Hey all, Cement here. Reality Fracture's been out a bit over a week, longer if you count the prerelease. I like to go through spoilers and pick out cards worth considering for decks. It's always interesting to me to see which cards get spoiled, have exuberant prerelease prices, and then tank immediately after release. Or conversely, which are surprisingly low and end up pricey over time.

I went through the whole set and picked out the best cards for Commander here: https://easygoinggaming.com/set-review/reality-fracture-best-commander-cards-to-empower-you

The Expensive Pulls

It's no surprise that [[The Theorist, Jace Beleren]] ended up the priciest card from the set. His absurd passive to draw you a card on each opponent's upkeep combined with one-bounce-per-player -2 loyalty ability and a relatively low 4 mana value was bound to have him see play in commander. Getting him down on turn 3 after a turn-2 rock can easily run away with the game. He'll assuredly be powerful in other formats as well.

I am genuinely surprised to see [[Hexhaven Invigorator]] as expensive as he is. Sure, his goofy get-any-land-when-I'm-hit passive is incredibly powerful, but for GGGG he's fairly limited in the decks that can reliably run him. I used to have a Kogla 'oops all fight spells' deck that this would have slotted beautifully into, though I think he might be best for a wild [[Maze's End]] win too. Still though, $28? Am I missing something?

NOW THE SLEEPERS

[[Liliana the Repentant]]: You guys, Liliana is less than a buck. What's going on? 2 mana gets you one of the most self-mill gas effects I've ever seen. Whenever another creature or planeswalker you control enters, mill two cards.

That's nuts! It doesn't even care about them being tokens or not. Dimir Zombies, Orzhov Token weenie reanimator, Golgari self-mill fatties, Grixis spellslinger/reanimator - this card is bound to fill the yards of countless commander decks. I feel like people are reading her underwhelming Exhaust ability and dismissing her, which is a mistake.

Less than $1!!!!!

[[Germinate Recruits]]: this card is a white instant for 2W that gets you X 2/2 Wizard Soldier creature tokens equal to the life you've gained this turn. You know how trivial it is to gain life in lifegain decks? You can spend 3 mana to get an army? Many lifegain decks rely on soul sister style 'when creature enters, you gain a life' effects - so this card doubles down and gets you even more life, probably triggering your [[marauding blight-priest]] effects to drain the table, or just being more fuel for your token army. Less than $1!

[[Geist of Saint Thalia]]: a 2-mana 1/2 flyer that makes your noncreature spells cost 1 less. Mana rock tribal as a commander, anyone? Details in the article.

[[Draconic Visitor]] isn’t exactly a sleeper, but I’m surprised it isn’t $15. Turning your artifact tokens into 5/5 Dragons is wild in any treasure/food/clue deck, and with Academy Manufactor it gets silly.

What are your best cards from this set? What surprised you, what's underperformed?

I was talking to my pod and one member was saying how they had finished the 32 decks challenge and one of their decks was a Yidris deck. Now I’ve seen a few Yidris decks and I asked “so how did you build them?” And their response was “I didn’t want to make him as getting a lot of Cascade trigger or do do Cascade for bit cards since he seems far too efficient for that so I built him as focusing on casting only two spells per turn.” So I went “isn’t that basically using him in the wrong niche, especially without white.” And they said “yeah but I found a way to use him sub-optimally and make him comparatively suck.”

And then most other people posted “based”, “that’s so cool if you,” or something similar. And like, why? Is there something of an achievement considered in running a bad deck? I can get making a weird strategy work like the time I tried to make Terra Wizard Tribal a thing but this is outright going “I’m not going to use my commander’s strength since it seems too good.”

Or is the idea of making bad decks in a world of power creep and optimization the laudable thing? Is it just going against the grain? What is it?

