My favorite part of Magic: the Gathering is building and tuning my deck. There’s something cool about seeing one’s ideas and choices come together on the battlefield and work as intended!
Today, I’ll focus on a specific Commander deck I’ve been tuning for 4 years, Rin & Seri, and what I’ve learned about building an aggressive strategy for Bracket 2. If you want to “make it rain” Cats and Dogs or just pick up some solid fundamental tips for building / tuning a deck – you’ve come to the right place!
Building your own Commander deck is a fairly personal exercise and puts a player to
the test making a ton of choices: what kind of strategy, what colors, what Commander, and eventually which cards make the cut?
The origin story of my Rin & Seri deck goes back 4 years. I was at RIW with my wife looking at foils and she spied Rin & Seri in the binder and suggested I build a deck around the card because it was a Dog & Cat, like our pets at home.
The concept of the deck was that I wanted to beat the living hell out of my friends using avatars of my pets, Stella (pup) and Devon Sawa (cat). Hayley helped me mock up a custom retro frame version of Rin & Seri featuring our pets:
As well as custom tokens featuring the at-home squad:
Since EDH does tend to be such a personalized deckbuilding experience, one aspect of my Rin & Seri deck that I enjoy is that it does have a good backstory and a unique touch.
I’m a big fan of the new Commander Bracket System as I think it provides clear and defined structure for deckbuilding at different power levels. Before the innovation of the Bracket System, everybody tended to build toward an ambiguous Power Level “7” which tends to be somewhere between a Bracket 3 and 4 deck.
One thing I noticed playing “up” against other 7s was I often felt my strategy was an underdog to more powerful decks, especially ones with infinite combos and/or decks with a high density of “Game Changers.”
I had a Cradle in my deck and was capable of producing some powerful lines but ultimately in multiplayer MTG:
When I saw WOTC created brackets, it was clear a lower bracket would be a more ideal matchmaking experience for Rin & Seri because it didn’t play combos, off-limits play patterns, or an abundance of Game Changers. I cut my Cradle and Game Changers and focused more on tuning my strategy to Bracket 2.
I enjoy the game play of Bracket 2 a lot. It’s a good Magic fundamentals format because all of the “unfair” stuff is off limits and it opens up a lot more space to explore other styles of multiplayer decks that are not combo-centric. One thing I’ve learned about Multiplayer Magic is that in the Rock, Scissors, Paper of strategies (Combo, Aggro, Control) Combo tends to be the beatdown (since it’s typically much easier to assemble an infinite combo than deal 120 Damage spread out across three different players). When Combo decks are removed, the triad tends to look like: Agro, Midrange and Control.
It makes sense to me to try and find the right bracket to build a cool version of the deck that you want to play. I like Bracket 2 for Rin & Seri because deep down, I know it’s a “fair” deck relative to what people play in Brackets 3+. I’m more concerned with theme and flavor (attacking with tokens with my pet’s pictures on them), but I still enjoy tuning my deck to be as impactful and dynamic as possible on the tabletop and that’s what I’ll be discussing throughout….
Here’s where I’m at with my build:
Something I think about when I’m working on a deck is to consider what it does well and try to focus on finding more ways to emphasize positive interactions that tend to lead to good hands.
Since the Commander is the centerpiece of the deck and will be part of every draw, the Command Zone is a great place to start looking for build-around concepts.
Rin & Seri has multiple abilities which makes it an interesting and flexible Commander to build around. It has two abilities that synergize with putting Cats and Dogs into the deck. Essentially, the more Cats and Dogs we can find room for – the better! – since they create positive interactions with the Commander we always have access to.
Creatures with the “Changeling” ability will trigger both of Rin & Seri’s abilities. If we cast a creature that counts as both a Cat and Dog, Rin and Seri will output two tokens, one white dog token and one green cat token. The low converted mana cost (CMC) Changelings end up having an incredible rate when combined with Rin & Seri in the Command Zone.
