"You should always try to have at least one infinite combo in a deck, for the simple reason you'll always have an out in a hard game."what a sad format EDH has become

Very nice! I think that recursion is not as necessary as the other points, especially if you have plenty of ways to draw cards, and that sometimes there is no good infinite combo for the deck when there isn't a single 2- or 3-card combo where you can justify each card's inclusion outside the combo, but besides those two points, I think this is a very well put together list of recommendations. :D

Very nice!

I agree with a lot of what is said, and I tell me new players these things regularly.

Also, on the topic of combo, it doesn't necessarily have to be a combo, you just have to have an out, a backup strategy or "win condition" just in case. There have been many times where I would not have won without a plan B!

I have one main problem with this article, and that is that you seem to have a premise that in order to build a successful EDH deck, you need to win. What ever happened to just having fun?

Nothing is ever more of a let down than when I'm in a hard game that has been going on for two hours and been highly interactive and then my opponent just draws into a "counter this spell or I win" combo. It turns games into less of a, lets see who can outplay each other, into lets see who can draw their combo first, also if you weren't playing blue, then you lose.

And that, in my opinion, is not the point of EDH. Whenever I'm playing a large game (4 people +) and someone out of nowhere goes "I win" with a combo, especially if it is early in the game, I congratulate them on winning and then I and the others will continue to play for second place.

Agree with most of this except some examples

i) Exclude cards like Choke. Most hosers yes, but choke is still quite good

ii) Mana Leak is useless. Mana leak isn't great but certainly not unplayable, there aren't many 2 mana counters and mana leak is still fine, Lightning Bolt and Thoughtseize are both fine cards as well

iii) Counterlash is playable. Can't tell if this was a joke. Same for Fireball

iv) Worn Powerstone is no replacement for Mana Crypt

*Also if someone is choosing GAA4 for the wraths and tutors, they're doing it wrong

ascanio there is a difference between the focus of your deck being combo and having a combo IN the deck.

One is douchey (forever and always only ever an opinion) and the other is good planning

CatShark I could not agree with you more. Kudos.

The biggest problem with Spike is their The I-Gotta-Win EDH deck builds are the same as their Standard/Modern philosophy of "I have one way to win and I need to get to it", and it just isn't interesting. Including at least one infinite combo as a fail-safe just in case is hilarious- like an afterthought!

cxseals1337 As far as your card and strategy choices, I think you are mostly on point, however I will challenge you on one thing. I definitely think a lot of EDH players put too much emphasis on recursion. How many decks might as well scoop when a Rest in Peace hits the board? I think the better way to look at the goal you're describing is "Endurance." Can your deck be relevant in 15 turns? Can you win without your Commander? If you had to discard your entire hand, could you come back? If you are playing reanimator, for example, and got Bojuka Bog'd right now, can you fill your graveyard again? These are more interesting situations because it requires deck-building in many dimensions, looking for good interactions with your card choices that aren't necessarily your win-cons.

Good food for thought, though.

contracrostipunctus what you describe are very exelent points and there are certain cards that players should be aware of when playing certain stradegies.

For example you mention Rest in Peace; currently I have been toying with a Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord deck using Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman etc. with reanimation and recursion spells. The principle of the deck is sound enough however I note that cards like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void are not uncommon in edh because of recursion decks as well as Helm of Obedience combos. Since these cards are detrimental to my stradegies I have made sure to include generic answers such as Krosan Grip and Primal Command, cards that can deal with thsee problems but not be useless in other match ups. Bojuka Bog is another story as there isn't really a way around it without a Stifle which is why the card is so good; in other words the only way to get around a Bojuka bog is not over extend yourself.

To continue and directly address your challenge the point of that paragraph was not to build your deck around recursion but to have some form of recursion available should you encounter a problem or should you need to recover an answer to a problem (e.g. An opponent plays a Mind Over Matter, responding with a Snapcaster Mage can save the game). aditionally cards like Sun Titan, Eternal Witness can be squeezed into most builds fairly easily and serve as a two for one card.

