How to Build a Commander Deck From Scratch

At Level 1 you upgraded a ready-made Commander deck. Building your own is the next step, and it is one of the most loved parts of Magic. You pick a legendary card you like, and every one of the other 99 cards is a choice you made.

It is also easy to build a deck that does nothing. A pile of exciting cards with too few lands and no way to draw more stalls on turn four. This lesson gives you a skeleton that keeps a deck running, so your exciting cards actually get cast.

The rules that shape the deck

Checked against the Comprehensive Rules effective September 25, 2026, and Wizards’ Commander format page:

• Exactly 100 cards, your commander included.
• One copy of each card, except basic lands.
• Your commander is a legendary creature card, or one of the few other legendary cards the rules allow, such as certain Vehicles.
• Color identity. Every card’s color identity must fit inside your commander’s. Color identity counts the colors of mana symbols in a card’s cost and its rules text, so a colorless-cost card with a green symbol in its text box still counts as green.
• The game: 40 life, your commander starts in the command zone, it costs 2 more each time you recast it from there, and 21 combat damage from one commander knocks a player out.

Step 1: choose a commander for its plan

Pick a commander whose text tells you what the deck wants to do. A legend that rewards you for casting artifacts gives you an artifact deck. A legend that grows when creatures enter gives you a creature deck. Then write the plan in one sentence: “Make lots of small creatures and pump them all at once.” Every card you add should serve that sentence or keep the deck alive.

More colors give you more card choices but make your mana harder. Two colors is a comfortable first build.

Step 2: build the skeleton

Community deck builders have settled on a starting shape that holds up across many decks. Treat it as a first draft:

Some cards fill two roles, like a creature that draws a card when it enters. Count those once, in the role that matters more, and enjoy the extra room.

Step 3: fill the plan

Now the fun part. Spend your remaining slots on the cards that make your deck yours. Two guides help:

• Synergy over raw power. A card that is good only in your deck is often better here than a famous card that is good everywhere.
• Watch the curve. Commander’s curve sits higher than a 40-card deck’s, but a deck full of 6- and 7-mana spells still stalls. Aim for many plays at 2 and 3 mana, as the land count lesson describes.

Step 4: choose your bracket

Wizards’ Commander Brackets, still in beta, sort decks into five groups: Exhibition, Core, Upgraded, Optimized, and cEDH. Brackets 1 and 2 include no cards from the Game Changers list, Bracket 3 allows up to three, and Brackets 4 and 5 have no limit. The bracket guide also covers things like extra turns, mass land destruction, and two-card combos; read it on the format page before you settle on a number.

Decide which bracket you want to build for before you shop. A deck built for Bracket 2 that gets one too many strong cards is easy to fix. A deck that drifted into Bracket 4 by accident makes for awkward nights at a casual table.

Step 5: test, then trim

Play the deck at least five times before you change it. Keep a list of cards that sat in your hand doing nothing and turns where you missed a land. Then use the upgrade order from the budget upgrades lesson: cut dead cards first, fix the mana, add draw, add answers, then add more of your theme.

Proxies and testing

Many playgroups allow clearly marked stand-in cards so a player can test a card before buying it. That is a table agreement, not a rule, and store events have their own policies. Our article on proxy ethics and etiquette covers the norms. Ask first, every time.

If you would rather draft your Commander deck than build it, a Commander cube lets a group draft multiplayer decks from one shared box. And when your table starts talking more than playing, our piece on Commander politics is worth a read.

If you want a starting point to build from instead of a blank page, any of the Foundations Commander decks from the first lesson makes a good base, and the decklists are on the Magic site.