In addition to playing many of the most efficient Cats and Dogs ever printed, I’m also able to get a lot of Rin & Seri triggers on the cheap by playing a critical mass of cheap Changelings. The value of generating multiple free tokens from CMC = 2 Changelings adds a lot of redundancy / consistency to my build. The cheap Changelings are the bread and butter – or, should I say, kibbles and bits – of the deck simply by virtue of counting as cats and dogs and generating two bodies per cast.
While the cheap Changelings are a cute trick, the real flavor of the deck I wanted to embrace was playing with the coolest Cats and Dogs in the multiverse. All of these Cats and Dogs tend to have two things in common:
- Great rate and lean CMC for the stats they have.
- Natural synergy with my token based strategy.
Creating an abundance of cats and dogs on the battlefield provides a tangible resource to leverage in the game. Also, keep in mind that Rin & Seri’s secondary ability becomes much better (and quite impactful) once we’ve amassed a small army of pets on the battlefield as it turns our Commander into Viscara, the Dreadful (recurring source of removal) that also gains large amounts of life. Having recurring removal AND lifegain stapled on to a Commander that also generates free tokens provides the framework for a deck with a lot of angles and synergy.
What you choose to put in the Command Zone is like a map that informs where the deckbuilding will go.
BUILDING A MANA BASE FOR YOUR COMMANDER
One of the most important, and often tricky, aspects of getting a deck to come together is figuring out how the mana will work. I’ve played a lot of incredible decks over the years and something that they all shared in common is that they had great mana and consistent draws!
It’s tough to be consistent when playing a 100 card deck full of singletons, but there are some important things to consider when getting started… Every Commander deck has exactly one known-commodity that will come into play in every single game: THE COMMANDER IN THE COMMAND ZONE! Let’s start with that.
In my case, Rin & Seri is in the Command Zone and so every choice I make when selecting cards to play is typically made with that known information in mind since the Commander is part of every opening hand the deck will ever draw. The Commander you choose is the single most important choice that will inform how the deck works, functions and plays on the tabletop.
One thing that starts to become clearer as we play more games with a deck is the difference between strong and weak draws. In a sense, what I’m aiming to achieve by making a deck “better” is creating more opportunities to have strong draws while mitigating combinations of cards that will lead to weak draws or mulligans.
Obviously, when a deck draws its best mana acceleration in the opening hand there’s an opportunity to have a fantastic, special draw but we also don’t want a deck that only has the potential for great draws when a specific card is drawn from the deck because the odds are not in our favor.
The best advice I can offer any player, when it comes to improving a deck, is to play more mana. Easily the biggest mistake I see players make when it comes to deckbuilding for multiplayer is that they don’t play enough lands or mana acceleration.
One of the biggest differences I see between 1v1 and Multiplayer Magic is that I believe Mana, and specifically continuing to make land drops every turn, tends to matter more in Multiplayer because each player only gets the opportunity to do so every fourth turn. Also, there are more players with double the total hitpoints, so in order to win the game players need to go bigger and deeper into games.
My deck is very aggressive and built to be the beatdown and turn creatures sideways in the redzone and literally ⅔ of the cards that constitute my deck are mana sources. I think this might be surprising to some players because that ratio is extremely different from what we’d expect to see from a beatdown deck in a 1v1 setting (where deckbuilders typically try to shave mana sources to maximize damage dealers and not flood out).
Different contexts dictate different dynamics. In EDH, in order to win via combat we need to deal upwards of 120 damage and so what a beatdown deck looks like compared to 1v1 is a different animal.
Another thing to consider, with regard to mana, is: “where along the curve is the most ideal spot to deploy one’s Commander?”
Rin & Seri has CMC = 4. The thing is…. Other creatures in my deck all become significantly better when Rin & Seri are already deployed to the battlefield, since creatures trigger Rin & Seri’s ability to spawn tokens.
The deck is built to accelerate Rin & Seri out as quickly as possible and then run my offense through my Commander. Rin & Seri isn’t particularly impactful on its own the turn it deploys but it does generate a snowballing advantage if it survives as the game goes on.