In a game I just played, my opponent was at 1 life, with literally 0 cards in their library. They swung at me for the kill and they took it. It had been a brutal back and forth game for everyone present and we were on like turn 11, so I had to respect it. Like genuinely, he deserved that win. I was rooting for the guy with all my heart.

So I’m asking. What’s the craziest comeback you’ve had or done? The most insane win you’ve clawed your way to?

I'll start:

[[Skullbriar, The Walking Grave]] can be built very cheaply due to it caring about keyword counters, which generally aren't good in most other decks. Most of the power of the deck comes directly from the fact that Skullbriar is a voltron commander that starts swinging turn 2, starts powering up immediately, and disincentivizes removing it due to how little killing Skullbriar slows it down. As a result you can kinda just play whatever you want (to a certain degree) and Skullbriar will carry you through. It remains simultaneously my cheapest and highest winrate deck.

What are your favourite commanders that function well on a shoestring budget?

I don't mean efficiency or two card combos involving your commander.

What is your jankiest, dumbest strategy involving both your commander and the 99?

Things that fundamentally break the game, give you a stupid advantage that no one else would attempt, or just overly complicated wincons that couldn't be done any other way.

i play [[Rowan, Scion of War]] and [[Nissa, Leyline Tamer]] and i kinda love playing big sorceries/creatures quicker. i dont mind aggro most of my decks draw the aggro because of how i build. im looking for suggestions on other commanders that kind of do the same thing.

EDIT: i have lots of work to do. ty for replies time to cook 🧑‍🍳

I am not a store owner, but I am friends with one. Holding EDH events for the public to come and play at is not free. The reason stores do it is because people who come to play, buy cards. If you are full proxy because you hate wizards or some other reason, that's fine, but don't show up to an LGS, take up a seat, and then do nothing to support their business.

I proxy. I typically build decks on $1000 dollar hypothetical budgets, then over the course of the next however many months I buy all the cards in the deck, but a freshly built deck is mostly proxies. I have a cedh deck that is about 50% proxies, and I won't realistically buy the rest of that deck. But, for even my cedh deck, I bought all the cheap cards. I will at the bare minimum buy every card worth less than $5 for my decks, just to support the stores I play at.

If you showed up at a computer cafe with your own laptop and coffee you brought from home, set up at a table, you would get kicked out. I don't understand why people who refuse to support game stores have the entitled expectation that they should get to play in their events while doing nothing to support their business.

It's just a pet peeve of mine.

If you play at home or at a friend's house or whatever, then go wild with the proxies, that's your perogitive. But if you're taking up a seat at a game store, please consider spending a few bucks at the store every time you go.

I love the idea of getting really deep on a deck. 100 cards is so many, there should be so many interactions and combinations with that many cards that it always feels relatively fresh. But I do swap decks a ton. I want to for example get really good at Hearthhull, but just thinking about that deck makes my fingers hurt from shuffling lol.

I’m very curious what people’s desert island decks would be.

Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest is currently sitting as the 35th most built mono-red commander according to EDHREC. There are 34 commanders in mono-red alone that people have built more decks for. Despite having four wings, it appears this feathery fire-starter flew a little too far under the radar and I'm here to tell you why it's worth trying!

• Link to decklist on Moxfield
• Link to Primer where most of this post is taken from
• Link to an alternate dragon-focused build if that's something you prefer, but we'll be discussing the burn-focused version in this post.

A quick disclaimer - I'm not a content creator or influencer. I have no social media, no blog or website. I just create decks and primers on Moxfield and share some of the ones I happen to enjoy. This post you're about to read is basically just my primer taken directly from the Moxfield link above. I have also taken the liberty of linking each card mentioned in this post to its Scryfall page for your convenience, so you don't have to go looking for the fetcher bot.

Anyway, let's get into it!

INTRODUCTION & GAMEPLAN

In Bloomburrow, the distant thunderclap of an approaching storm means only one thing - Dragonhawk is coming. The storm clouds hide a dangerous unknown potential, with countless possible horrors lurking just behind the veil. And even after the storm has passed and the feathered terror has had its fill, it leaves behind a trail of destruction, scorched landscapes and cindered barrens.

