Hello Happy Readers! Today I want to do something that's a lot of fun. I have a lot of real-life Commander brews. I've never taken any apart, I still have my first one! I hear my fellow writers talk about taking apart decks and I don't get it. Why would you ever want to take a deck... apart? That just feels wrong to me!

So today what I want to do is to take a look at every real-life Commander brew that I have, and what makes it tick. The idea behind this article is to take a look at every one of these decks and the synergies behind them that I have used. The ultimate goal here is to give you ideas around a bunch of legendary leaders that you might not have ever thought about playing with.

Ready?

Let's get started!

Commander '95 Real-Life Decks

I created a variant of Commander called Commander '95 which only uses cards printed through the end of 1995, which is Alpha - Homelands, Promo, so everything from Fog to Autumn Willow. In this format, we have the same banned and restricted list (save I unbanned a quartet of cards that aren't problems without support a few weeks ago in this article - Commander '95 Banned List Conversation | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)) I do not run proxies but I don't mind if you do. You are encouraged to use the cheapest version of a card.

Here we'll look at Commander '95 decks!

Steal N' Sac - My first and oldest C95 brew is one that is Esper colors and uses Chromium as a placeholder since there are no cards with this ability. The goal of this brew is to steal creatures with effects that tap like Preacher, Old Man of the Sea, and Seasinger. And then we sacrifice them to effects like Diamond Valley and Gate to Phyrexia, or you can exile them to City of Shadows. We can steal opposing creatures with Ray of Command, Control Magic, or the death trigger of Seraph. This deck acts as a Esper Control Deck when the theme isn't working. You can check out this brew here - Real Life Commander: Commander '95 Chromium Steal N' Sac | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)

Skeleton Ship - This is a Dimir colored brew around the Skeleton Ship from Ice Age. I adore its art, check it out! Despite this deck having two colors in common with the above deck, they are very different. This deck seeks to turn Skeleton Ship and friends into a powerful creature killing machine. How do we do that? With a lot of friends! We can tap creatures and artifacts that tap for damage to finish off a wounded creature from the Ship like Prodigal Sorcerer, Pirate Ship, and Rod of Ruin. And then I added in effects that will add to give it more of a -X/-X theme, like Grandmother Sengir or Minion of Tevesh Szat. And then we can lean into cards like Serrated Arrows and Desert. The result is a powerhouse of creature killing. You can see the entire brew here- Real Life Commander: Commander '95 Skeleton Ship | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)

Relentlessly Eron - This was my 3rd C95 deck I built, it's a Mono-Red one. Red is the deepest color in the format, and I wandered what one would look like, so I built this after the strong Eron the Relentless. This format's burn is massive and pretty strong. Lightning Bolt? Chain Lightning? Incinerate? Pyrotechnics? Fireball? Disintegrate? Meteor Shower? Dwarven Catapult? Lava Burst? All are playable, and check out the artifact removal and burn spell Detonate. It's great! Red can destroy artifacts, lands, and creatures with aplomb, from Fissure to Shatter to Stone Rain. It has tons of flyers with Dragons like Shivan Dragon and Dragon Whelp and Nalathni Dragon. I tossed in all of those plus cards like Caverns of Despair, Snow-Covered Mountains and Sunstone. And a lot of artifacts headed in as well. You can check out this brew here - Real Life Commander '95 - Relentlessly Eron | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)

Adun Oakenshield's Reanimation - Adun is the best and pretty much only reanimation option for C95. You can tap him and some mana and Raise Dead a creature for another go around the bin. I am running every legal reanimation effect from Soul Exchange to Animate Dead to Dance of the Dead to an Italian copy of All Hallow's Eve! Don't forget Wheel of Fortune to force a discard, my final copy of Bazaar of Baghdad to tap and draw and discard to get the goods in the bin, Jalum Tome to Loot for a card and discard, Hell's Caretaker to sacrifice and recur, Nether Shadow and Ashen Ghoul to self-recur, Lhurgoyf to get really big, and strong options to recur like Erhnam Djinn, Fallen Angel, Shivan Dragon and Baron Sengir. You can check out the full decklist here - Real Life Commander '95: Adun's Reanimation | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)