While it is possible with a good draw to deploy Rin & Seri on turn two, the goal is to consistently deploy my Commander on turn 3. In fact, since my offense runs through R&S, I would typically mull any and every hand that doesn’t have the resources to deploy my Commander a turn ahead of schedule because those draws just tend to feel way too slow and play out poorly.
I see this type of dynamic as a function of when a player ideally wants to deploy their Commander along the curve, but my preference for frontloading on mana is also informed by my opinion that making a land drop, or playing a mana spell to get ahead on mana, tends to carry more weight relative to 1v1 games.
Seeing as I’m playing a three color deck and need all three colors to deploy my Commander on curve (or risk a non functioning draw) also incentivises playing more mana, especially color fixing lands. I’ve opted for a fetch and dual land mana base since it provides the most possible combinations for being able to produce RWG1 on turn 3.
It’s also true that because Rin & Seri is so fundamentally important to my deck functioning properly that if it dies, it will need to be redeployed paying the Commander Tax each time.
Another way that early turn mana production tends to impact my deck building is that I prioritize playing as many lands that enter untapped and produce green on the first turn as possible to maximize the chance of being able to cast a turn 1 mana dork.
Pairing up a turn 1 mana dork with Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, or Lotus Petal also creates the opportunity for extremely explosive draws capable of casting Rin and Seri on the second turn. Rule 0’ing a Gemstone Caverns into a ramp spell, or a Sol Ring into mana rock also facilitates a turn 2 Commander.
In general, I think the value of free mana spells like Spirit Guides and Lotus Petal increase in a multiplayer setting because they allow the potential to deploy one’s Commander ahead of schedule.
TACTICS TO BUILD AROUND & PAYOFFS
To me, the finesse and skill of building a good Commander deck lies in understanding what the deck’s role, or strategy, is and finding ways to leverage what the deck does well at the table. In general, I want to field 99 cards that work together consistently well and allow me to execute a coherent game plan at the table.
Most of my keepable opening hands with Rin & Seri are going to play out in a similar way… On turns 1 & 2 I’m looking to develop my mana so that I can deploy my Commander on Turn 3. On turn 4 (assuming my Commander survives) the goal is to deploy a threat, generate some tokens, and start leveraging that material as quickly as possible.
The key is finding ways to leverage 1/1 tokens that impact the game in a significant way. On their own, with each opponent starting at 40 life, 1/1 tokens are not particularly impactful. The goal is clearly not to make 100 individual attacks for 1 – the little pet tokens need some help to be effective.
These cards all dramatically improve the damage output of my deck based on the fact that Rin & Seri will always create extra cats and dogs for me and I play a high density of creatures already.
Warleader’s Call and Impact Tremors are both great ways to pressure other players’ life totals outside of combat since every creature that I cast will generate a bonus 1 or 2 bodies (damage) because of Rin & Seri.
Whitemane Lion also does a ton of work with Tremors or Call on the battlefield since it can bounce itself and continue to deal 2 damage to everyone each time it’s cast (1 from the Whitemane Lion and 1 from the Dog Token that sticks around).
Glare of Subdual is also an excellent way to leverage tokens, both by tapping down problematic blockers so we can attack uncontested as well as slowing the game down to play more of a midrange strategy. It’s super convenient Rin & Seri has the secondary tap ability to deal damage to a creature or player – since if I want to slow the game down a little bit, the deck still naturally has a recurring way to do something over and over again to pull ahead.
Drawing cards = having more options.
My deck is more focused on playing to the board than generating raw card advantage for the late game. I’m not as worried about the late game since I’m typically trying to present lethal damage before other decks can. With that said, in order to go “big enough” to win it certainly helps to generate some additional resources along the way in the form of raw cards rather than just 1/1 tokens.
I noticed that I have a lot of 2 drop Changelings that don’t have relevant game text on them and so Pod is a nice way to turn that material into more quality bodies. Generally, the most common Pod line is to sacrifice a two drop to find Wood Elves (for value) or Arahbo, the First Fang and then sacrificing Wood Elves to find Jetmir, Nexus of Revels to present a winning combat step.
