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5C Partner Battle Box! 120 Decks in One!

Commander / EDH* Goodstuff Infinite Combo Primer Theme/Gimmick

woll3Y

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Green (Kodama of the East Tree) (47)

Blue (Sakashima of a Thousand Faces) (47)

White (Akroma, Vision of Ixidor) (47)

Black (Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools) (47)

Extras (5)

Commanders (5)

Commander: foil Akroma, Vision of Ixidor
Commander: foil Breeches, Brazen Plunderer
Commander: foil Kodama of the East Tree
Commander: foil Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
Commander: foil Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Red (Breeches, Brazen Plunderer) (47)

Welcome to my 5-Color Partner Battle Box!

This deck is essentially 120 decks in one! The list is comprised of 16 different partner commanders (5 monocolor, 10 for the guild color pairs, and 1 special extra partner), each with their own 47 card deck, plus 4 special cards set aside from the decks. At the start of each match, randomly choose two of the decks and shuffle them together, add the set of extra cards, and you have your deck for the game!

I chose to have Command Tower, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Commander's Sphere set aside for inclusion in each combined deck because of their staple status in the format and mana fixing power, but you could easily make your own battle box and have different cards set aside, or none at all.

This page contains the 5 initial decks I built for the box, representing one mono-colored partner for each color. To see the other 11 partner decks in the box, check out the links below!

deck chart

Battle Box Update #1!

Commander / EDH* woll3Y

SCORE: 1 | 511 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

deck chart

Battle Box Update #2!

Commander / EDH* woll3Y

337 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Each deck has a core set of powerful, staple cards for its color, and is rounded out with cards that enhance or play around the theme of the chosen partner commander. The staple cards are ones that I have identified over my time playing EDH as cards that I enjoy playing and will give priority consideration in any deck with that color. The sub-themes of the decks are as follows:

White - Keywords/taxes

Blue - Copying permanents

Black - Graveyard reanimation

Red - Pirates/goblins and card theft

Green - Landfall/tokens

Since both the White and Black decks strongly want Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, I placed it in the Extras list as well, and exchange it for a basic land when one of those decks is chosen. If the Orzhov guild combination is chosen, I replace a swamp over a plains, since Urborg basically counts as a swamp.

As part of the aesthetic design I included a few cycles of cards that have members in each color. These cycles include Praetors, Ramosian artifacts, 1-mana tutors, C20 free-cast spells, Diamonds, ELD Castles, ZNR mythic spell-lands, Vivid lands, Thriving lands, and DOM Memorials. There are a crazy number of other mono-colored cycles that could be added to this list, some with really cool effects!

As part of the win-condition package I also added one powerful combo to each deck, most of which will win the game on the spot, or at least present a table-wide kill the following turn. The combos are:

White - Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kormus Bell + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Your opponents' lands all die and they can never play more

Blue - Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake + Venser, Shaper Savant - Infinite mana and return all of your opponents' permanents to their hands.

Black - Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion - Infinite damage and death/ETB triggers

Red - Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts - Infinite hasty attackers

Green - Kodama of the East Tree + Storm Cauldron + Tireless Tracker - Infinite mana and card draws

In the White deck, Linvala, Keeper of Silence can function as a replacement piece for Elesh Norn, making it so that your opponents cannot tap their lands for mana. In the Blue deck, Urza, Lord High Artificer can substitute for Venser, Shaper Savant, in that infinite activations of Urza's ability will eventually find you Venser to close out the game. In the Red deck, Coercive Recruiter can substitute for Zealous Conscripts and Splinter Twin can substitute for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. In the Green deck, the goal is to use the infinite mana and clue tokens to draw into Sunscorched Desert for infinite player damage. There are a few variant options to the combo, such as Guildless Commons replacing Storm Cauldron, or Scute Swarm/Rampaging Baloths replacing Tireless Tracker, but those combos will not result in infinite mana or card draw, only infinite tokens.

The lists have been undergoing refinement as I play with them, and I'm sure I've got a few more tweaks to make before the lists are exactly where I want them. The best part of the Battle Box though, is that there are endless possibilities to explore for themes, play-styles, and combinations! I have a few ideas about where to take the build next, and am exploring possibilities including adding a "colorless" partner with card:Prismatic Piper, adding a second set of partner decks for each color and having heavier emphasis on a particular subtheme, or even adding an extra set of partner decks for each guild!

Having played several matches with each color now, I can say that the deck has been every bit as fun as I hoped it would be, and I strongly recommend giving the Battle Box idea a shot if you're looking for something new and exciting to try out! If you're on the fence about it, here are a few quick pros and cons I've noticed.

Pros:

  • You only have to carry ONE deck box! No more million boxes clogging up your backpack, or carrying around a questionably secure tackle box. ONE BOX!

  • Insane replayability! Each combination of colors has its own unique feel and even with the same color pairing no two games have been alike.

  • Infinite customization! With a total of 41 monocolored partners available, there are literally THOUSANDS of possible partner combinations for your own box, and infinite themes to choose from beyond that! If you get tired of playing one partner, change it out for a new one, or even rebuild the entire color from the ground up!

Cons:

  • SO. MUCH. SHUFFLING. I won't lie, it takes about twice as long to shuffle up and draw a starting hand with the battle box as it does with a regular deck. The extra time comes from having to sort out the colors from the prior game, choose a new color combination, and then sufficiently randomize two separate decks that were not already shuffled together.

  • Potential deck confusion. As I mentioned in the last point, you have to parse out each color individually after every match. IF you aren't intimately familiar with your decklists, this could lead to cards not getting put back in the correct sorting pile and messing up your card counts. To minimize this issue, I mostly stuck to colored cards and didn't put many unique artifacts or lands in each deck.

  • Budgetary restraints. I started this project after already having a considerable investment in the Commander format, and a reasonably large collection from which to pull. Even with that, there has been a decent additional investment to make the decks tuned to how I want them to play. As established players know, Magic can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want it to be, and price as a barrier to entry can be mitigated. That being said, I'm not sure I would recommend a brand new player to jump head-first into a Battle Box. There was a lot of personal preference that went into building these decks, and I think the more familiar a person is with their own play style and how they want to approach Magic, the better they'll be able to build decks they know they'll enjoy before committing a significant amount of resources.

As a side note, I'd like to highlight a few supplementary products that I purchased to enhance the playability of the Battle Box. First, for selecting the colors that will be played each game, I picked up the D&D Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica Dice Set. The dice set has a unique D10 which has the symbol of each Ravnican guild on one face. Simply roll the D10 and you get which guild you'll be playing that game. Second, I highly recommend looking at the Dragon Shield Nest+ 300, which is a 300ct deckbox (260 double sleeved), and is the perfect size to hold the entire Battle Box plus the aforementioned guild symbol D10.

**UPDATE: Since the Battle Box has grown to 16 decks and almost 800 cards, I no longer use the products above, but I still highly recommend them if you plan on just making a 5-commander Battle Box. For the complete 16-deck box, I currently use an Ultimate Guard Arkhive. To pick a deck at random, I'm using the website random.org as a number generator.

Again, I strongly recommend a Battle Box to anyone looking for a fresh way to play Commander, and I look forward to seeing how others build their decks! Feel free to comment below with links to your own Battle Box, I'd love to see what unique designs other people bring to the concept! Good luck!

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