r/EDH • u/Coinflxp • 17h ago
Question How do you make a powerful deck without it becoming lame?
I've got this issue where I find that any time one of my decks starts performing really well, I get incredibly bored of it. My pod mostly plays in mid to upper level bracket 3, and sometimes one of the decks I'll put together will go off. But then it always devolves into either taking endless solitaire turns, taxing the hell out of people, or just picking one person and suddenly they're dead.
I find more interactive games to be a lot more fun, so I don't really know how to make any commander better without making it unfun for myself or other people. Just for an example, I think the lamest powerful decks are +1/+1 counter decks. Tell me how many +1/+1 decks you've seen that are actually interesting to play again? "I play [[hardened scales]], [[branching evolution]], and more simic slop." It's the same deck every time. Same thing with Landfall and Impact Tremors.
The issue is that I'll try to build around interesting concepts, just to end up extremely underpowered at the table. I built a deck around Helix Pinnacle, cause it's a funny card, that deck has never won a game. Same thing for more niche commanders like [[Saint Traft and Rem Karolus]] or [[Insperia the Inscrutable]]. I can make the decks stronger by including hundred dollar cards or giving them generic value pieces, but that isn't interesting. You know?
Probably just a deck building skill issue, but I wanted to hear other people's input. How do you make a deck that can hang in upper level bracket without it becoming lame win after lame win.
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u/jaywinner 17h ago
Seems the issue is that there is no overlap between things you enjoy and this that are effective in high bracket 3. You'll either need to learn to like something that's strong enough or forge a deck with a strategy you enjoy and power it up to compete.
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u/GT_2second 17h ago
Avoid staples and embrace the less played cards that fits your theme
Find underthemes that can be good in your deck (exemple: dredge in a graveyard reanimator deck)
Avoid strategies that are frowned upon. Stategies like poison/infect, combo and extra turns.
Lean into the Strength of your colors. It''s useless to build a control deck in red but red is the best color at killing someone at instant speed though burns when they show their win condition
Test your deck and see if it can win on turn 7 without any interactions from your opponents
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u/Solaries3 17h ago
Avoid "good stuff" cards. Play b2-3. Constrain yourself with a theme or goal.
My favorite deck is Esper Terra. I built it to play almost all of the summons cards from FF. It's a bit of a hassle, plays zero GCs, has plenty of weaknesses, but is a lot of fun to pilot and to build.
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u/Revolutionary-Eye657 15h ago
More powerful decks are only lame when the rest of the table cant handle the power.
If the table is balanced, higher power is more interactive than lower power, not less.
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u/AntiMatterXer0 17h ago
Decks that play off politics.
At least, for me, I get more engagement and less hate for actually PLAYING with my pod.
Vazi, Keen Negotiator is my best politician for early game. The deck already gives me plenty of treasure so I use her as a bargaining chip.
Goad is also a great effect since players get 'shy' when it comes to playing their big bads and leads to a stall. I run Rocco for this deck (so I'm less of a threat due to his impulse draw) but there are better commanders for goading.
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u/TheJonasVenture 15h ago
We have different preferences, I like playing with and against powerful decks and strategies, I do not find them lame, so I don't know how much advice I can give.
I build decks that consistently do a thing, and if I want to do something different I switch decks. I'm lucky to be have played a long time and have a collection where I can have a variety of decks together at once.
I will say, my experience is pretty different on what games are interactive. In my experience, those lower power games are way less interactive. Creatures on board swinging at each other, the occasional piece of removal or a wipe, but otherwise people just march forward. In higher power games you start to see stack battles, you see removal please don't need at specific engines and then fighting over it. When every deck is tuned to either push and win, or defend against that play pattern, while yes, sometimes someone just sales through, usually, people are ready, the push starts a chain of interaction and protection and denial, and the game starts swinging back and forth between engines and combos and pushes. The most interactive magic I've ever played is cEDH, probably followed by Dandan.
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u/shakkyz 17h ago edited 17h ago
As power level goes up, so does the amount of interaction played.
+1/+1 will battle-cruise its way to wins in bracket 2 and sometimes bracket 3, but itâll start to have issues in bracket 4.
So, it sounds like you need to actually power up a bracket 3 deck that interacts with the board and controls the pace of the game. Maybe something like mid-ranged Yâshtola with things like [[Propoganda]], [[Ghostly Prison]], [[Sudden Substitution]], [[Lavinia, Azorius Renegade]], [[Fumble]], [[Volatile Stormdrake]].
Edit: i think itâs a you problem on why youâre not finding things interesting. If +1/+1 decks are rolling over your niche/jank decks, they obviously have a glaring weakness to big boards/combat damage.