How much removal should one play in a Commander deck?
Trick question, it’s completely contextual based on what your strategy is. In a combat oriented deck there’s a sweet spot and I think I’ve found a great ratio. The key is that in a deck that wants to be attacking, triggering Rin & Seri early and often, and is incentivized for multiple reasons to play things to the board that we don’t want too many purely reactive cards because it could dilute our draw. The strategy is proactive (attacking) and so we generally just want to interact with the board in ways that allow us to continue to push damage through and/or protect ourselves from getting attacked by other big monsters.
Basically, when I’m putting a reactive card into a proactive multiplayer deck I’m looking for it to have a big impact on the board at a great rate.
I’m a huge fan of this card and how much work it does! It has absolutely nothing to do with the Cat / Dog theme of my deck, it’s just an efficient way to clean up lots of Artifacts and Enchantments in play without sweeping up my own stuff in the process.
Grasp of Fate is another card I think is highly underrated in EDH. While I acknowledge that somebody can eventually remove the Grasp and return everything to play… I’m generally just looking to clear an opening for a profitable attack on my own turn, so as long as somebody doesn’t have an instant speed Disenchant, it’s generally just a great card that does a lot of work for 3 mana.
If you’re reading this article and want a suggestion about a card that will probably make your Bracket 2 deck better by virtue of inclusion, my suggestion is Winds of Abandon. I’ve been extremely impressed with the card to the point that I would cut Swords to Plowshares before I even considered cutting Winds.
Sweepers are incredible in multiplayer – in fact, sweepers are the best possible cards that can be played against my deck! Which is why I’m interested in cards that allow me to mop up multiple opposing permanents to clean up the board without losing my own stuff.
And what typal Cat-Dog deck would be complete without… Elesh Norn…?
Turns out this card is just particularly absurd in the Rin & Seri shell because it boosts my tokens and shrinks everybody else’s stuff down at the same time. I tend to look for reactive cards (answers) that can also be played proactively to the board and Elesh Norn and Solitude both fit the script.
Archon is the newest addition to my deck and I’ve been extremely impressed with the card in my build. Initially, I’ve had Coat of Arms in this spot for a long time, but with the inclusion of Birthing Pod (and not having a six drop) and the fact that Coat of Arms can realistically only be deployed when ahead made it feel “win more.” I like that Archon serves as a nice “catch me up” card when behind, as well as a good haymaker when ahead.
What’s a pet deck without a favorite “pet card?” I’ve been Genesis Waving for a long time in EDH and can attest that it is an extremely powerful spell in a deck that is built to be permanent heavy. There are only about 5 non permanent spells and my curve is quite low making Genesis Wave a powerful payoff in a deck that plays a ton of acceleration and mana.
It’s also worth noting that permanents enter untapped with Wave (including lands), which means we can tap out for it, net a bunch of lands in play, and then use those lands to continue playing cards from the hand.
I’m an old school Magic player and I really enjoy playing the same deck for a long time, developing and tuning it, learning to pilot it better, and adding onto it with each new expansion. I pretty much just play EDH nowadays, so typically the first cards I’m interested in seeing from a new set are possible inclusions to my Glarb cEDH deck, and the newest cats and dogs for Rin & Seri. 😛
Another thing that’s fun about playing the same deck for a long time is that you really get to find all the cool interactions between the cards. I recently had a neat interaction come up that I had never seen before in a game: I had a Warleader’s Call out with Skullclamp in play, so my 1/1s were 2/2s and wouldn’t die to a Skullclamp activation.
I realized I could still do Skullclamp shenanigans with an anthem in play by activating Mirror Entity for 0. All of my creatures would become 0/0s that get +1/+1, functionally 1/1s, and so then I was able to use Clamp to draw cards. The cool thing about Magic is that no matter how much you play, there’s still new interactions to discover!