Selesnya Anti-Flying - This is my weirdest C95 real life brew! And perhaps my weirdest deck ever! The goal of this deck is to give Gabriel Angelfire something other than flying, and then cast a sweeper like Hurricane or activate Ifh-Biff Efreet and sweep the sky! This deck runs Circle of Protection: Green to keep yourself from taking damage, and I tossed in Force of Nature to prevent as well, as well as Yavimaya Gnats to regenerate, and then that's it. Then leap over your foe's stuff and win with Commander damage. Leaping Lizard can leap up over a defense as well, and then I have a ton of ground pounders like Clockwork Beast, Colossus of Sardia, Craw Wurm, and Elder Land Wurm. I can tap a flyer with Icy Manipulator, prevent their damage with Scarecrow or Whiteout, absorb it with Veteran Bodyguards or Kjeldoran Royal Guard, tap Singing Tree or Maze of Ith to stop it, and loads more. Enjoy this crazy brew here - Real Life Commander '95: Selesnya Anti-Flying | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)!

Normal Commander

Oros's Control - My very first Commander deck was an Oros, the Avenger version of an oversized multiplayer game meta deck I made with cards like Congregate and False Cure that I converted to become a control deck in my first Commander deck, which I still have! This controlling bad boy runs cards like mass removal such as Damnation and Wrath of God, direct removal like Vindicate and Swords to Plowshares, and game winning creatures that can drop later like Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Akroma, Angel of Fury. It's a great deck!

Surrak's Beasts and Where to Find Them - I built a Beast matters decks around the Naya triggers that like big beaters and built it around Surrak Dragonclaw, who is a lot of fun. It includes Beast matter cards like Contested Cliffs and Krosan Warchief, and big matters cards like Exuberant Firestoker, Drumhunter, and Spearbreaker Behemoth. It's full of fat and fat matters stuff, and you can check out the deck list here - Real Life Commander: Surrak's Beasts | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com).

Vhati il-Dal - Older than my Surrak deck by a year is this fun tapper. I love this Golgari brew that has a set of abilities not unlike that of Skeleton Ship above. The goal is to tap Vhati to turn an opposing creature's toughness to 1 and then kill it off with various effects. These effects try to be ones that can be used over and over again, like the Dredge-able Darkblast and the investment of mana into Masticore. We have sweepers like Crypt Rats, death triggers like Deathreap Ritual, and my favorite card, Night of Souls' Betrayal that will drop everything from here on. You can check out the entire build here - Real-Life Commander - Extremely Vhati | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)

Cromat's Buddies - I have the obligatory Five Color Planeswalkers brew around Cromat! It's a lot of fun! I have all of the colors and planeswalkers and abilities, like The Chain Veil. This deck does have a subtheme around enchantments as I run every card in the uncommon Apocalypse cycle like Ana Sanctuary and all of the uncommon Shrines that are the Hondens like Honden of Seeing Winds as well as Academy Rector to fetch out the best enchantment. They will win with triggers over time just as well as your good 'walkers. My favorite planeswalker here is likely Angrath, the Flame-Chained or maybe Liliana Vess. They all rock!

Commander Shadow - I built a Commander deck around Nether Shadow and friends that I called Commander Shadow. This fun brew wanted to get as many self-recursive dorks in the graveyard as possible with Buried Alive and friends, and then bring them back repeatedly. Sacrifice them over and over for triggers. This deck began led by Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath, but as soon as Bontu was printed he swapped in. I have had this deck growing for more than 10 years! You can find my first decklist here - The Kitchen Table #361 - Commander Shadow - Star City Games.

Equinaut - Ah yes. Equinaut. This was a Standard legal deck built around Fleetfoot Panther and Equilibrium. The goal was to cast the Panther and then add one mana and bounce an opposing dork and then rebounce the Panther back to your hand. This deck featured a big number of triggers like self-bounce (Azorius Aethermage), enters the battlefield (Aura Shards), tap abilities (Opposition), and cast triggers (Equilibrium) that would abuse when assembled. This deck has changed leaders twice, the initial leader was Jenara, Asura of War since she was cheap and flew, both of which were needed in this build. Then after Derevi, Empyrial Tactician was printed the Bird Wizard moved in, and then after Chulane came about his was moved in, and I doubt we'll change again! This deck is...awesome! Here is a primer I wrote on the deck - CasualNation #57 - The Equinaut Primer | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) and here is the first iteration of said deck - The Kitchen Table #367 - Equinaut Commander Deck - Star City Games

X Marks the Spot - Real Life Commander: Rosheen Meanderer | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - This is my most recent Real Life brew other than ones in the C95 sub-format, and I built it last year. In this deck I build around a ton of X spell matter cards like... untapping themes like Thousand-Year Elixir, X burn spells like Fanning the Flames and Comet Storm, X creatures like Genesis Hydra and Savageborn Hydra, X effects like the channel of Arashi, the Sky Asunder; the tapping of the land Kessig Wolf Run and the untapping of X lands from Magus of the Candelabra. You can check it out and feel the synergy.