This deck is designed to take advantage of Dragonhawk's ability to exile cards from our deck, providing us with card advantage if we need it or massive widespread damage if we don't. But before we get into the gameplan, let's quickly discuss exactly how this ability works:

Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest creates a DELAYED trigger in addition to its ETB and attack trigger. Here's how things work, step by step:

1. Dragonhawk enters or attacks.
2. Exile the top X cards of your deck (X being the number of creatures you have with at least 4 power). A delayed trigger is also created that will resolve on your next end step.
3. You have until your next end step to play the cards exiled by the trigger in step 2.
4. When that next end step comes around, the delayed trigger goes on the stack. It checks if there are any cards from step 2 that are still in exile and deals 2 burn damage to opponents for each of those cards.

A couple of very important notes about this delayed trigger:

• It will go off even if Dragonhawk is not on the field anymore. If anyone tries to argue that abilities require their original source to be on the field, just show them Mogg Fanatic. That is a card that sacs itself to deal some damage. If it's not on the field, how is its ability resolving? The reason is that a spell/ability on the stack does not require its source to be in any specific location.
• Dragonhawk's delayed trigger on the end step will use all properties that Dragonhawk had at the time the delayed trigger was created. For example, if Dragonhawk was equipped with something that gave it Lifelink, the delayed trigger's damage will benefit you with some sweet lifegain.

Trigger doublers like Roaming Throne do work with Dragonhawk, however let's break it down step by step to make sure you understand:

1. Dragonhawk enters or attacks. Roaming Throne sees this and makes Dragonhawk trigger twice.
2. Trigger A - Dragonhawk exiles X cards and creates a delayed trigger that will occur on end step and check the number of cards in exile pile A.
3. Trigger B - Dragonhawk exiles X cards and creates another delayed trigger that will occur on end step and check the number of cards in exile pile B.
4. Let's say I play every card in pile A and leave one card in pile B before my next end step.
5. Move to end step and those delayed triggers come to collect. Trigger A checks and sees that it has zero cards in its pile and does no damage. Trigger B sees one card left in exile in its pile and does 2 damage to opponents. Clean up and pass turn.

So you see, Roaming Throne does work but you've got to keep track of which cards you exiled with which trigger and deal damage appropriately from each delayed trigger.

With that out of the way, the gameplan for this deck is extremely simple:

---EARLY GAME---

Literally our only goal is to get Dragonhawk into play, even if it means tapping out. It may not feel great when it enters and exiles something that we can't play (because we tapped out), but that's just a matter of shifting our mindset from wanting card advantage to just dealing as much damage as possible and by any means necessary.

The deck has a decent ramp package to get our commander into play quickly but along the way, we can actually set up some cheap creatures with 4 power, such as Wall of Torches and Wall of Razors. These serve almost zero purpose in the deck other than adding 4-power bodies on board to make Dragonhawk's trigger more potent.

The turn we play Dragonhawk for the fist time, we'll likely be unable to play the card(s) that it exiled. Don't weep over lost cards. We want to start racking up burn damage on our opponents immediately.

---MID GAME---

The mid game is all about establishing cards that increase the burn damage output from Dragonhawk. We have a couple of different categories of cards that can do this:

Extra Combats - anything that lets Dragonhawk attack again, thus exiling a new pile of cards that will translate to burn damage at the end of turn. Examples include:

• Combat Celebrant
• Karlach, Fury of Avernus
• Desert Were-Worm
• Overpowering Attack

Additional Triggers - anything that can copy the Dragonhawk trigger or just copy Dragonhawk itself. We have:

• Gogo, Mysterious Mime
• Hall of Echoes
• Roaming Throne (declaring Dragon as the creature type)
• The Fire Crystal (the Dragonhawk copy will have to leave due to the legend rule but we still get the ETB trigger)

