Hello, reader. If you're here because you heard someone refer to a "75%" deck and you came searching for what that might mean, this article is an excellent recap of the guidelines we use to build a 75% deck. The article you're reading now is the first in a years-long series and I would not recommend reading just this one article. Thanks for reading and if you have any specific questions, contact me on twitter @jasonealt.

If you'd told me a year ago I'd be writing about Commander, I probably would have laughed. It's not derision for the format or anything; I'd probably have had the same reaction if I were told that I'd be writing about Legacy or Limited—playing at all, really. Yet, here we are. I'm writing about Commander.

Recently, Gathering Magic Content Manager Adam Styborski was our guest on Brainstorm Brewery. We got into a conversation after the podcast recording session officially ended that we really liked, so we decided to release that conversation as a supplemental recording. It's only about twelve minutes, but it's worth a listen because I mention my approach to Commander.

When Corbin mentioned that his most recent creation was a Sharuum the Hegemon deck, I said, “Sharuum is so hard not to be the best deck or the worst deck. Building a mediocre, I-don't-win-every-game Sharuum deck is hard.”

“Adam,” I asked, “do you agree that you don't want to win every game of Commander?”

How good is too good?

Adam seemed to be with me. “The thing about Commander is that I want the experience to be a good one. If a bunch of insane things happened and I tried to do my thing . . . I'm way happier with that experience, even losing.” And don't we all agree with that? There are myriad formats people can play if they want to be Spikes, and there are even outlets for competitive Commander decks, although those are best played against other players who also built spikey decks and who are using French or “Duel Commander” rules. At around the eight-and-a-half-minute mark in the recording, I talk about how I try to build my decks and call them “75% decks,” meaning they are 75% of the way to an optimal build and just good enough to beat a deck built to be 100% optimal if I play tight and get lucky. That way, it is a challenge for me and allows me to benefit from the 100% decks facing opposition from some of the other players at the table. These 75% decks are also not going to turn four an entire table of casual players who just want to jam a bunch of Umbras on an Uril or make a hundred Sand Warrior tokens with Hazezon Tamar. I'm not out to ruin anyone else’s night by killing him or her quickly or ruin my own night because I played Evasive Maneuvers right out of the box and have no game against even the most casual of builds.

In a good night of Commander for my playgroup, I will win 1 ÷ X games, where X is the number of players at the table. It isn't about letting anyone else win, it's not about fetching mana dorks with your Tooth and Nail because finding Deadeye Navigator and Molten Primordial is going to make everyone upset, and it's not about being patronizing to your group. Winning that proportion of the games will avoid painting a target on your back or making anyone resent your involvement. You want to make decks that let you “do a thing” that will be fun to do and that don't prevent others from “doing their thing” on principle, but that may provide ways for you to actively stop opponents if they are getting out of hand.

What Does a 75% Deck Look Like?

It's helpful to illustrate what kind of power level I shoot for by posting one of the decks I use often with my playgroup, that I can use to win 1 ÷ X games, and about which no one has complained.

"Riku of Two Reflections"

• Commander (0)

• Lands (38)
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Copperline Gorge
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Vivid Grove
• 1 Vivid Crag
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Hinterland harbor
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 8 Island
• 6 Forest
• 5 Mountain

• Rocks and Other Brown Stuff (16)
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Crystal Shard
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Staff of Nin

• Dudes (27)
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Echo Mage
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Vithian Renegades
• 1 Borderland Ranger
• 1 Viridian Shaman
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Somberwald Sage
• 1 Clone
• 1 Bloodbraid Elf
• 1 Fathom Mage
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Mindclaw Shaman
• 1 Hypersonic Dragon
• 1 Prophet of Kruphix
• 1 Izzet Chronarch
• 1 Progenitor Mimic
• 1 Brutalizer Exarch
• 1 RubbleHulk
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Gruul Ragebeast
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Prime Speaker Zegana
• 1 Molten Primordial
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Terastodon

• Spells (18)
• 1 Artifact Mutation
• 1 Explore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Treasure Hunt
• 1 Hinder
• 1 Spell Crumple
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Far Wanderings
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Control Magic
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Tooth and Nail
• 1 Time Stretch

Buy This Deck

Now, a 100% Riku deck would look a lot different. You will notice a few things by looking at this list.

Second, you will notice there aren't a ton of ways to take extra turns. This is by design. If I grow bored and want the game to end, I can double a Time Stretch with Riku, and if any of those extra turns yield an Archaeomancer, Eternal Witness, or Izzet Chronarch, that is usually game. However, I do this to end games, I don't make everyone watch me take extra turns in the middle of a game with cards like Time Warp if all I am doing is mana ramping and improving my board slightly. Furthermore, this helps me keep the cost of the deck low. A 100% Commander deck doesn't mind shelling out $50 for a Temporal Manipulation, but a 75% deck doesn't feel the need to run that many copies of cards to take extra turns—you either find a way to win earlier or you wrap things up if everyone is durdling and the game runs long enough for you to take four turns with Time Stretch.

Last of all is a concept I want to go into in a bit more in depth. I mentioned the concept of scalability with respect to my counterspells, and I think this deck illustrates scalability with respect to my spells and creatures very well. I find the easiest way to make sure your deck is a true 75% Commander deck is to make the deck play differently against different power levels in your opponents' decks. If I have never played against an opponent before and all I have are my 100% smash-everyone-at-the-table deck and my 50% take-it-easy-on-new-people deck, which do I bust out, and how do I do so without disrespecting my opponent? I find that if a lot of my powerful spells are entirely dependent on what is in his or her deck, you can bring the same deck to two different matches and have two entirely different outcomes.

I hope this has illustrated the concept of a 75% deck a little bit better. Had you noticed you tend to build decks like this for certain playgroups but didn't know this concept had a name? Do you think my deck could use tuning (no Commander deck is ever finished, is it?) because it's too strong or too weak? Leave it in the comments section. Thanks for reading, and I hope to be back soon to talk about more decks and more philosophy.