Recurring recursion also has common place in combos like with Academy Ruins + Oblivion Stone which is not nesissarily an infinite combo but it can create a board lock on opponents. also forms of temporary recursion can be useful such as Feldon of the Third Path + Mulldrifter is recuring card avantage EOT.

To finalize and summerize recursion is an important point to consider when prearing a deck but does not nessisarily have to be a focus.

Most card groups I know of frown on (or down right shun/ban) infinite strategies. Looking up infinite combos online and throwing some in your deck "just in case" is garbage deck building. The fun of EDH is building a fun, interactive, deck around your commander, and playing against others who have done the same and having a chance to win. Who would want to play with any one who at any time can just tutor for the game ender? What's the point of playing at all? How much skill is shown through this display? Personally if I find an infinite combo I try to take them out of my deck, because i don't even want a cheap win first of all, and second, i don't even want it tempting me to cheap out a win from my FRIENDS.

JustinTheBrute A succinct point but, as you said, that is the culture of your meta. I personally play in three different metas: hyper competitive games with close friends, laid back games with my casual friends, and at the card shop. I run one infinite combo in one deck to deal with my cut-throat friends if they start trying to combo out, but it is not acceptable in the other groups. The same deck also features mass land destruction and I treat it the same way. It's incredibly easy to operate the deck without using the comboes/MLD and it's really up to the person piloting the deck to push that button.

just wondering, why wasn't one of ur tips "don't use karona"?

I agree that most deck should have an infinite just in case, since some games can drag on, and you need a way to say, "Screw this, Im done. You're done. Games over." Decks such as Hermit Druid that focus on that one combo are the ones I think think deserve the most hate (and I still think combo is fine, fun to play and easy enough to beat if you have a good deck")

This article feels very misleading, as it seems to be catering to new players to EDH (though I can not confirm if my assumptions are correct about your target audience). I would say if I went up against a deck that was "Win at all costs" for my first experience, I'd be done with it on the spot. I play with a casual group, and as was mentioned before, a lot of your tips are dependent on your meta. However, (non-competitive) EDH should be FUN, first and foremost. It's a social format that encourages interesting plays and politics. Just mowing through a deck to get to 2 or 3 specific cards to end a game seems like the EDH equivalent to premature ejaculation: Maybe it was fun for you, but damned if everyone else isn't just full of disappointment.

This isn't saying to drag a game out to get full enjoyment for the entire group, but rather: to design your deck from careful consideration of each card that you include to ensure efficient and interactive synergy with your general, not the automatic game-saying of "This is my combo and I'm just gunning for it".

Your article seems to pander to a more specific audience of those who want to maybe play competitively (or just have competitive friends), and even then seems to fail at addressing what is actually fun and interesting about the format. For example, starting design with an infinite combo BEFORE you've even thought about what you want the deck to do, let alone what general you'll go with seems just lazy and backwards. There's no point in shoehorning in an infinite combo if it has no real synergy with the rest of the deck. Besides, a one-trick pony can be easy to put down).

I agree with some of your points, but in the end, this article seems to cater to a specific, more competitive audience, and is going to drive more players, both new and veterans, away with a toxic atmosphere that throws fun to the wind and replaces it with an insatiable bloodlust for winning. Sure, one should still design and play to win, but design and play to win in an interesting and creative way with the fun for your entire group in mind, not just your own self-flagellating ego.

I strongly disagree with you when you say, "example avoid cards that say things like Go for the Throat or Doomblade that say destroy target non-[card trait] creature", before recommending Murder and Hero's Downfall instead. More specifically, I have two problems with that recommendation. First, the effectiveness of less generic kill spells is a function of your metagame. For example, my metagame has a lot of people who like running black and/or green creatures, but relatively few artifact creatures (most of which are value creatures that you wouldn't bother to kill with spot removal). This means that Doomblade is often awkward, but Go for the Throat and Victim of Night are basically auto-includes. My other problem is that you suggest cards that have higher mana costs. There's a massive gap between 2 and 3 mana, especially on removal spells. It matters less in slower metagames, but in faster metagames, you need to be able to interact with your opponents and develop your own position at the same time. It's much harder to do that with clunkier answers. Had you suggested Rapid Hybridization or Pongify, I would have been much more accepting of your opinion, but increasing the costs of your answers is rarely the best solution when tuning a deck.

