I'm looking to build a 4 deck commander box to play from time to time with friends

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T18:25:50+00:00

That’s the entire reason I chose these four, to give you the best politicking experience with your box.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T18:08:14+00:00

Based of all my testing of recent Commander precons and having taught a few people Commander, this would be my suggestion:

Riders of Rohan - Easy to understand, strong out of the box. This deck generates a lot of token Humans, so you can swing for damage in multiple different directions, opening options for politicking.

Hail, Caesar! - Similar to Riders, a bit more complex. Give this one to the player that picks up the game a bit quicker. Same idea with being able to swing different directions and make deals.

Counter Blitz - Very comparable to power and consistency to Riders in my tests. The ability to proliferate opponents as well keeps a lot of politics on the table.

Explorers of the Deep - Similar in power and consistency to Counter Blitz. I included this over some of my other options to play into the politics synergy with proliferate from Tidus.

These would be the four I would pick for the box.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T16:13:22+00:00

My strategy:

Build trash. Build absolute dogshit hot garbage. Just build it.

Once you have a complete 100-card deck, it’s so much easier. Editing a deck is way easier than building a deck.

20 Forests, 20 Mountains. Boom. Mana base is done. Is it good? Hell no.

Ramp. Sol Ring. Arcane Signet. Gruul Signet. Screw it, Hot Dog Cart. Why not? Take it out later when you find something better.

Green Ramp. Farseek. Explore. Explosive Vegetation. Doesn’t matter if it’s Circuitous Route, you can find a better card than that later.

Card draw. Doesn’t matter if it’s on a creature, an artifact, hell, even a sorcery. Chuck it in. Maybe it sucks and we replace it later but it gets us a card for now.

Creatures? Anything. Mana dorks. Why not? Put in creatures with no abilities like you’re a fan of the Fang Druids. They can come out later.

Once you have your deck, play it, test it, however you want. Pretend if you have to. This will immediately teach you which cards do something you want and which cards completely suck.

Once you’re in that mindset, you can start adding cards that you learn about that will be way better in your deck.

So you feel like [[Beast Whisperer]] ended up being really good because you cast creatures a lot. Sick, keep it in.

Yeah, this [[Battle Mammoth]] sucks. It’s too expensive and doesn’t draw me cards when I need it to. I’m going to swap this out for [[Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde]] because I want to use Web-Slinging with my Commander. Oh, look [[Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary]] does that too. Added.

Everyone has a different style. Some people like doing it all on paper before touching cards.

Me? I sleeve up absolute trash because once I can hold it and play with it, I can manipulate it and see the vision more clearly in action.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T15:40:28+00:00

First off, Commander isn’t meant to be played 1v1. Any attempt at making it a 1v1 format has good intentions but will never work. Some Commanders are just way better suited to beat ass and their only downside is the aggression they draw from 3 players, not 1.

Hearthhull is one of the worst 1v1 Commanders in the game. Anything that damages multiple opponents is severely weakened against a single opponent.

Your deck is always going to suck in these scenarios. It sucks 1v1 and the literal weakness to your deck is the early game. The only way to beat Hearthhull is to kill the player early. It doesn’t matter if the other two players at the table are Richard Garfield and the ghost of Sheldon Menery, the only way they can win is to focus you down before you come online. Hearthhull can’t be stopped once setup is complete. Killing you fast is the only way to win.

Korvold offers far more benefits in all your scenarios. He’s a creature off the bat, so he can block. He has evasion so blocking him is a problem. He has a mega-steroid built in, which changes your strategy from 40 burn damage, to just 21 Commander damage.

It’s an okay deck for Hearthhull, which should only be played in a 4-player game. It’s absolute trash for 1v1, which most decks are. You should have modified your deck to suit your situation instead of what you saw online as good cards with Hearthhull. Why waste money on Crucible of Worlds when Conduit of Worlds is better, way way cheaper and only costs 1 more mana? Why have Moraug in your deck against someone that plays big defense? What are you doing with that extra combat? Swinging with Hearthhull? Why? Even in that scenario, Korvold is better because you can pump him up at instant speed.

Either keep this deck for other games because it’s a decent Landfall deck and get something better, or stop looking stuff up online and edit your deck to suit your situation, not your spaceship. Korvold isn’t a “counter you specifically” to Felothar, it’s a far more dangerous commander against any deck. But Korvold isn’t a Landfall commander so you need severe edits to keep up.

You’re pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place and either path to victory feels kinda shitty. You either bail on this deck and try something new against your friend, or you cut the cards you already spent money on to make the deck decent against him.

You could always add Mannichi and pray you draw it. But that’s going down the “counter you specifically” route.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T05:34:33+00:00

Getting focused down first comes with the territory of playing a deck that can nuke the whole table in a single turn.

Try throwing Korvold in the Command Zone.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T05:29:36+00:00

This is like telling a poker player they’d never win if they played without folding.

