Finding Synergy in Commander

Practical tips and resources for building EDH decks

If you see a deck and the cards come together into a Theme or feel like they were designed to be played together. You are probably beholding synergy. And you may say: “I want that”. In this article, I will provide a series of tips and resources you can use to find the synergy you desire.

Start with your Commander

You can do this process with any creature, so pick whichever one you like. Although this process will be more robust if your commander has more abilities.

Look at every section of a Commander card for anything that may show up in another card’s text. This includes:

1. Rules Text
2. Mana Cost / Converted Mana Cost
3. Type, Subtype, and Supertype
4. Power/Resistance

Card Name could also be relevant, but not as often. Think of cards with meld like Gisela, the Broken Blade, or Urza, Lord Protector.

Side note: if your group uses cards from un-sets then the list becomes quite longer! Including art, artist, rarity, border, etc.

Having read and re-read all of these, we go hunting for cards. We may know many by ear, but we will have to look for the rest. I use card scryfall for this. But use whichever card search engine you feel comfortable with.

Adding Cards

We’ll break the deck down into these 7 categories.

1. Cards the commander wants: The commander has more value if these cards are on the battlefield.
2. Cards that want the commander: These cards have more value with your commander present.
3. 7–10x Card Advantage: Keep cards flowing.
4. 7–12x Mana acceleration: Cast your cards earlier.
5. 7–12x Interaction & protection: Disrupt your opponents or prevent their disruption.
6. 0–3x Replacements: Do the same or better than your commander.
7. 3-5x Win conditions: These allow you to close up the game.

1 & 2 Don’t have counts. Aim for ~20 in both categories combined, if they don’t fit in a different one. However, cards in all categories should try to follow the rules for categories 1 and 2.

Note that these are rough guidelines. Feel free to play around with them.

We’ll go through each category, see what each category means, and get some tips when evaluating those cards, with examples.

1. Cards the commander wants

The first two categories are the most important.

First, read the Commander’s text. What does it care about? Enchantments? Artifacts? Attacking? Expensive spells? Proactivity? Reactivity?

The answer lies within a spectrum between explicit and implicit.

Explicit is when a card mentions the exact word, number, cost, name, or mechanic that appears in another card.

Implicit is when a card works well with your commander, even though neither mentions the other card’s abilities.

Explicit

A card that gives +1/+1 to other creatures with Flying, has an implicit synergy with creatures that have Flying.

These cards vary greatly from commander to commander, so as a general guideline:

1. Look for abilities that appear in your commander that may show up in other cards. Does it untap creatures or grant haste? Add creatures with activated abilities. Search Scryfall for cards with those abilities in their oracle text and add the ones that catch your eye.
2. If your Commander cares about a specific card type or subtype, add cards of that type. Sythis, for example cares about enchantments. Search Scryfall for them.
3. Generic tribal Cards. Does it care about a specific type of creature? Changelings are all types. These ones are the only ones I consider useful enough to mention: Changeling Outcast, Mirror Entity, Black Market Connections, Masked Vandal.

Implicit

An example would be a planeswalker and a card like Condemn. Planeswalkers can be attacked. If an opponent attacks your planeswalker, it becomes an attacking creature and a valid target for Condemn.

Other examples of implicit synergy include:

1. Cards with mana cost different than your commander. Simply because you can play this card on curve with your commander.
2. Give it haste, if it has good combat stats or taps to activate an ability. Examples: Expedite, Rhythm of the Wild, Thousand-year Elixir, Lightning Greaves.
3. If your commander attacks, you want removal to clear the path. Or give it trample so it doesn’t get chump blocked. Examples: Rancor, Shadowspear, Lightning Bolt.
4. Defensive play. If you have a lot of big spells you want to cast, then you want to ramp up to be able to cast them (see point #3). But you also may want to have enough removal to deal with your opponent’s threats before they take you down. (see point #6)
5. Protect your investments. Even if you cast a creature for 4 mana, you may feel bad if your opponent gets rid of it by spending one white mana or 2 in a Go For the Throat. (see point #6).
6. Spell-slingers. Some abilities do something whenever you cast a spell. So cast as many spells as possible. Add many cheap spells of the kind your commander cares about. Better if they also draw you a card. Examples: Gitaxian Probe, Mishra’s Bauble, Manamorphose, Spirited Companion, Kenrith’s Transformation.

2. Cards that want the commander

Look for cards that care about a characteristic of your commander.