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u/tangosur 15h ago
Agree here. Count the number of interactive cards you have in a deck. If itâs single digit, you are likely too light. Personally, I like to be closer to 20 than say 10. Really helps if you can find interaction thatâs âon-themeâ and thereful pulls double duty. Eg walking ballista in a +1/+1 counter deck or plaguecrafter in self sac deck
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u/majic911 17h ago
I'm a very experienced deckbuilder that has built many powerful decks I've enjoyed and eventually fallen out of love with. Especially if you have a consistent playgroup that doesn't change decks a lot, you can only do the thing so many times before it gets boring. While I absolutely love the deck I built for it, [[The Council of Four]] plays pretty much the same every time.
You can throw hundred-dollar cards into a deck and still have it be fun. I personally like playing "goodstuff" decks that don't have a clear plan. If your deck has no plan other than "play good, sound Magic", it plays completely differently every time. Then you can throw in $50+ powerhouses and still be at the proper power level because you're not abusing those cards, they're just there.
Below is an example of my current goodstuff baby, helmed by [[Damia, Sage of Stone]]. Despite being quite expensive and stuffed with a lot of scary cardboard, it's pretty firmly bracket 2, even with a Game Changer. If I wanted it to be bracket 3, I'd swap Damia for [[Muldrotha, the Gravetide]] and probably play a couple more counterspells.
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u/tangosur 15h ago
This is good advice. Building on it, I find it fun to have multiple ways to win in a deck. In my Omo deck, I can win via marit lage, mazesâs end with gates and everything counters, big mana into scalable card, or a kraken army from spawning kraken and making critters unblockable.
I tend to stay away from decks where you must have your commander to win or commander is part of every win-con. Leads to too much samey-ness.
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u/hydroa85 15h ago
Sounds like the problem is in your deck building/gameplay styles. There are plenty of ways to be strong and interesting at the same time and you're limiting your fun/creativity by only looking into instant wins and combo's
A personal favourite is any kind of clone deck as they allow you to run loads of different, interesting creatures that all end up doubling up on their value or even becoming wincons in themselves. Every card is flexible in its use and you have so many possibilities with your board
Another, more specific example is just to make a powerful deck with a lot of individually interesting pieces that you enjoy seeing. I've made a [[Dihada, Binder of Wills]] deck that has a multitude of themes from lifegain, reanimation and equipment all based around swarming the field with high value and interesting legends. It won't win out of nowhere and is always a constant threat on the field, and has plenty of gameplay options every turn with reanimation targets and prioritising what legend to super buff
There's also theft so your game plan is all about working with what you get.
Basically any deck where the individual parts excite you when you draw them is the answer. If you've enjoyed the effects of all the cards you've played, then losing isn't as bad and victory is even more fun. If all your cards are boring, then you won't enjoy the victory
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u/Eugenides Kamiz&Kadena 13h ago
Incorporate sub-themes so that when your deck "does the thing," the thing it is doing might be different. I have a deck that can win by going wide with anthems, pinging everyone to death with a very quick storm turn, or drawing 60 cards with [[Psychosis Crawler]] out.Â
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u/ChronicallyIllMTG The Everything Machine 10h ago
https://moxfield.com/decks/KKqZ7nCHXUaT3eKnQTYMSw
This is a fun b2 deck I've been playing you should consider trying out this deck and trying b2 games instead. (They're far more fun imo)
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u/cinnathebun 17h ago
Build a theft deck, itâll scale with however powerful your opponents are and it adds variety to every game since you never know what youâre gonna get.
I built one using [[maralen, fae ascendant]] that was pretty fun but there are tons of commanders in different colors.
You could build a non-deterministic deck. I have a friend who made a cascade, polymorph sort of deck where he fills the deck with random but powerful creatures and cheats them out. He changes the cards regularly so even he gets surprised by what he gets.
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u/Gussie18 17h ago
I LOVE my Maralen, Fae Ascendent deck and there is so many good elves and faeries that you can keep switching them out!
I also have [[Kiega, The Tide Star]] which is also a theft deck but itâs focused around making copies of Kiega that will be sacced due to the legend rule and using his death trigger to steal creatures.
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u/Rsoller 17h ago
I have built 2 decks so far that are designed to support play, meaning ramp, mana base, and card draw, but the core and core support can be adjusted quickly or easily.
[[Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain]] which draws off Historic spells and [[Chulane, Teller of Tales]], where I build various creature cores to change the "Tale". I currently have OG EDH, Mutate, and recurring creature cores built.
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u/DOOMFOOL 17h ago
I love playing my hearthhull deck because it has so many different possible wincons. I also have a kuja deck that can be very fun to play, I tend to enjoy burn or group slug type decks over anything else. I guess just try to find an archetype you genuinely like and focus on making that deck work without becoming too oppressive if you want to stay b3
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u/Fun_Imagination_934 17h ago
đ€Šđ». Nobody can answer that question for you because if they could - theyâd All be clones of you.
