How to build a Commander deck from scratch

Commander (EDH) is the most popular way to play Magic: The Gathering, and building your first deck can feel overwhelming — 100 cards, infinite card choices, and no pack to crack for a starting point. This guide walks through the process from picking a commander to tuning your finished build.

Step 1: Pick a commander that excites you

Your commander defines the deck's colors, strategy, and identity. The best first commander is one whose ability you understand and look forward to using — not necessarily the strongest one on a tier list. Some questions that help narrow it down:

• What colors do you like playing? Aggro (red/white), control (blue/black), ramp/big spells (green), or some combination?
• Do you want to win through combat damage, infinite combos, card draw engines, or just incremental value?
• Are you building for a casual kitchen table, a competitive pod, or somewhere in between?

Commander has a "bracket" system (1–4) that describes a deck's power level. Bracket 1 is precon-level casual; bracket 4 allows fast combo and tutors. Knowing your table's bracket before you build saves you the frustration of bringing a bracket-4 deck to a bracket-2 game — or vice versa.

Step 2: Know the deck structure

A Commander deck is exactly 100 cards including the commander — singleton (one copy of each card, except basic lands). A reliable starting skeleton for most decks looks like this:

• 36–38 lands — go higher (38+) if your curve is high or you have few card draw effects.
• 10–12 ramp spells — mana rocks (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet), land ramp (Cultivate), or creature ramp (Selvala, Llanowar Elves). Getting to six mana by turn four changes games.
• 10–12 card draw/advantage — Rhystic Study, Harmonize, Phyrexian Arena. Card draw keeps you from running out of gas.
• 10 removal spells — spot removal (Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within) and at least 2–3 board wipes (Wrath of God, Cyclonic Rift).
• ~30 cards that do "the thing" — creatures, spells, and enchantments that execute your commander's strategy.

These aren't rigid rules, but they prevent the most common first-deck mistake: 60 exciting cards and zero ways to draw into them.

Step 3: Build a draft list, then cut to 100

Start by brainstorming 120–130 cards you want to include, organized by role (ramp, draw, removal, win conditions). Then cut ruthlessly. Every cut should answer: "Is there a card already in the deck that does this job better or more consistently?" When two cards do similar things, keep the cheaper, more reliable one.

Pay attention to your mana curve. If most of your spells cost 5+ mana, you need more ramp and lands. If your curve is low, you can trim a land or two and add another interaction piece.

Step 4: Check your mana base

Color consistency matters more in Commander than in 60-card formats because you're playing 100 cards and often won't see specific lands until mid-game. A two-color deck can get away with 12–15 dual lands plus basics; a five-color deck needs more careful work with fetch lands, shock lands, and triomes. As a general rule: if your commander costs three colored pips of the same color, make sure 40–50% of your mana sources produce that color.

Step 5: Analyze and tune before you buy

Before spending money on cards, run your list through an analysis tool. Look at:

• Mana curve distribution — is there a dangerous spike at 4–5 CMC that will leave you with dead turns?
• Role balance — do you have enough interaction, enough card draw, enough win conditions?
• Bracket score — does your deck's power level match your playgroup?
• Upgrade suggestions — EDHREC surfaces cards that are played in high percentages of similar decks, which often reveals obvious improvements you missed.

Catching weaknesses on paper is much cheaper than buying a $30 card, playing three games, and realizing it never does what you needed.

Step 6: Play it, then tune it

No Commander deck is ever truly finished — that's part of the format's appeal. After a few games you'll have a clear sense of what the deck needed and what felt redundant. Common first-iteration problems:

• Too slow to get going — add 1–2 mana rocks or cut a high-CMC card.
• Running out of cards — add more draw engines or replace one-time effects with repeatable ones.
• Commander getting removed constantly — add hexproof/shroud auras, counterspells, or lightning-rod creatures so your commander isn't always the primary target.
• No way to close out a game — add a clear, reliable win condition that doesn't depend entirely on your commander.

Keeping a digital record of your deck helps enormously here. When you play a game and notice a card that's been dead in your hand three sessions running, you can pull up your list right there and swap it out before you forget.

How to track what you already own

Building from your existing collection is almost always cheaper than buying from scratch. The bottleneck is knowing what you have. If you've digitized your collection, you can cross-reference your card pool against any prospective decklist and immediately see what you need to acquire. That process starts with scanning — and once your collection is in a digital library, every future deck build is faster.

For ideas on organizing the physical cards once the deck is built, see the guide on organizing a Commander collection.