Magic: The Gathering’s Commander format possesses an extremely diverse landscape of potential deck types players can play. Encouraging players to play their favorite cards across the game’s history, when it comes to deck construction in Commander, the sky is the limit.
Few other formats possess the massive breadth of decks being played in the format, adding to its appeal. So today we’re going to examine the most popular and iconic deck archetypes you can expect to see when playing Commander.
Updated January 29, 2022 by Paul DiSalvo: As new commanders and cards are constantly being added to the format with the release of every set, every archetype becomes increasingly potent with time, with new archetypes even sprouting from the woodwork as new mechanics are introduced. Through sets like Jumpstart, Strixhaven, Modern Horizons II, and the wide range of preconstructed Commander decks being released, established archetypes are constantly growing stronger. We’ve updated this list to reflect these changes.
20 Chaos
While many deck archetypes found within the Commander format can also be found within formats like Modern or Standard, the Chaos archetype is quite unique to Commander. Often incorporating the Izzet color identity in some capacity, Chaos decks aim to use effects that either rely heavily on chance, such as those that involve coin-flipping or dice rolling, or effects that are highly unpredictable, such as those that randomly redistribute player’s permanents among the other player’s in a commander game. While far from the most competitive deck archetype, Chaos decks can definitely spice up a Commander game and embrace the unpredictability of the multiplayer nature of the format.
19 Cheerios
Named for their heavy use of spells with mana costs of 0, Cheerios decks aim to garner notable value through repeatedly casting free spells. While the types of value gained through doing so vary greatly based on one’s commander, Cheerios decks are often incredibly efficient and consistent, as they care less about what their zero-mana spells do, and more about how their commander is rewarding them for play so many free spells. Due to the high number of spells that a Cheerios deck can play within a single turn, they often utilize similar win conditions to those of Storm decks, though win conditions may vary based on one’s commander.
18 Infect
Among the most polarizing deck archetypes in the Commander format, Infect decks aim to win games as quickly as possible through giving opponents poison counters, most often through the use of Infect creatures. A creature with Infect deals combat damage in the form of poison counters rather than traditional damage.
While players in the Commander format start with forty life, if a player gains ten or more poison counters, they lose the game, meaning a deck based around infect only needs to deal ten damage to each opponent rather than forty. For this reason, Infect decks are often hyper-aggressive, looking to deal as much damage with their Infect creatures as possible before their opponents can stabilize and establish a proper board state.
17 Graveyard
Making up a massive portion of Commander decks, Graveyard decks come in a wide variety of forms, but all aim to use their graveyard as a source of value. Whether through sacrificing creatures, self-milling, or discarding cards Graveyard decks often care about the number of cards in one’s graveyard, and can often use recursion spells or even their commander, to easily access the cards within the graveyard. This allows a player’s graveyard to effectively function as a secondary hand, giving them more cards to access within their turn than they would have otherwise.
16 Discard
Exploding in popularity due to the sheer power of recent commanders like Tinybones, Trinket Thief and Tergrid, God of Fright, Discard decks aim to deprive their opponents of their cards by forcing them to be discarded, whilst simultaneously benefiting in some way. Most often incorporating Black, these decks can be difficult to deal with, as discarding effects directly cut down how many answers a player can access at once, often making a matchup against a discard deck feel like an uphill battle.
15 Blink/Flicker
While not keyworded, the act of blinking or flickering a permanent in Magic means to exile a card and then return it to the battlefield. While some newer players may not immediately see the power of such an effect, blinking and flickering cards allows you to repeatedly get value from their “enter the battlefield” triggers.
Most often found in white, commanders such as Brag, King Eternal, Emiel the Blessed, and Roon of the Hidden Realm each are capable of providing repeatable flickering effects.
14 Spellslinger/Storm
As the name would entail, spellslinger decks are those that aim to cast and sling as many spells as possible over the course of a game of commander. Most often revolving around instants and sorceries with small mana values, these decks tend to include several cards that draw cards, replacing themselves in their caster’s hand, and cards that provide value for casting instants and sorceries. Many of these decks may include win conditions in the form of cards with storm, an ability that copies a given spell for each other spell cast before it in a turn.
Some of the most popular commanders for spell slinging decks are Mizzix of the Izmagnus, a card that can greatly reduce the costs of instants and sorceries, and Veyran, Voice of Duality, a card that doubles any abilities that trigger from casting an instant or sorcery.
13 Enchantments
One of the major card types in Magic, Enchantments most often come in the form of those that provide a static effect, or auras, those that augment another permanent. As there are a massive sum of enchantments that have been printed in Magic’s history, it should be no surprise that there are decks that can take advantage of their synergies.
Making great effect of “Enchantress” cards, those that cause a player to draw cards whenever they play an enchantment, enchantment decks are often able to create impressive board states while never running low on cards. The archetype notably became much stronger with the recent printing of Sythis, Harvest’s Hand, a two-mana enchantress that can be your commander.
12 Pod
Pod decks get their name from the card, Birthing Pod, an artifact that allows creatures to be sacrificed in order to tutor for any creature with a mana value one higher than the sacrificed card.
As there are several cards in magic that offer a similar effect with commanders such as Oswald Fiddlebender and Prime Speaker Vannifar having such effects in the Command Zone, Pod decks can reliably tutor up key cards and combos. This makes them some of the most consistent decks in the entire Commander Format.
11 Lands Matter
Lands are by and large the most integral resource in Magic, required in every deck to cast one’s spells. While most decks are based around the spells within them, there are also decks that revolve around synergies with lands.