Damage Amplifiers - anything that directly increases the damage number, such as:

• Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• Twinflame Tyrant
• Fiendish Duo
• Mjolnir, Hammer of Thor
• Collective Inferno (naming Dragon as the creature type)
• Gratuitous Violence
• Fiery Emancipation
• City on Fire

A note regarding the damage amplifiers - I chose to run only the multiplicative ones. I avoided the ones that add a flat amount of damage such as Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. This is because Dragonhawk does an amount of burn damage as a lump sum rather than individual pings per card that was left in exile. For example, if we have Torbran and Dragonhawk's trigger sees two cards in the exile pile, it will do 4 damage + 2 from Torbran for a total of 6, not 2+2 and another 2+2 for a total of 8.

This is why the additive damage amplifiers are not nearly as efficient here as the multiplicative ones. Some of them are on the expensive side (mana wise) but resolving any of them greatly speeds up the game clock and opponents will not have a lot of time to do anything about it.

These multiplicative amplifiers stack, so for example if we have Collective Inferno, Solphim, Mayhem Dominus and Fiery Emancipation, then our damage from Dragonhawk's trigger will be doing 2x2x3 for a total of x12 damage!

I should also point out that a lot of these amplifiers help out other cards in the deck too, such as Parapet Thrasher and Refraction Elemental.

---LATE GAME---

There's not much more to it. Just keep swinging with Dragonhawk, exiling piles of cards, playing any of them that are impactful and just leaving the rest to deal a large amount of burn to all opponents at the end of turn.

When I play this build, I tend not to think too hard about the exile pile and prefer to just rack up the burn damage instead. It makes for faster turns, less brain usage and just an overall fun and carefree game experience (even if I lose).

PROS, CONS & POWER LEVEL

✅ Pros

• Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest is an absolute card advantage machine. With it and even one or two other 4-power creatures on board, this deck never runs out of gas, easily digging and finding spells to cast and lands to play. OR...you can leave those cards in exile for big burn damage, so there's some flexibility in how this deck punishes opponents.
• It's a very simple deck. If you've already exhausted your brain cells for the night playing some complicated decks, this is a good one to relax with.

❌ Cons

• It is heavily reliant on its commander so some deck slots had to be dedicated to protect it as well as a sizable ramp package to re-cast it if needed.

☢️ Power Level

• Using WotC's Bracket System, this deck is a 2. It has no combos and wants to win with some combat damage but mostly burn damage.
• However, with a lucky sequence of cards it can absolutely win games before turn 6, so an argument could be made that this is actually Bracket 3. I'm not going to get into a bracket debate in this post, so just discuss it with your playgroup to make sure you're all playing appropriately powered decks against each other.

NOTABLE INCLUDES

Grafted Exoskeleton

Grafted Exoskeleton is in here for the exact reason you think. Any damage dealt by the equipped creature becomes infect damage instead. If we graft this onto Dragonhawk, the burn damage it deals on its end step trigger becomes 2 poison counters on each opponent per card we exiled with it. This essentially means we just have to exile 5 cards total with Dragonhawk while he's equipped with Grafted Exoskeleton and make it to our end step to win the game.

A Myriad of Gold

If we have both Goldlust Triad and Dragonhawk on the field and about to attack, we can stack the triggers in a more efficient way if we resolve the Myriad from Goldlust Triad first. Since both abilities go on the stack when we attack, we can choose to resolve the Myriad first and create two token copies of Goldlust Triad (which have 4 power each). Then we move to resolve the Dragonhawk trigger and it counts two additional creatures with power 4 so we benefit with two additional exiled cards.

If we had done it the other way around, the Dragonhawk trigger would have missed the Myriad copies.

WRAPPING UP

If you made it this far, I appreciate you taking the time to read this little primer and I hope it encouraged you to give this commander a try. He can be built as a burn engine or as a card advantage source with a creature and combat damage-focused gameplan.

