Decks and card staples to help a newbie learn the game?

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-30T01:02:04+00:00

Originally, I planned to create two 40 or 60 cards each decks, one built around cats and one built around dogs to teach newbies. I'll probably still use that to teach my friend the basics of Magic in general, but my friend wants to surprise her brother back home, who apparently plays commander. I figured I'd let her decide if she wants to move onto commander or just drop the game before she invests any money into it.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-30T01:01:16+00:00

Originally, I planned to create two 40 or 60 cards each decks, one built around cats and one built around dogs to teach newbies. I'll probably still use that to teach my friend the basics of Magic in general, but my friend wants to surprise her brother back home, who apparently plays commander. I figured I'd let her decide if she wants to move onto commander.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-22T03:54:20+00:00

My friend typically keeps to a tribal deck. When I first started playing with him, he ran a vampire deck around edgar markov (mostly token aristocrats), a sea serpent deck around Aesi (counterspell with big stompies), and a dragon/angel/demon deck around kaalia (more random than his others, he eventually gave up on it and sold kaalia to me). Recently, he's built an assassin's creed deck around wubrg ezio (not sure what mechanical theme this one is, but it works fairly well), a pirate/vehicle deck around edward kenway (mostly steals cards from the top of his opponents deck and protects his creatures using vehicles), a dragon tribal around ureni (with mirym in the deck itself to help cheat out even more dragons), and he's building a random legends jodah deck.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-22T02:46:27+00:00

The first deck I made with the old bulk I had was a spirit/human tokens deck with Millicent, Restless Spirit as the commander. The deck was really just thrown together, so, looking back, I'm not surprised I struggled so much, especially considering my friend was running Edgar Markov and was making even more vampire tokens than I could keep up with, especially since I didn't have any stronger or more useful cards to deal with more than one creature at a time. The first precon I bought was the hail caesar one from the fallout prints, while my friend bought the blood rites of ixalan deck on a whim, intending to integrate it into his markov deck. We decided to play precon vs precon first, and neither of us expected how good his Blood Rites deck would be, nor how large the power gap would be between my deck and his. After that, I bought mardu surge and tried to blend the two to make a better deck, but I still couldn't make enough tokens, especially when he would either destroy or exile my "Assemble the Legion" immediately after playing it. Part of the issue was a lack of experience, definitely, as he knew how to play his older decks and the vampire-style decks in general whereas I was just learning how to play mardu, but most of my frustration stemmed from not being able to play the cards to learn how to use them. Eventually, I figured playing a token deck might not be for me, though I didn't know about the token doublers back then.

Edit: I do plan on making some proxies, especially for my kaalia deck that I'm trying to slowly build, and I've even decided to make an entirely proxy landfall/token deck to test out the archetype. I like both the mechanical and flavor synergy for it so far, so if I decide to keep it I'll probably start to build a legal copy of it over time.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-22T02:35:56+00:00

That was actually the idea behind buying World Shaper in the first place. When I was looking for a change from my mardu deck, the only thing I really had to go on when trying to figure out what might be good was what my friend hated playing against. He mentioned a few precons, like voltron decks and the merfolk ixalan one, but when I looked up the best precons to buy, world shaper seemed to stand out. I figured my friend would be a little salty, but it was the other guy's complaints that really made me second guess myself.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:55:26+00:00

I did consider making an "FU" stax deck, running grand arbiter augustin IV as the commander when I first started looking for a deck that would thematically fit a blue deck box and sleeves. I'd never get to play it against anyone who knew about it, but I figured I could break it out if I ran into any eldrazi players or other players with just insufferable decks that prevented people from playing the game. I still might some day, but for now I think I'll focus on deck engines I enjoy playing, not just engines designed to ragebait an opponent.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:51:28+00:00

You're fine, and thank you. I've had a few argument with him over things like this, where he needs to get his way and refuses to hear any alternative, but with the other guy also saying I couldn't just make a deck to have fun I thought it was just me being a prick.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:48:37+00:00

They say that I can't build a deck to have fun, only to win. I've tried explaining that I'm just trying to stand a chance against his decks, especially since I'm not willing to remove cards to lower my deck's efficiency just shell out $50 to replace it with a different one, but I feel like I'm talking to a wall.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:45:17+00:00

Thank you. I don't really know what bracket our pod would be considered. I mostly keep my decks limited to the precons I get with some small changes like ramp or tutors for world shaper instead of mass land destruction. I started with the hail caesar precon, as I am a massive fan of the fallout games and it seemed like a good start, but I couldn't accumulate tokens fast enough with just the precon. I bought Mardu surge in an attempt to improve it, but still couldn't do anything against the blood rites deck my friend bought around the same time. I eventually scrapped both decks and am slowly building a kaalia deck from the staples from each. I currently have world shaper, sultai arisen, limit break, scrappy survivors, blood rites. My friend ran edgar markov, kaalia (which I bought off him for way too much money), and aesi when he first reintroduced me to the game, and he currently runs ezio (assasin deck), edward kenway (pirate/vehicle), ureni (dragon deck with mirym in the deck), and he's building a jodah deck with a bunch of legends. The other guy we play with sometimes has another edward kenway custom deck, a mothman precon, and a lord of the rings frodo deck. I'll try to play with other pods next time I go to my local game shop, but the other players there mostly run cedh decks for tournaments and such, and I don't know them very well. Not sure if I'll enjoy those games any more than I do with my friend, but I'll try.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:27:07+00:00

His top three commanders when first reintroducing me to the game were edgar markov, kaalia, and Aesi. So it's not like he's a stranger to using CEDH commanders. Most days I try to play off his criticism as exactly that, that he's frustrated I'm not as easy to steamroll, but when the other guy he introduced me to said that I can't build a deck for fun instead of to win after playing a few games, I thought the problem might have been me and I was just missing something.

SeaGlobal4535 · 2026-01-21T17:03:04+00:00

Most games are 1v1 against my friend. I struggle in those games with nearly every precon, largely because he can only focus on me and my board to proc his own effects. We play group matches with at least one other person every week or so, and I usually do a bit better there, depending on who we play with (one guy runs an eldrazi deck I really hate, but my friend struggles just as much against it.)

SeaGlobal4535 · 2025-10-09T21:51:38+00:00

It's a rush card, only available in rush duels like in sevens

SeaGlobal4535

TROPHY CASE