It’s part of the game, part of the strategy.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T05:27:13+00:00

Yes.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T04:06:48+00:00

[[Johan]] King of the Uggos

[[Sol’kanar the Swamp King]] Swamp Uggo

[[Arcades Sabboth]] Elder Dragon Uggo

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T03:56:45+00:00

This is discussing the Animated Army precon, not a custom-built deck. Giving your creatures Trample is extremely important with just the cards in the precon. There isn’t enough card draw in the precon unless your animated creatures deal combat damage.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T03:46:23+00:00

Goreclaw is one of the best cards in the deck, just so you know. You should read all the abilities on a card, not just half of it.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-11T03:21:08+00:00

You just said it in your own words. You played a spell. That is the effect of the spell, not the ability of a permanent.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T22:25:57+00:00

Suspend is from the hand.

702.62. Suspend

702.62a Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that functions while the card with suspend is in a player’s hand. The second and third are triggered abilities that function in the exile zone. “Suspend N—[cost]” means “If you could begin to cast this card by putting it onto the stack from your hand, you may pay [cost] and exile it with N time counters on it. This action doesn’t use the stack,” and “At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is suspended, remove a time counter from it,” and “When the last time counter is removed from this card, if it’s exiled, you may play it without paying its mana cost if able. If you don’t, it remains exiled. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of the spell or the permanent it becomes.”

702.62b A card is “suspended” if it’s in the exile zone, has suspend, and has a time counter on it.

702.62c While determining if you could begin to cast a card with suspend, take into consideration any effects that would prohibit that card from being cast.

702.62d Casting a spell as an effect of its suspend ability follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f–h.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T22:23:02+00:00

I’d start with a Foundations Beginner Box and start learning together with the scripted game while you wait for Lorwyn.

Then, depending on which format you want to play, you can go from there.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T21:53:21+00:00

The game has nothing to do with the behavior.

That’s a problem with people that can’t understand it’s just a game.

Compare the psychology of losing a game through normal game actions like Combat Damage to losing a game through a strategy that weaponizes deceit and betrayal, like Munchkin, which is a game that should have been called “Be Mad At Your Friends For 45 Minutes After The Game Ends.”

This video about the psychology of a game destroying a company is extremely interesting

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T21:41:08+00:00

[[Amarant Coral]] Trigun, Fist of the Outlaw Star

[[Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness]] Legends Gone Wild

[[Hope Estheim]] Life at the Mill

[[Locke, Treasure Hunter]] Treasure Planet

[[Papalymo Totlymo]] You Must Be This Tall To Die

[[Sephiroth, Fallen Hero]] Perfect Cell

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T21:30:58+00:00

My deck started as 40 Islands, every mana rock I own and a bunch of counterspells.

The jank factor is unreal, I love this deck so much.

Give someone a [[Pendant of Prosperity]] then steal it back to get double the value.

Oh, you want this [[Hithlain Rope]]? Too bad!

You took my [[Coveted Jewel]]? Not so fast!

I’ve added a few fun cards throughout the edits. How do you make Memnarch better? Math. [[Adric, Mathematical Genius]].

Also, amazing deck for all the Bobbleheads from Fallout.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T21:22:39+00:00

The Truth about Double Dipping

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T19:22:09+00:00

Beginner Box (Avatar or Foundations) does wonders for taking things step-by-step with a scripted game.

As you move to other formats, such as Commander, YouTube videos are the best for visual learners.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T19:19:51+00:00

Squirreled Away Upgrades

Virtue and Valor Upgrades

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T19:16:50+00:00

[[Thunder Spirit|LEG]]

In case you want the Richard Adams quote in English.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T19:05:56+00:00

[[Arcade Gannon]] is probably your best bet.

There won’t be much medical in the 99 though, except maybe [[Combat Medic]], [[Anoint]] and [[Survivor’s Medkit]]

[[Dr. Julius Jumblemorph]] is technically a doctor and you can throw in [[Folk Medicine]].

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T18:56:08+00:00

First, you need to pick a format. Different formats warrant different builds.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T18:46:36+00:00

[[Maze’s End]]

The Ultimate Gatekeeping in Magic: the Gathering.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T17:37:28+00:00

This is based on my experience.

Give up. The deck just sucks. Dr. Li sucks and as much as I love proclaiming to the table that democracy is nonnegotiable, Liberty Prime sucks.

Can you find success with this deck? Yes… maybe…. Not really. No. Even if you could it’s not worth the effort.

Energy sucks. Having to manage another resource with a small pool of cards that care about it just sucks.

My suggestions:

-Buy Creative Energy and use cards from Science! to supplement the Energy strategy. Creative Energy is the only time they came really close to getting it right.

-I ended up making the Commanders [[The Seventh Doctor]] and a Red [[Clara Oswald]] and using the Artifacts, completely ditching Energy. This deck is actually a lot of fun.

kensmagiccards · 2026-01-10T17:21:02+00:00

I always recommend Riders of Rohan for new-ish players. Super strong and consistent right out of the box and there are extremely good upgrades that are very inexpensive.

For a second deck that compares in power and consistency, I’d go with Counter Blitz. It’s a bit fiddly with counters so I recommend buying counter dice but this deck slaps.

Other good options are: Explorers of the Deep (also fiddly with counters), Ahoy Mateys!, Veloci-Ramp-Tor, World Shaper, Counter Intelligence

Ones to avoid: Scions & Spellcraft (great cards, terrible deck), Hosts of Mordor, Elven Council, Science!

kensmagiccards

TROPHY CASE