Whether these decks utilize heavy amounts of mana ramp, landfall effects, or even land-based graveyard synergies, these decks put their lands in the forefront of their game plan. Some of the most popular lands-matter commanders include the likes of Lord Windgrace, Omnath, Locus of Creation, and Tatyova, Benthic Druid.
10 Wheel
Massively popular in the format, Wheel decks derive their name from the card Wheel of Fortune, as they seek to benefit from the use of spells that feature abilities similar to this card. Wheel cards are cards that cause each player to discard their hand, and then draw entirely new hands of cards.
Wheel decks are often tricky for opponents to deal with, as their answers and strategies are constantly being interrupted as they are repeatedly forced to draw new hands.
Additionally, these types of decks can cause massive amounts of damage through the use of cards like Underworld Dreams and commanders like Nekusar, the Mindrazer who cause opponents to lose life whenever they draw cards.
9 Lifegain
While Commander is already a format in which players possess larger than expected life totals, with each player starting at forty life, self-preserving lifegain decks are a staple of the format.
By proliferating already high life totals, players are capable of creating situations in which combat damage may no longer appear to be a viable answer when trying to take them out of the game. Additionally, the use of the card Felidar Sovereign provides a safe alternative win condition, causing its controller to win the game at the beginning of their upkeep if they have forty or more life.
8 Mill (And Self-Mill)
Mill and Self-Mill decks allow players to manipulate players decks, seeking to put numerous cards from a player’s library directly into the graveyard.
While traditional Mill decks seek to mill an opponent’s entire deck, causing them to lose the game through a means other than combat, self-mill decks can be slightly more varied. Some self-mill decks like those headed by Sidisi, Brood Tyrant seek to use milling as a sort of engine, accruing value each time cards are put from their controller’s library into that player’s graveyard. On the other hand, other self-mill strategies like those utilized by commanders like Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord can directly convert self-milling into power by featuring buffs that are proportional to the number of cards in a player’s graveyard.
7 Tokens
Due to increased life totals and deck sizes, Commander is a format featuring games that tend to be larger in scale than games of other formats. Bearing this in mind, its no shocker that the utilization of massive armies of tokens is a popular strategy in Commander.
Token decks seek to use the larger scale of a game of Commander in order to create overwhelming armies of tokens, further perpetuated through the use of cards such as Anointed Precession and Doubling Season.
Token decks are quite diverse, having potential commanders in countless color identities which provides different flavors of tokens to players.
6 Voltron
The polar opposite of token decks, Voltron decks derive their name from the Voltron series, as the deck type seeks to attach numerous parts to one giant, deadly creature.
Often specializing in auras, equipment, or a combination of the two, Voltron decks often aim to take out opponents through a single round of combat through the use of the format’s Commander Damage rule which states that a player who sustains twenty-one or more damage from one commander over the course of a game, immediately loses regardless of their life total. Voltron decks can often be a solid answer to lifegain strategies, as even if a player’s life total is in the thousands, a Voltron player only needs to deal twenty-one damage with their commander in order to become victorious.
5 Counters
While various forms of counters such as +1/+1 counters can frequently be found within other Magic: The Gathering Formats, there’s a myriad of Commanders that synergize with counters in interesting ways.
Counter based decks can adapt on the fly, putting counters on creatures that may benefit their controller in a given moment, while getting the most out of cards like Gyre Sage, who can tap for an amount of green mana equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it.
Decks like those built around Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice can continuously grow their creatures through Atraxa’s ability to repeatedly proliferate, while the commanders like Skullbriar, the Walking Grave can keep counters upon itself even if it’s sent to the graveyard or Command Zone.
4 Super Friends
As the main character focal point of Magic’s story, Planeswalkers are incredibly useful in multiple formats such as Commander. While Planeswalkers can’t be used as commanders (unless specified otherwise), that doesn’t mean players can’t include them within the ninety-nine of their decks!
Super Friends decks are those that seek to incorporate as many Planeswalkers as possible, utilizing cards such as Oath of Teferi and cards with proliferate in order to get the maximum value out of each given Planeswalker.
3 Aristocrats
Gaining their title from the card Vampire Aristocrat, Aristocrat decks seek to accumulate value through sacrificing creatures and simultaneously benefiting from both death and sacrifice effects.
Aristocrat decks often possess cards that make opponents sacrifice creatures whenever a creature controlled by the Aristocrat player dies, making it difficult for other players to have many creatures in play at once. Additionally, it’s quite difficult to deal with Aristocrat decks, as removing many of their creatures from play can be a direct benefit to that player.
2 Artifacts
One would be hard-pressed to find a Commander deck that does not include artifacts. A staple of the format, utility and mana-based artifacts are the cornerstone of any Commander deck and help to ensure that a deck is running smoothly.
Artifact decks in Commander take the utility that these powerful artifacts already possess and turn them up to eleven through the use of numerous artifact synergies. Due to the sheer scope of artifacts in Magic, these decks an be incredibly diverse and flexible, each utilizing artifacts in different ways.
Some of the most powerful artifact-based commanders include Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain who allows her controller to draw a card whenever they cast an artifact, and Urza, Lord High Artificer who allows artifacts to be tapped for blue mana.
1 Tribal
By and large the most popular deck archetypes in the Commander format are tribal decks. Decks that revolve around a selected creature type, Tribal decks are incredibly flavorful and synergistic, immediately providing a deck with a unique identity based on the tribe its built around.
While many tribal decks may have overlap and common similarities, no two tribes are the same, with each tribe coming along with its own strengths. Zombie-tribal decks are often a great starting point for players seeking graveyard-oriented strategies while elf-tribal is an excellent choice for those seeking to access great sums of mana.
NEXT: Artifacts That Could Fit in Nearly Any Commander Deck