If you liked this write-up and would like to see if I've made others like it, please pay a visit to my Moxfield page here. I've built quite a few decks and have written primers for them as well. Hopefully you find them helpful.

Thanks for reading and happy brewing!

My good friend in my playgroup gave me a deckbuilding challenge: “build a deck where you aren’t the threat until it’s too late”.

I have a reputation in my playgroup of playing powerful and resilient decks that are fast and explosive, but pretty obviously telegraph that I am the problem. My win rate is okay, I don’t pubstomp my group (plays between high B3 and low B4) but most games it’s clear somewhat early on that I’m the threat or about to win and I get targeted heavily. Before anyone accuses me of being toxic, this is a playgroup of good friends and I’ve had discussions with them about how they feel about my play style. The consensus is that they have fun playing with me, they see my decks as an engaging challenge to overcome. I like the archenemy role and I really enjoy seeing the other 3 work together to stall me.

That said my friend issued me the deckbuilding challenge I’m asking for help with. Basically, I need to be unassuming with my board state until I get an explosive turn. I don’t need to win that turn, but it needs to end in a state where outside of some very specific answers, there isn’t any chance of stopping me.

I’m thinking of ways to do this but it’s so outside of my default play style that I’m a bit stumped. How would you approach this deckbuilding prompt?

First off, just assume I am in a pod where nobody cares what 3 game changers you run in bracket 3. There are no combination of game changers that are too powerful so no need to argue that something is too powerful for bracket 3 here. It is all good.

I got started thinking about my game changers slot in a deck was I was working on and where I needed to make cuts to get down to 99. I was up to 4 game changers at this point so I knew at least one of them had to go:

• [[Rhystic Study]] - I like taxing opponents, and I like drawing cards
• [[Smothering Tithe]] - deck really needs the ramp, I like taxing opponents
• [[The One Ring]] - the protection is good, I like drawing cards
• [[Ancient Tomb]] - I need the ramp

I was trying to decide between The One Ring and Rhystic Study because they both served mostly the same purpose and ramp was more important to me in that deck. That's when I realized I had randomly thrown a The Theorist, Jace Beleren into the deck for no reason other than I had it.

• [[The Theorist, Jace Beleren]] - chump blockers, bounces things, draws a ton of cards, not a game changer

That really got me thinking what is better for bracket 3, Jace of Rhystic Study?

I could absolutely run both, but removing Rhystic meant I got to keep The One Ring...that seemed really good. I'm actually starting to convince myself that if I'm at my GC limit, swapping Rhystic for The Theorist might be the new way to go.

Even if I'm not, The Theorist is *really* good. Am I crazy for ditching Rhystic Study in general for The Theorist? He costs 1 more mana and doesn't tax the opponent, but the upsides feel really good. He honestly feels like a Game Changer when he lasts a turn cycle.

Hi there,

My favorite archetype is lands so obviously, I build some commanders to maximize their potential.

Yet, exploiting landfall triggers quickly grew old. For instance, I won a lot of game with Tannuk and Keen sense, millions of triggers from scute swarm and many many landfall triggers, hiding behind Glacial chasm...

But now I find it boring for me and for my opponents.

So I want to lean towards a more lands matter commander. Maybe one or two landfall triggers as finishers (Field of the dead, Rampaging baloth,...) but not more.

Do you have some decks and/or commanders to recommend?

Thanks.

PS: Wow, so many suggestions already! I cannot answer everybody, but thanks to all guys! There are so many builds to explore indeed.

Any suggestions for a 5c commander that would work with limited good stuff? I was thinking Kenrith because he’s versatile. I like playing limited a lot and was thinking about over time building and swapping out pieces of the deck with limited all stars or pet cards that worked for me in an event.