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u/NoLoquat347 17h ago edited 17h ago
I know what you mean. At some point a deck will lose it's charm if you streamline it too much. I moved away from doing stupid combo bs and putting tutors in all my decks.
I have also started working toward building one of every color combo, with varying strategies. It helps keep some freshness in strategies. Something else that has helped with that is building thematic decks that do not fit their color schemes. Like a golgari deck with no reanimator subtheme, or an orzhov spell slinger grouphug.
I will always build my decks with synergies and value in mind, but adding these little themes of humans with tokens tribal or whatever will add an element of flavor that is enjoyable.
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u/elting44 The Golgari don't bury their dead, they plant them. 16h ago
Run more cards that are net fun for the table.
[[Coveted Jewel]], cards with Monarch, [[Bucknard's Everfull Purse]], secret council/will of the council cards, [[Crown of Doom]]
Stop looking at EDH as a game you are trying to win, look at it as a game that you are trying to have fun, and if you might happen to win, hell yeah, nice bonus.
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u/artdz 15h ago
don't use the common slop and most expensive best versions when you are playing a extremely powerful commander/theme. If you're playing a weak concept that's when you can power it up and use good lands and best versions of cards to maintain power level parity better.
I think winning outright is much better then doing stuff like long solitaire turns or softlocks. Save that kinda stuff for playing bracket 4-5.
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u/ragnarokda 15h ago
There's a new mono green commander coming out thah works really well with stuff like helix pinnacle. The one that lets you change X in a cost to 5.
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u/rodrigothomas_ 14h ago
I am really enjoying my Avengers Assemble deck of counters +1/+1 :(
What I find interesting of it is that I made other lines to win with it and not only the usual âI hit faceâ strategy attacking everyone. Other challenge I put myself with this deck is that want this deck to be flavorful, so no other expansions Iâve used in building it other than Marvel Super Heroes.
But I feel the way you say around other decks, usually, when I win itâs just me being a bigger threat or with the other lines no one expect from this kind of decks.
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u/VampireSaint Turn-2 Henzie 4-Life 14h ago
To over simplify:
The more "underpowered" your strategy the more you'll, likely, need to lean on powerful individual peaces.
The stronger/more popular your strategy the more options you'll have for "subpar" inclusions.
You can build an aristocrats deck without ever touching the top tier cards, but to reach the same power with a lesser supported game plan will likely need stronger individual card to lift the rest up.
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u/Goliad_stormo 14h ago
I would counter that +1/+1 counter decks are naturally not that strong. They require a board state and then to develop it and make it strong. There are lots of strong decks that are not the lame things you mentioned. Namely control decks that are heavy interaction until a combo or set up that people can't deal with would be right up your alley
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u/TychoSean 14h ago
Donât play to win, play to have fun. If my deck does its âthingâ and I enjoy myself then I consider that a success. If I end up winning thatâs just the cherry on top. If you play like that thereâs no such thing as âlame win after lame winâ because the games are seldom lame whether you win or not. If your enjoyment is predicated on winning then youâll keep falling into the same patterns that youâre obviously not into. Switch up your goals from victory to good times instead.
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u/Odd-Chipmunk5681 13h ago
I recommend theft decks because the nature of them means games go differently every time based on what your opponents are playing and require a lot of improvisation. I prefer [[Don Andres]] as my theft commander of choice because every game has the minigame side quest of stealing my opponents commanders and turning them into pirates. [[MASKWOOD NEXUS]] is an mvp in the deck because I can steal opponents tribal synergy payoffs and use them for my own creatures.
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u/Scribblebonx 12h ago
Theft decks have an added bonus in that they get rid of all your friends so you never get the chance to play them so much that they get boring.
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u/Odd-Chipmunk5681 12h ago
I have never had friends crash out over my theft deck. Your friends must be very emotionally fragile.
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u/Scribblebonx 12h ago
It's just a joke. They're well known for being poorly received decks. But sure, my friends are emotionally fragile. I can get behind that. They're also butt ugly and THEY SUCK AT MAGIC!!!
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u/Arthurwestwood 12h ago
One of the problems I have with my playgroup is my playstyle. I really like explosive turns that lead to a win out of nowhere, especially when using little known cards and interactions. A friend of mine called it "sneak attack"; I don't even use straight out combos, as most of them are not even on the commander spellbook, but they do have the effect of taking out one or more opponents. From a power level perspective, these decks win more or less in the same amount of turns of my friends'; it's just that while they accumulate value over time, my playstyle is much more similar to a combo player, though the conditions of the table are much more important for my plans, while combo decks are just "I play these two-three cards and win regardless of anything and anyone".
