I played and won a casual, four-hour, five-player game of Commander the other night. I rolled out my Volo, Guide to Monsters deck from my article a few months ago (I'd finally gotten the last piece in the mail!). I played against a Cromat Levelers Tribal deck, a heavily modified Cat tribal deck, a not-quite-cEDH Adeline, Resplendent Cathar deck, and this Etali, Primal Storm storm deck (which was surprisingly effective).

By the end of the game, Volo cost 14 mana, I had 19 mana available, and I had drawn 82 cards. No one had milled me. By turn five or so I was drawing between five and seven cards per turn cycle. I was using almost all my mana every turn, too; at the end I was holding up for Pongify, but otherwise I was tapping out.

The Adeline player is pretty widely considered the best player in our group; he has a lot of experience with competitive formats and is our go-to for rules questions, plus he has a near-Abe Sargent-level encyclopedic knowledge of Magic cards. When I counted my library at the end of the game and found 17 cards, I commented it was playing with him that had made me prioritize card draw - he always draws a ton of cards, and he always does really well. So, as I've been constructing decks, I've been putting more and more draw into my builds. His response was if you asked someone in a vacuum who would win the game of Commander, it's probably the person who drew 82 cards.

The point is not that I'm a great Magic player. I'm nowhere near optimal, and I really do this because I like the social interaction of the game, plus I actually like the game. At the end of the day, I don't really care if I win or lose. The point is, if you want to win games of Magic, especially in Commander where your opponents are drawing three to six cards more than you per turn, you need to make mana and you need to draw cards.

Let's keep that in mind as we look at today's Commander.

We have a six-mana 5/5 with no evasion. Fortunately, his triggered ability happens at the beginning of combat, not when he attacks, so we don't have to send him out into the fray if we don't want to. What we do get is the opportunity to drop a Creature, attack with it immediately, and make copies equal to the number of opponents we have via Myriad. I suspect we can grind some value out of this.

Let's start with mana. We need to have it if we want to win. We're going to draw a lot of cards and several of those cards cost a fair amount, including our Commander. We want to be able to cast them, so we'll need that mana. We have 40 lands (of course), most of which make our colors. The exceptions are Bonders' Enclave and War Room, both of which can be used to draw cards; Castle Ardenvale and Castle Embereth, which have abilities we can use if we have extra mana sitting around; Rogue's Passage, which can be used to keep one of our Creatures alive through a difficult attack; Slayers' Stronghold and Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion, which also give us ways to use our mana and excellent combat pumps; Reliquary Tower allows us to hold on to all those cards we're drawing; and High Market, which is one of our sacrifice outlets to take advantage of the tokens we're making before they Exile themselves.

We've also got a solid ton of mana rocks. I'm going to list them all here, and before you read on, I want you to see if you can figure out what they (mostly) have in common.

• Bonder's Ornament
• Boros Cluestone
• Boros Locket
• Commander's Sphere
• Ebony Fly
• Lantern of Revealing
• Magnifying Glass
• Mind Stone
• Network Terminal
• Thought Vessel

Do you see it? With the exceptions of Thought Vessel and Ebony Fly, they all draw us cards. Ebony Fly even gives us something to do with extra mana. Thought Vessel is another way to keep our cards if we end up having more than seven. Sure, Sol Ring and Arcane Signet might be a little better at getting us the mana we want, but this deck isn't going to try to win in three turns. Rather than explode that quickly, we're thinking about the long game. Magnifying Glass can come down on turn three and get our Commander out a turn early. Then later, we can dump extra mana into it to make Clues and draw cards. Commander's Sphere is an early-game ramp and a late-Game 3-mana draw-one spell. I acknowledge Sol Ring's value in an early game context, but late game it's a rather dead card; this structure makes our cards worth something at every point of the game.

Now we need to draw those cards. We've got a couple of Instants in Big Score and Your Temple Is Under Attack. However, most of our draw comes from Creatures: cards like Inspiring Overseer. We play that and draw a card. Then we give it Haste and Myriad with Duke Ulder and draw a card for each token entering the battlefield when we attack. If we can keep it alive, we can do the same thing next turn. We have a number of Creatures who simply draw a card when they come into play. However, we've also got trickier things like Battle Angels of Tyr, which gets us value in lots of ways if an opponent has more cards, land or life than us, Archivist of Oghma, which is a new White staple for a reason, and Rumor Gatherer, who will often draw us cards just for doing what we do, because we'll play a Creature (Scry!) then attack and make copies (draw!). Plus, we get more Scrys if we make more than two tokens Circuit Mender is neat because it doesn't have to die, but rather leave the Battlefield, to draw a card. That means those tokens will draw us one at the end of Combat no matter what. Idol of Oblivion will often be active, but can also be used as a mana sink later to make a huge dude we can attack with. Aerial Extortionist doubles as a removal spell and a draw spell. Palace Jailer makes us the Monarch, which shouldn't be discounted. That card matters.

