Chaos is a dangerous thing. In Magic, the player most likely to win is usually the one who is in control of the game, whether that be an aggro player forcing his opponent to chump-block to stay alive, or a control player using counterspells to dictate what can and can’t hit the field. But what happens when no one is in control? Depending on your personality and play style, this sort of chaos can be either very fun or very frustrating. If you’re the kind of person who cringes every time you see the word random, this article may not be for you. However, if you enjoy rolling dice and flipping coins every once in a while, read on.

Causing chaos has always been one of my favorite things to do in a game of Magic. Unfortunately, this often comes at the cost of winning. Most of the time, chaos affects everyone equally, so the more resources you devote to causing it, the fewer resources you can devote to winning the game. When the other players are using almost every card to help them win, you will usually be at a serious disadvantage. The other problem is that some people dislike randomness, and will try to kill you for creating more of it. After using all those cards to cause chaos, you often won’t have anything left to defend yourself. With these two problems in mind, I set out to build a Commander deck that could create all sorts of chaos—while still being able to win the game.

The first step is choosing a Commander. Most random effects are in Red, so that needs to be one of the colors. Blue has some headache-inducing enchantments like Eye of the Storm, as well as cards like Polymorph and Telemin Performance, so it’s in as well. Looking at the Blue/Red Commanders, none of them seem to work particularly well in a chaos deck. However, adding White gives us access to more defensive cards, as well two great new Commanders, Zedruu the Greathearted and Ruhan of the Fomori. Ruhan is the obvious option here, as the word random is right there in his text box. However, Zedruu may be the more powerful option. Most chaotic cards don’t care who controls them, so they can be donated away without any effect. In addition, many of our chaotic cards are going to involve shuffling permanents around, which will let us draw quite a few cards. So, do we want more chaos or more power? Why not both? Including both potential Commanders in the deck lets us switch on the fly based on what kind of game we want to play.

Since we’re playing Red, White, and Blue, Wild Research is a card I definitely want to have in here. It fits the random theme, and we can use it to search up some chaotic enchantments. Of course, we need to have some chaotic enchantments to search up. There are many different options out there, but these are the ones I want to be sure to include:

• Risky Move
• Tide of War
• Puca's Mischief
• Eye of the Storm
• Hive Mind
• Planar Chaos
• Grip of Chaos
• Confusion in the Ranks

Risky Move and Tide of War will both work to our advantage, as the plan is not to have many big threats in the deck. Puca's Mischief will let us trade permanents that we were going to give away anyway, doubling the value we get out of them. Eye of the Storm and Hive Mind to some crazy things with instants and sorceries, and Planar Chaos and Grip of Chaos have an even broader effect. My secret hope is to get all four of these out at once, just to see the mix of confusion and terror on my opponents’ faces. Confusion in the ranks will have permanents sliding from player to player all over the battlefield, and if you can give Zedruu Shroud, you can safely draw a ton of cards.

There are quite a few sorceries that are great for causing chaos as well. Here are the ones that seem to fit best in this deck:

• Warp World
• Thieves' Auction
• Cultural Exchange
• Chromeshell Crab
• Legerdemain

Warp World is a card that casual gamers love to abuse. In this deck, however, it serves as a great way to change things up if the board stalls. Thieves' Auction puts everything up for grabs, and you get first pick. Once the important things have gone, make sure to grab any of your opponents’ lands that can produce your colors. If they have to take some of yours, Zedruu can start drawing a ridiculous number of cards. Cultural Exchange, Chromeshell Crab, and Legerdemain can swap a couple of your less impressive creatures for some of the best threats on the battlefield, and Cultural Exchange can even be used to force two of your opponents to exchange creatures, causing more confusion. The list of purely chaotic cards may seem short, but when it comes to causing trouble, sometimes less is more. I also avoided some types of cards that may be detrimental to the deck, such as those that cause players to lose large amounts of life. A shorter game means less time for crazy things to happen.

Sometimes chaos isn’t the point of a card, but merely a side effect. We’ll add in some removal and threats that have a bit of randomness tacked on:

• Polymorph
• Reweave
• Proteus Staff
• Chaos Warp
• Shapeshifter's Marrow
• Telemin Performance
• Helm of Obedience

Polymorph, Reweave, Proteus Staff, and Chaos Warp can exchange a dangerous threat for a small utility creature, or put something even more dangerous onto the battlefield. Shapeshifter's Marrow, Telemin Performance, and Helm of Obedience have the same possibilities, but for you rather than your opponent.

With all the chaos going on, we’ll need some surefire ways to win the game in case things get bad. Staying in theme, Insurrection is the best option. Its lesser cousins, Reins of Power and Twist Allegiance, will serve as backup. To make sure we have time to cause lots of chaos and, we hope, win the game, we’ll need a strong defense. There will often be at least one player who will come after us for taking away any semblance of order the game had. To ensure we stay alive, we’ll use a suite of nigh-invincible creatures, tokens generators for chump-blocking, taxing effects, and various other cards that make attacking us an unwise decision:

• Fog Bank
• Guard Gomazoa
• Goblin Snowman
• Wall of Vapor
• Mother of Runes
• Loyal Sentry
• Soul Snare
• Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• Propaganda
• Ghostly Prison
• Windborn Muse
• Norn's Annex
• Collective Restraint
• Vow of Lightning
• Vow of Duty
• Vow of Flight
• Sun Droplet
• Martyr's Bond
• Nuisance Engine
• Mobilization
• Diamond Kaleidoscope

Staying alive is rather important, and it will usually take more than one of these cards to the job, so this is the largest section by far. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory, but it’s worth noting that Mother of Runes can also be used to protect your general, and Diamond Kaleidoscope can generate mana as well as tokens.

The rest of the deck consists of utility cards that will help us keep the chaos under control as much as possible. Rhystic Study and Honden of Seeing Winds provide a bit of extra card-draw if we don’t have access to Zedruu, and in case one player starts to take over, we have a few Wrath effects in the form of Final Judgment, Martial Coup, and Austere Command. We also have a few more conventional removal spells:

• Aftershock
• Orim's Thunder
• Return to Dust
• Spin into Myth
• Oblation

And some mana-fixing and acceleration:

• Solemn Simulacrum
• Wayfarer's Bauble
• Coalition Relic
• Darksteel Ingot
• Spectral Searchlight

Rounding out the list, we have Lightning Greaves and Neurok Stealthsuit. Remember when we mentioned giving Zedruu Shroud earlier? These are the cheapest and easiest ways to do that. They can also protect your combat-proof creatures from dying to removal spells.

Finally, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two cards from the upcoming core set that fit right into this deck. Swiftfoot Boots joins the two other equipments that protect your creatures for very little mana, and Scrambleverse is the most chaotic card printed in years. It almost seems like it was tailor-made for this deck.

If you’re looking for something a bit different in a Commander deck, this may be the one for you. Is there something you think should have been included? Make your own version and try it out! There are definitely different directions you could go, from coin-flipping madness with Chance Encounter to Unglued craziness with Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire. Everyone has his or her own idea of what fun is, and Commander is a great place to explore the things that make Magic great. Although this may not be the strongest deck you could play, it’s definitely a surefire way to have some random, crazy, chaotic, ridiculous fun.