While fun and scenic, this approach is unfun for the others especially when I play two decks in a row with this strategy. So what I ended up with is making toolbox decks that while not having a straight out midrange pile or sneak attack style, they can be quite strong and differentiated due to their amount of different solutions to the board. Good examples are [[feldon of the third path]], [[silverquill, the disputant]] (perhaps don't build this one stax or with too much removal) and [[glarb, calamity's augur]]. Glarb is a good example of a very strong engine in the command zone that would be very powerful as a reanimator deck but I built it as a clone tribal with only a couple of reanimate cards, and the clones make it for a very entertaining and different time each game, while still adaptinf the power to the table.
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u/Relevant-Honeydew-12 Dimir 10h ago
Personally I love my high bracket 3 deck. I intentionally avoid infinite combos, or any hard locks.
Most of my games end pretty much the same an massive, uninteractable, unblockable commander swinging for lethal.
Some games are more interesting. Some games I end up bleed / draining the table out with my Aristocrats. Others I turn a losing board state into a winning one with a [[Singularity Rupture]] + [[Rise of the Dark Realms]] or [[Cyclonic Rift]].
Other times my 99 handles the game all on it's own.
https://archidekt.com/decks/24607430/sephiroth_aristocontrol
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u/wilsonifl 10h ago
You canât, because when people lose itâs not because they played bad or canât build cohesive and well performing decks. The reality is that itâs because you brought an overpowered deck to the table that was designed to make sure they couldnât have fun. The only way people have fun is by winning, so you need to only let them win or youâre the thief of peoples joy and you pub stomp. /s
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u/ded_possum 9h ago edited 9h ago
It started as a bracket 2 and Iâve been tinkering with it for 2 years. Itâs finally in a finished state and it is my most interesting deck to pilot. Ultimately the win conditions are the same but there are lots of lines. Itâs Simic but not reliant on counters at all.
Sometimes you have to wait for the cards to exist to push an interesting deck over the top. I like to use value engine commanders and build the deck relatively independent of them so that, by the time the deck engine is up and running, itâs too late to be shut down. Hope looking through this helps. Itâs B3 according to Archidekt but it contends at B4 tables.
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u/ded_possum 9h ago
Taking another approach, here is my Cait, Cage Brawler deck. You see it and you expect it to be counters and commander damage, but Cait is really about crafting a hand to dump tons of stuff on the table while forcing discard. Itâs a lot of fun and also takes various paths to victory.
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u/Ok_Community_383 8h ago
Winning is usually perceived as bad form. So if you do it too much, your deck is lame.
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u/Ok-Leg9721 8h ago
This is why I made a blue deck with as many copy effects as possible and an Etali deck with only Ramp and Etali as the only gameplan.
Its a riot to play your friends decks and have to figure out a win from random loot
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u/StrategicMagic 17h ago
You start by NOT using EDHREC.
I hate what that site has done to deckbuilding. At least for me, a deck is lame when it's the most cookie-cutter samey build as every other deck for that commander.
There are 7 Ur-Dragon players at my LGS. Their decks are all just them smashing all the best dragons and ramp together. When I ask them how they built it, they cite EDHREC...
Decks that start there get homogeneous very fast, and I think that's lamest of all. My suggestions are:
Avoid the most popular commander for each deck style. You want go-wide goblins? Sure! Play something other than Krenko and find a thing that commander does that Krenko can't, and build around that aspect. You still play go-wide goblins, but a bit different.
If you like a specific deck style supported by a lot of commanders, take one with one additional or less color in its identity. Find commanders that do the same thing, or close to it, but changing up the colors you play with keeps it fresh.
Avoid combos or single cards that feel like they win out of nowhere. I recommend running infinite combos OR tutors, but not both in the same deck. If you do, your game revolves to "tutor for the combo every game" and that will be lame for everyone.
For example, keep your infinite, announce it when you play one half of it, then start digging. Just the knowledge you're digging for the other half will put a clock on the table and change how they play and this is fun! By forcing yourself to dig instead of tutor, you pressure the table (mentally) and force them to i tract with you, while not immediately bringing the game to a boring end.
I know some of this feels like telling you to be a hipster and play weird stuff, but you don't have to. You can build for power, but do it in a way that surprises people, and, most importantly, HAVE EMPATHY IN DECKBUILDING.
Think about your deck as a game you are making for someone else to play. Consider what is/not fun to play against, what makes people leave the table miserable. Think about when you've had a bad play experience with other people's decks and don't do that.
It takes self control, but then you build a deck that's not only yours, but is one people are to sit at the table with multiple times.
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u/BreakerOfModpacks 13h ago
IMO, making decks which take some time to win works best. Which is, admittedly, not bracket 3.
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u/Chaosx3000 12h ago
Play more group hug decks! Theyâre not focused on solely winning, and more focused on making the table have fun while causing some chaos at the same time.
Not to say my decks canât win, cause they can in a few ways, but the interaction and politics is the focus and makes games more fun.
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u/Cynared 17h ago
Play bracket 2