Don't be afraid to cast these Creatures aggressively, and don't be afraid to use Duke Ulder's trigger on them to keep cards flowing. There will be times when you have something super fun and huge in your hand, but take a breath and attack with that Skyscanner instead. Draw some cards, keep your hand full, and do the big attack next turn. It'll be worth it.

Our threats are big Creatures with strong effects. Combustible Gearhulk, Geist-Honored Monk, Luminate Primordial, and Sanctuary Warden are all examples of the sort of big thing we can leverage to hit people hard. Some of them draw us cards, some make tokens, and some remove threats, but all of them will be effective when they have Haste and Myriad.

Blasphemous Act and Austere Command are our resets. It's possible that isn't enough, especially since we'll often have a superior board state, but they're good to have. Austere Command specifically is great because of the options is grants us. We also have a few point removal spells to get rid of a pesky flyer or something overly large, and my favorite card of all time, Ride Down, which is specifically nasty in this deck. A few Artifact and Enchantment removal spells round out our package, including some Creatures which can copied and then used to clear away problems.

A few cards are worth mentioning specifically. Goblin Bombardment, Martyr's Cause, and Spawning Pit all serve as free Sacrifice outlets. We can deal damage with our Myriad tokens, then sacrifice them to something for value. This is also good for Firbolg Flutist, who's going to Threaten our opponents' stuff. Since we won't be able to attack with much of it (our Myriad copies will steal things, but we'll be past declaring attackers so we can't use them), we may as well get rid of them for our opponents. Tell them we're just helping keep their board state uncluttered.

Sun Titan will buy back our small card-drawing Creatures and all our mana rocks, so we can use them to draw more cards! Cathars' Crusade remains as busted as ever, dropping absurd numbers of counters on our Creatures. Warstorm Surge is expensive but oh-so-fun. Imagine that being out and playing an Inferno Titan, then attacking with it with Myriad. That's going to throw a lot of damage around the board. Panharmonicon doubles up all our triggers.

Finally, we have Sundial of the Infinite. This tricky, bizarre little card can make our Myriad tokens survive their Exile trigger. Here's how it works: our tokens are put into play tapped and attacking. Blockers are declared, then damage resolves. We move to the end of Combat phase, when we have priority as the active player. The Exile trigger goes on the stack, but we can respond by tapping Sundial. That will resolve, ending the turn and clearing the stack. Yes, we skip our second main phase, but we keep all our tokens. This is very likely to draw a Wrath of God effect out, but it's still worth it for the incredible value we get from it.

Duke Ulder Ravengard | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Duke Ulder Ravengard

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Aerial Extortionist
• 1 Ancient Gold Dragon
• 1 Angel of the Ruins
• 1 Archivist of Oghma
• 1 Battle Angels of Tyr
• 1 Captain of the Watch
• 1 Cathar Commando
• 1 Cavalier of Dawn
• 1 Charming Prince
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Combustible Gearhulk
• 1 Firbolg Flutist
• 1 Geist-Honored Monk
• 1 Inferno Titan
• 1 Inspiring Overseer
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Kor Cartographer
• 1 Luminate Primordial
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Palace Jailer
• 1 Plundering Barbarian
• 1 Port Razer
• 1 Priest of Ancient Lore
• 1 Roving Harper
• 1 Rumor Gatherer
• 1 Sanctuary Warden
• 1 Skyclave Apparition
• 1 Skyscanner
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spirited Companion
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Wily Goblin

• Instants (6)
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Ride Down
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Your Temple Is Under Attack

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Blasphemous Act

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Chained to the Rocks
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Martyr's Cause
• 1 Warstorm Surge

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Boros Cluestone
• 1 Boros Locket
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Ebony Fly
• 1 Idol of Oblivion
• 1 Lantern of Revealing
• 1 Magnifying Glass
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Network Terminal
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Spawning Pit
• 1 Sundial of the Infinite
• 1 Thought Vessel

• Lands (40)
• 13 Plains
• 9 Mountain
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Furycalm Snarl
• 1 High Market
• 1 Needleverge Pathway
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Sundown Pass
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 War Room

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I didn't include Ancient Copper Dragon for the same reason I don't include original dual lands or (often) shock- and fetchlands: price. If you've got one or the money to get one and want to build this deck, I'd definitely include that, since it would be insane.

And the truth is, this deck can use just about any on-color Creature with a solid ETB. Swap out with Creatures you actually have if you're looking to keep the cost down. You can also use different removal if you're looking to save some cash. Just don't cut back on the mana or the card draw. Yes, you'll draw a lot of lands. You'll also be able to cast your spells and play the game. Enjoy it!

How would you build Duke Ulder? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for reading.