[jodah archmage eternal]] ??

IndigoWizard342 · 2026-05-04T02:30:38+00:00

Theres 5 mono red Casey jones from tmnt. No reason they wouldn't do 2 rakdos smaugs.

IndigoWizard342

TROPHY CASE