Creatureless Zur - Zur's Overburdening Commander Deck | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com). Hmm... This deck was made when the local gaming community was very, very, Spike-y. The idea behind this deck is to run a creatureless deck that punishes players massively with a number of enchantments and artifacts that will hurt the table. Examples of said punishment include Tainted Aether that forces players of creatures to sacrifice a land, and Overburden that forces players of creatures to bounce a land they control. It can shut down creatures with Humility that turns off everyone's fancy abilities, and bounce creatures all over the block with Noetic Scales. We have 9 planeswalkers that are controlling like Gideon Jura and Sorin, Grim Nemesis. We can remove all of the tasty etb fun times with Torpor Orb. We hose graveyards with Planar Void and Leyline of the Void. We win with man-lands like Mishra's Factory and Faerie Conclave. It's designed for a very Spike'y metagame and not normally something I run out there on the first game (I typically lead with Surrak, Ezuri or Diaochan which are all fun over death), and you can check it out above if you are interested.

Commander Wildfire - The Kitchen Table: Wildfire & Borborygmos Enraged - Star City Games - I built this deck around another set of Spike themes in my playgroup. Ramp had taken over and was winning very quickly. Enter this deck which is built around Wildfire. What this deck seeks to do is to run a ton of mana rocks and mana ramp spells, and then to cast a spell that will sweep the board of dorks with damage and some lands but leave you enough to keep playing the game. It's designed as a break on mass ramp. The idea is to run a big enough dork with a big enough butt that won't be killed by your sweeping removal, which includes up to 5 damage, so I needed a lands matter dork with at least 6 toughness. Enter Angry Borborygmos. You can discard lands to him to Lightning Bolt a target which is pretty cool. As you smash face, which is pretty likely with his trample, you can reveal three cards and toss those lands into your hand which keeps the land flow going while also providing a game winner. This deck features creature sweeping like Thunder Dragon and Crater Hellion. You can untap basic lands by tapping creatures with Earthcraft. It's a powerful deck, and like Zur above, I don't drop it on the table without talks first.

Prodigal Dinosaurs - This is my 3rd favorite Commander deck I own! Back in the first set there was a Green Dinosaur called Fungusaur. When this 4-drop 2/2 was dealt damage, it gained a +1/+1 counter. There was a card called Prodigal Sorcerer. You could tap the Sorcerer to deal damage to a creature. One of the earliest combos of the game was to run pingers and Fungusaur together in the same brew and then grow the Dinosaur quickly! I made this deck into a Budget deck over here - Budget Commander #34: Prodigal Dinosaurs | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) . After the Dinosaur love was printed in Ixalan Block, and its similar ability for them called enrage, I decided to build a real-life Simic deck around them, with pingers and targets on your own side of the battlefield. Hence, this deck, and Ezuri, Claw of Progress to lead it.(It's here - Real Life Commander: Ezuri | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)) I like him here because he's a cheap 3/3 for four mana and as small stuff enters the battlefield under your control you'll net an experience counter, and we have tons of creatures that count. Then before you choose your swingers, one dork gets a ton of +1/+1 counters equal to your experience ones, which can make even a Prodigal Sorcerer into a 7/7 attacker of death and destruction. This deck features cards like Saber Ants that makes a ton of 1/1 Insect tokens that trigger Ezuri as well as Hornet Nest that does the same with flyers. You can kill opposing creatures by targeting them under a Dismiss into Dream. You can win games with Polyraptor! Gain all of the lands with Ranging Raptors. Draw cards with Ripjaw Raptor. Give a pinger deathtouch with Basilisk Collar or Gorgon Flail. This deck is so much fun!

