The idea of power levels in Commander is a point of contention for some Magic players. While I can definitely see the merit of being able to measure the relative power of your deck, a 1-10 scale is a somewhat nebulous rating system with a lot of room for subjectivity. One player might consider their weakest deck a two or a three simply because it loses consistently in their own play group.

What is a power level 10 Commander deck?

This example does not directly take into account things like interaction; however, interaction can also be the hallmark of a very powerful deck. Some midpower decks stay that way because they want to execute their plan and have no plan to deal with other players. That’s fine, but if that plan is SMASH CREATURES into people, they might have some issues with a control player playing a board wipe every other turn in their superfriends deck. In short a deck’s synergistic qualities are how it interacts with itself and not necessarily how it interacts with other people. Urza’s Iron Alliance, for example, has been an incredibly popular preconstructed Commander deck in my area as of late. Most players, including myself, have a variation of Urza, Chief Artificer, that they want to bring to the table.

I have been getting more games of commander in lately and every time a POD of randoms gets assembled it seems to be an uncertain conversation for most players involved. Often a deck will have a card that has an effect and another card that does a similar thing better, or worse, as a backup or primary piece. This leads us into redundancy; how many times can a deck do a thing even if a card is removed.

I see the attraction of being able to quantify your deck’s strength, speed and resiliency and I appreciate that smart people like complicated solutions to things. I just think the temptation to label your deck a 6.5 and then upgrade it to a 7.0 or 7.5 if it’s been doing well is just a little unrealistic. These decks don’t play in a vacuum – they rely on the skill of the player piloting them, they interact with the other decks in the game, and the variance you encounter in a singleton format is hard to understate. If by some trick of fate you find yourself dominating play, use that as an excuse to really challenge yourself by building a deck you don’t think you can win with. You might pick a weak commander or restrict yourself by not playing “staples.” You could intentionally play a tribe that has less support. The “fair share” plan is really simple, though it only really applies to low and mid powered metas.

When players feel like they have been lied to, they are much more likely to be salty. When a player is dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of a game, they lose the game. After ascending to Super Saiyan, Xeno Trunks was able to defeat Mira and Super Mira with the help of the Masked Saiyan. You could also have one of those nights where you just can’t draw the lands you need, or too many, or not the right colors.

Also, keep in mind no particular card alone can significantly move an entire deck’s power level up e.g. Contrapositively, no lack of a particular card alone can significantly move a deck’s power level down e.g. a level 10 competitive deck can exist without a Mana Crypt. The most basic of decks are power level one oftenly power level 1 decks don’t follow a theme, and don’t really work either.

Power Level 8-10

That said, the synergy that this deck offers is more powerful than the average precon, putting the self-mill version, in my opinion, around a 4.5-5 power level. According to this list, most of my decks are either an 8 or a 3 and nothing in between. That said, my prebuilt upgrades do tend to have a game plan and wincons, so they could also be considered a 5, even though they are just upgraded prebuilt decks.

These are decks that meet the legal requirements to be played in Commander, but not much else. If you’re that good a player and deck-builder you ought to be able to brew up a deck that you’ll have a hard time winning with, but which will still be interesting and fun for you to play. You should have a healthy conversation before the game about how the deck plays – especially if you’re playing with strangers or with familiar players that you know can get salty easily.

What is a good mana curve for a Commander deck?

The best type of Commander deck can vary depending on personal preferences and playstyles. However, tribal decks are often popular and considered to be among the best types of decks in the format. Tribal decks focus on a specific creature type and leverage synergies and interactions within that tribe to create a unique and flavorful deck.

There is no definitive answer to this question as the power level of Commander decks can vary and is subjective. Examples include decks centered around commanders like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, Kozilek, The Great Distortion, and The First Sliver. These decks often have strong strategies, powerful cards, and efficient win conditions.

The next major things are the cards of the deck, how powerful are these cards? This is a simple idea with many layers and each layer means something different. This idea is what most of the casual players like myself refer to as the line of what’s okay in your play group. My friend group tends to stay in the middle level with some lowend-high level decks.

The first and easiest to understand is the commander, the leader of the decks, most have a category listed somewhere online that determines how powerful the commanders can be. This is usually a solid foundation but not nearly not enough information to determine the power levels. This week is part 2 of the power level explanation started the week prior. Seeing as its still combos edh break time this post won’t be extremely long but it will hopefully give more clarification about how commander players build decks and how we define a power level. Another issue with the turn count strategy is that it doesn’t take win rate into account.

The second part will go into detail about which power levels represent what. While these cards can drop 4 mana value Commander turn one, they will more often (outside of Jeweled Lotus) provide for more ramp or value cards that have a one time impact or gain value over the game. The inherent weakness of these cards however is the need to draw them to do anything.