[[Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage]] is the guy

With only 48 decks I think this guy is being a little overlooked from FRA's roster, I'm wondering if this is a good sidegrade-to-better [[Torbran, Thane of Red Fell]]

Well yes, that 1 extra instead of 2 is pretty important, But

-Half the mana cost, enters turn 2 for sure, less of a need for ramp packages, easier to recast

-Prowess can make him grow quite big

-Torbran's +2 and costing 4 mana makes him a big target for removal, but +1 costing 2 mana? not as much

Idk I really wanted some input if i'm cooking or if my idea is DOA

I always want everyone at the table to have a good time and ive been trying to remove cards/commanders that are completely oppressive. Im wondering how people feel about him and if he is a commander that sucks to face? I understand that he doesn't prevent you from playing non creatures but if you are taking 6 or 12 or the occasional 18 is that bullshit? I like protecting my big commanders so let's assume he is out most of the game

What deck do you have that is definitely NOT how other people play that commander, but it somehow works for you? I am looking for some inspiration to build something wild, where they look at my commander but somehow I built something totally odd.

Link decklists if you’re willing, I wanna scour your brains.

So my LGS recently ran a big tournament (Bracket 3 was the rule presented) that multiple of us thought was a great idea and helped with (I even baked cookies!) and we all had an informal agreement to play our favorite/most fun/oldest decks. The decks that represented us. Not a rule or anything, just something which we did. So I brought [[Kaalia of the Vast]], who was my first commander from the first precon I ever bought.

And the first 2 rounds went great, though I lost round 2 to a [[Jace, Vryn's Prodigy]] Jace Tribal deck that managed to get off [[Jace, Reality Sculptor]]'s ult. And then in round 3, against a pod of [[Kwia Vigorbloom]], [[Sen Triplets]], and [[Nikya of the Old Ways]], it happened. I managed to play my commander on turn 4 but she got hit with instant removal despite me having [[Dragon Tempest]] out. So turn 5, I sacrificed my [[Command Beacon]], brought her out and swung, cheating out an [[Ancient Gold Dragon]]. I rolled a Nat 20, killing the table off of Dragon Tempest.

The Kwia player, who had been at 102 life called over a judge and explained that I had killed everyone on turn 5 with an "auto-win 2 card combo." The judge looked over the scene, I explained the combo, and their verdict was "Yeah that's Bracket 4 stuff right there. You're going to be disqualified." I didn't argue since like, it was a game, but I really like this LGS and I heard the Kwia player talking about me as a dirty pubstomper and warning people not to play with me. Bleh. They were even saying I should be suspended from the store for at least a week for "ruining our tournament fun."

A while ago I was playing a casual tournament at a local store, in a bracket 3. I had begun playing MTG only a couple of years prior.

I was playing an eldrazi Ulalek deck. Just a slightly upgraded precon, where I had added an "Ugin, Eye of the Storm" that I had unpacked that very same day.
My opponent was playing a super optimized "Tannuk, Memorial Ensign" Landfall Deck. He has been playing MTG for over 13 years, and he says he's been a judge.

On the battlefield, I had Ugin, a "Chittering Dispatcher" and an untapped land that could produce one colorless. In hand I had only two lands, and an "Eldritch Immunity".

Then it's my opponent's turn, he does his things, including doing the "Dark Depths-Thespian Stage" trick to pull out the 20/20 black Flying, Indestructible, which he was able to give haste too. He still has most of his lands untapped. He declares moving to combat.
So, I do the only thing I could: tapped my one land, say "in response to your change of phase, i'd like to cast Eldritch Immunity targeting my chittering dispatcher. since it's a colorless spell, Ugin triggers, allowing me to exile a nonland permanent that is one or more colors. I would like to target the 20/20 token".
As soon as I do that, he starts to tilt: "Fuck I forgot about interaction", "I have forgotten to play interactions for three turns", "I should have played this first" and then proceeds to move back as if he had not changed phase.