Ramses Overdark - Real Life Ramses Overdark | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - Did you know that Ramses Overdark is now a Human Assassin? It's true! Ramses is a fun card in theory. You drop an Aura on a foe's dork, then you tap Ramses to kill it. The result? Card neutrality - you traded an Aura for a creature, which is the same milage you would get with a Murder. But this deck is different. First, it runs Auras that come back after the creature they enchanted dies. Want a good example? How about Screams from Within. Enchant the creature with that, tap Ramses, kill said dork, and recur the Screams to another in play dork. Also playing into that is Despondency. You can also steal the dead creature with Fool's Demise or Shade's Form. You can draw three and discard one off Casting of Bones. You can draw two cards off Flight of Fancy. We also have enchantment recursion with cards like Skull of Orm that can tap to bring back a dead enchantment or Crystal Chimes that can sacrifice to recur a bunch of enchantments all at once. That will keep up the card flow. You can tap Rootwater Matriarch to steal an enchanted creature. You can flash auras with Rootwater Shaman. This deck was made in 2019, so I also added in good bestow enchantment creatures like Hypnotic Siren and Thassa's Emissary that will become a creature after Ramses taps and destroys it. Fun times!

Lady Caleria's Adventuring Party - Lady Caleria's Adventuring Party | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com). This is the most unique article I've written about a Commander deck. I grabbed Lady Caleria as part of a Random Commander challenge. How to build around her? I choose to emphasize her flavor and created an All-Female Adventuring party that planeswalked with Elspeth with her party and smashed evil. I tossed in tons of legendary females that would fit the flavor of an adventuring party in that first article, as well as places to go to kick butt. I liked it so much that I built the most flavorful deck I have, this one. Lady Caleria is the Commanding Officer and Captain Sisay for the Executive Officer role. We have Paladins (Asmira, Holy Avenger; Danitha Capashen, Paragon), Monks (Azusa, Lost but Seeking), Fighters (Anthousa, Setessan Hero; Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist), Clerics (Kemba, Kha Regent; Oriss, Samite Guardian), Rangers (Lady Caleria; Selvala, Explorer Returned), Scouts (Saffi Eriksdotter), and Shamans (Yeva, Nature's Herald). We have the God they venerate (Nylea, God of the Hunt) and her Bow. Their planeswalker allies (Elspeth, Sun's Champion as well as one copy each of Nahiri, Nissa and Huatli) as well as mortal allies like Birds of Paradise and Mentor of the Meek. Equipment like Argentum Armor and Godsend. They key place to hangout (Adventurers' Guildhouse). And places to clear out (Temple of the False God, Ash Barrens) and Quest for the Holy Relic and Quest for Renewal. Please note that I created this deck before party debuted last year. This is one of my most favorite decks I've ever played, check out my unusual write-up of this article above!

Diaochan, Artful Beauty - Real Life Commander (Take Three) | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - This Mono-Red masterpiece is my favorite Commander deck I've ever built, and Equinaut is just behind it. I'll often lead with this deck on a Commander Night where I am playing against new people. I built this because Red is the worst color in the format, and I wanted to challenge myself. This deck is... awesome in a bunch of cool ways! The goal of this deck is to turn Diaochan's tap and destroy into a game winner. How do you do that? A few ways. First of all, she's much better in multiplayer than in duels. Notice that her ability to choose a creature of an opponent's choice can be different than the one who's creature you destroyed! So, you could destroy Player A's dork, and then choose Player C and they might choose Player B's Commander. It's pretty good for making friends. I wanted to have options that could not be killed by your foe to send them elsewhere like folks with indestructible (Darksteel Sentinel or Stuffy Doll). I also have a few creatures that I can bring back - the Phoenix tribe (Shard Phoenix or Magma Phoenix). I have creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers that I don't care if they die since they already did their thing (Solemn Simulacrum or Avalanche Riders) or I have something I want to die named Anger. I also need to protect Diaochan from being targeted. How do I do that? Equipment! Lightning Greaves gives her Shroud. Sword of Fire and Ice gives her protection from Red. I also have added creatures that sent get around the table and help everyone that shouldn't get targeted either, like Humble Defector or Starke of Rath. Pretty cool, right? Right!