I think you miss a rather important point when you bring up archetypes in the format. With 40 starting life and multiple opponents, aggro decks are way harder to build, and they have to be much more cutthroat to be effective. It really doesn't help that a lot of playgroups soft-ban mass land destruction, which is one of the few ways for aggro decks to prevent slower decks from grinding them out.

As far as advocating infinite combos, I wouldn't suggest doing that in a format primer. I don't mind them personally (some of my decks win primarily with them), but a number of playgroups discourage infinite combos. When I'm joining an unknown group for EDH, I generally ask if they have any taboos, and avoid decks that play those types of effects. EDH is a social format. The goal is to have a good time. If the group doesn't like infinite combos, then don't play infinite combos. If you disagree, talk to Sheldon Menery about the subject.

I also disagree that infinite combos are necessary to close out games. You don't need to go infinite to win. You just need to go big enough. If you Tooth and Nail for Ambush Commander and Craterhoof Behemoth at the end of a long game, everyone is going to die. If you instead Tooth and Nail for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts, it's not going to make everyone any more dead. There's no point in going infinite in Voltron decks, either. Yes, most decks in the format need reach*, but don't include infinite combos just for the sake of including infinite combos.

*not the creature mechanic

Your discussion on card recursion was, in all honesty, terrible. if you're going to list red options for recursion, why don't you include the entire list (Goblin Welder, Past in Flames, Scrap Mastery, Charmbreaker Devils, Anarchist, Trash for Treasure, Recoup, and Daretti, Scrap Savant)? Red gets very little recursion, and what it does get is rather deck-specific. Elixir of Immortality does not count as card recursion, unless you're talking about a self-mill deck, which isn't that common (don't include Hermit Druid decks in this category, because they win on the spot). Mistveil Plains only recurs cards when you have the ability to tutor for whatever you put back (Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero or Captain Sisay), a trait that is too deck-specific to list in an overview.

More importantly, not every EDH deck needs recursion. Decks need some way of generating card advantage (unless they're doing something silly like Heartless Hidetsugu + damage doublers), but recursion isn't the only way to do it. If you rely too heavily on your graveyard, you'll lose to graveyard hate (which, by the way, people need to run more of). Not every deck needs to be able to retrieve cards from graveyard, unless you depend on having access to specific cards (which, in a 100-card singleton format, is moronic if you don't have tons of tutors)

Your discussion on card advantage is interesting. And by "interesting", I mean, "it makes me think you don't know what 'card advantage' means". If you think Divination is viable in EDH, please tell me where you live (I always like getting free wins). Mulldrifter is an EDH staple because creatures are the easiest card type to recur, and you have the option of getting 2 cards and a creature if you need one. Ponder is a 'cantrip', meaning that you end with the same number of cards in hand that you start with (ie, does not generate card advantage). Tormenting Voice and Faithless Looting offer card selection but no card advantage, meaning you end with the same (or, in the case of Faithless Looting, fewer) cards than you started with, but the quality of cards in your hand is higher.

Overall, this article had a few good points, but you clearly don't understand the format well enough to be writing articles on the subject.

In general this article seems like a shallow husk of what it could have been. It seems opinionated and lacks the general knowledge of the format to be taken as anything serious. More research could have been done as well as more in depth information and examples.

I think Phyrexian Arena is a better example of Black card advantage than Greed, and don't forget about Dualcaster Mage/Twinflame as a cheap infinite combo in mono Red!

You might consider a list of common mistakes people make when creating a commander deck. Showing people why certain lines of thought in deck construction fail to succeed in actual games will help a lot of people understand how to apply the information in this article when it comes time to actually build their deck. Other than that, this is a useful guide for be beginners, and we appreciate your effort.

HeroInMyOwnMind ; that is a very good idea and I will give some thought to that concept; at the very least I will try to tack on some additional content to this page in that regard.