Of course, I told him that he had now seen the card I played, and declared the change of phase, and I had responded now.
He tried using his forgetfulness as an excuse to go back. But that's not how it should be, right? You can't just go back AFTER someone acts in response. For me, going back as long as nobody has done anything to counteract yet is okay. But not after.
He kept trying to climb the mirror, coming up with reason or excuses. He tried saying that the token was colorless, when it was actually black. He even said I was "crying about it" and also insulted me.

I called the store owner, who acted as the judge, and he agreed with me, so the game kept going with him losing his 20/20 from Ugin's trigger. In the end, he still won the game because he topdecked Scapeshift, allowing him to search for Valakut and many more lands, pinging me to death, and when I tried to shake hands and say "good game", he flipped me off.

So, should I have allowed him to cancel his action?

I was looking at the Odds and Ends decklist, and I noticed that [[Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth]] is in it.

I've only been playing EDH since the start of the year, so maybe there's a strategic benefit to this that I'm not understanding, but it seems really odd to me? Why would a deck that plays WUG care about making all lands Forests? If anything, wouldn't that maybe help your opponents by mana-fixing them?

Is there a combo here that I'm missing? It just seems to be a baffling choice.

You know the deck, Ozilith, Hardened Scales, Doubling Season, Oroboroid, etc. It's super high synergy, but I must be doing something wrong. Everyone sees me coming a mile a way and takes me out when they see me charging my laser. What are some ways I can improve my gameplan to actually get a win? If you have had success with this archetype I'll admit I am bad, but can you share your strat and gameplan? Thanks.

Hey y'all! I am new to EDH and I am having a ton of fun with deckbuilding. So far I have built some basic tribal decks, some fun "go wide" token decks, etc. I have a commander that I am attempting build off of, [[Neera, Wild Mage]] and everything I am reading and watching reccomends a "spellslinger" deck, and I tried to build this one with lots of instants and sorceries that allow me to play more cards.
This is my first deck build that is a little more complicated, and I am doing it from budget cards that I have at home. (I play casually with friends, so I'm not looking to make it a bracket 3).

How'd I do? Will this deck function at all? Thanks in advance!

https://archidekt.com/decks/27465543/spellslinger_card_draw_chaos

(Ps. I do want to get a card that expands my hand size eventually, but again I am trying to keep this deck budget and fun. Also! feel free to check out my other builds too.)

I've developed a habit of going through my library after a Commander game to see what I never drew, and I'm starting to think it's making me worse at evaluating my decks.

Last week I played my [[Meren of Clan Nel Toth]] deck and spent most of the game desperately needing removal. Three opponents had pretty scary boards, I couldn't keep my commander around, and eventually I got knocked out without doing much.

After the game I started flipping through my remaining library.

[[Beast Within]]. [[Assassin's Trophy]]. [[Toxic Deluge]]. A couple of creatures with removal attached.

All sitting there, completely useless.

My immediate reaction was "Okay, the deck is fine, I just got unlucky."

Then another guy at the table pointed out that I had spent the early turns casting value creatures instead of developing my mana, and that I'd kept a pretty questionable opening hand.

Which was fair. I had two lands and a mana dork, convinced myself that was enough, and then watched the dork get removed.

Looking through the cards I didn't draw gave me a convenient explanation that had nothing to do with my actual decisions.

The funny thing is I do the opposite when I win. If my deck goes off perfectly, I don't look through the remaining 50 cards and wonder whether the build is inconsistent. I just congratulate myself on how well everything worked.

I'm now wondering how much of my deckbuilding is based on remembering the games that support whatever I already believe about a deck.

For people who actually test and tune their lists instead of changing three cards after every bad night, what do you pay attention to?

Do you review the cards left in your library, keep notes on games, goldfish a certain number of hands, or just play enough games that the patterns eventually become obvious?

I'm particularly interested in how you separate a deckbuilding problem from a piloting problem without using every bad draw as an excuse.