Alphabet Angel - Real Life Commander: Alphabet Angel Soup | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - There is a sub format of the game called Alphabet Soup where you can only use non-basic cards with the first letter of your given name. In my case that's "A"be so only "A"s. I was building a Commander brew in this deck, and I decided to make it a Boros Angel theme, since loads of Angels begin with the word "Angel" as well as all of the "Archangels" and then multiple legendary dorks like Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Akroma, Angel of Fury and Akroma, Angel of Wrath. I used Archangel Avacyn as my leader since she was both colors. I only use flavorful or flavor neutral support cards, like Akroma's Blessing to save my team from targeted removal, damage-based mass removal, an attack from one color, or to swing though the defenses of another. Afterlife and Akroma's Vengeance as removal? Angelic Purge? Angelic Renewal to bring something back? Equipment like Angelic Armaments? You got it!

Fumiko's Fury - Real-Life Commander - First Is Fumiko | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - This was one of my earlier articles around my Real Life stuff. I really liked the idea of a Fumiko deck that forced folks to attack and then punished them for doing so with cards like Caltrops and protected the damage from something like Horn of Deafening or sacrificing Snow-Covered Mountains to Sunstone to Fog away. It's pretty good as a fun way to break the board and then force the game to end, although not always as I'd like. You can keep your stuff back to block and that means they might not want to bring the heat against your Stuffy Doll or Snow Fortress. Snow Fortress is crazy in this brew. Check it out!

Three left!

Vela's Night Children - Return of the Night-Clad | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - I saw Vela the Night-Clad and a great tribe popped into my mind that I wanted to run this around! What Dimir tribe that lacked a leader at that time would like to get intimidate and ran around at night? Ninjas! Vela became my Ninja leader! I also added in a ton of shadow stuff too like Dauthi's Embrace to give shadow to a Ninja to make sure it cannot be blocked. I also ran shadow dorks like Thalakos Dreamweaver to tap-lock a foe' dork or Dauthi Cutthroat to tap and kill a creature with shadow. Might I suggest one that was Embraced? And then we ran all cards that fit the flavor theme like Sword of Light and Shadow, Kiku, Night's Flower, and Night Dealings. The result is a very flavorful deck. Enjoy it!

Trest Invasion - How Scryb Sprites Came to Rule the World | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)- I read about this aggressive take on Edric, Spymaster of Trest from the daily deck of the day that used to be posted on WOTC.com (I sometimes had my decks posted there as well, like Equinaut, which was a real honor.) I really loved this decklist and I built my own version. Here's how the deck works. First, you drop a 1-drop evasive creature on turn one, like Flying Men. Then on turn two you, ideally, drop two evasive threats like Scryb Sprites and Gudul Lurker. Then on turn three you drop Edric, and swing and draw three cards. Then you have tempo cards to keep you in the driver's seat like Winter Orb or Tangle Wire and free counters like Force of Will and Misdirection. And then you win with massive card draw and like 10 creatures out. It's better in duels than in multiplayer so I'll hand it to my foe to play against me in duels. Good stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One deck left! And it's my only real-life deck with two Commanders!

Abzan Bear Beats - Real Life Commander: Abzan Bear Beats | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com) - Ah yes, Bear Beats. I built a 100 card, 5C, non-EDH deck that was built around the power of 2/2s with enters-the-battlefield abilities! It ran Battlemages like Thornscape Battlemage and Thunderscape Battlemage. Avalanche Riders to destroy a land, Ghitu Slinger to Shock something, Nektrataal to destroy something, Solemn Simulacrum to ramp a land, and my favorite, Gravedigger to reload a dead dork and keep up the pressure. I built an Abzan version of this deck around Tymna and Sidar Kondo. Sidar Kondo will make 2/2s or smaller unblockable unless they have flying or reach. Tymna will let you turn life into cards as long as you swung at multiple players during your combat phase, but that risks them dying in combat, unless Kondo makes them unblockable. That is a central core of this deck - small bears with triggers that provide card advantage which will win over time. I tossed in cards like Acidic Slime and Big Game Hunter and Eternal Witness and Duplicant that have great enters-the-battlefield value and a 2 or fewer power. I also tossed in a ton of cards that will help this team like Meekstone or Crackdown that keep bigger things from untapping. I also have Retribution of the Meek and Dusk // Dawn to destroy creatures bigger than these. I have Erratic Portal to bounce one of my creatures and recast it and other synergies. I even tossed in Gravedigger! You are welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And there we go! So, what did you think of my deep dive into my real life decks? Did anything spark you? What was it? Just let me know!