Is your commander a Bird Wizard? For Wizards a lot come to mind, for Bird I can only think of one. But what about power? There are cards that care about your commander’s power. Like Stubborn Denial or Bolt Bend.

Some tips for this category include.

1. Look for keywords. If your commander has, for example, flying, you can run a search like this. If you have a different keyword, replace flying with it.
2. Specific Tribal cards. Your commander may be a Merfolk, and there are some cards that care about that. Search for its card types in your favorite search engine.
3. Some cards work with Commanders. Check them out, and better if your commander also cares about some quality of the card, like cost or card type. See this link for some examples.
4. Some cards work with Legendary Creatures. But look them up, and see what you find. Examples: Legendary Sorceries, or cards from this search.

3. Mana Acceleration

1. Creature vs Non-creature. If your commander has a preference for a type of card (enchantment, creature, instant) put ramp of that type. Otherwise stick to non-creature ramp, as creatures are frailer.
2. Cast before your commander. You want to use ramp to cast your commander a turn or two early. Or cast your commander + a backup spell. Examples: Simian Spirit Guide and Anje Falkenrath, Mana Vault and Chromium, the Mutable, Arcane Signet and Brago, King Eternal.
3. Adds mana when it resolves (or enters the battlefield). If you can play an Arcane Signet and tap it for 1 mana, then you may be able to play another card afterward. Examples: Skyshroud Claim, Wild Growth, Nature’s Lore, Talisman of Creativity.
4. Ramp should net you one mana/mana invested. If you spend 2 mana to cast a ramp spell, you should get back permanents that can add at least 2 mana per turn. If you get mana back or untapped lands on the same turn, it doesn’t count as part of the investment. Examples: Faeburrow Elder, Sanctum Weaver, Lotus Cobra.

4. Card Advantage

1. 1 mana = 1 card. As a general rule, a draw spell that draws gives you 1 card for every mana spent is a good draw spell. If they give you more than one then even better. Examples: Painful Truths, Night’s Whisper
2. Card Advantage is not the same as draw, but draw is a form of card advantage. There are cards that make your opponents discard or allow you to play cards from places other than your hand. Examples: Light up the Stage, Courser of Kruphix, Crucible of Worlds.
3. Draw when they resolve (or soon after). The game might be over before you get to draw from your Phyrexian Arena. But if you have enough attacking creatures you might get to draw with Bident of Thassa. Examples: Mulldrifter, Read the Bones, and Garruk’s Uprising.
4. Keep these cheap (1, 2, or 3 mana value). You can draw a bunch of cards, but if you cannot cast what you draw you might end up passing the turn with unspent mana. Examples: Thoughtcast, Chart a Course, Deadly Dispute.
5. Or don’t. If your deck is full of 0 and 1-cost spells, like cheap artifacts or creatures, then it’s ok if your draw spells are expensive, as you might still play a bunch of the cards you draw anyway. Examples: Ad Nauseam, Paradoxical Outcome.

5. Replacements

1. Check if the effects stack. Sometimes they can act as a replacement AND as a synergy, this is better than plain replacement. An example is Jori En, Ruin Diver, and Wavebreak Hippocamp.
2. See if they are better than your commander, but they are not creatures or they are not legendary. You still want to put them in your deck, in case your commander tax gets too high. An example would be Falco Spara and Future Sight.
3. Might not be worth it with recastable Commanders with static abilities. Only Karador, Ghost Chieftain comes to mind. It avoids commander tax and it’s always available. Adding an effect that allows you to cast creatures from the graveyard or return creatures to hand is not worth it.

6. Interaction & Protection

You will always want some interaction. But sometimes you need protection as well. This will help you decide.

Interaction
Interaction means removals, countermagic, stax, or any card that meddles with your opponents’ game plan.

You want Interaction if your commander…

1. is hard to kill or is a planeswalker.
2. comes in late.
3. does something when it comes into play.
4. avoids commander tax.

Interaction should

1. Be cheap. 1 or 2 mana for a single target. 3 or 4 for Sweepers or Wraths. Examples: Swords to Plowshares, Nature’s Claim, Out of Time, Toxic Deluge.
2. Sweepers and Wraths should be one-sided. They should kill your opponents’ creatures but not yours. Examples: Dusk, Pyroclasm, Consuming Tide.
3. Be versatile. Should be able to interact with multiple types of permanents. Examples: Abrade, Farewell, Assassin’s Trophy.

Protection
Protection means any card that prevents your opponent from meddling with your game plan. Hexproof, indestructible, phase out, countermagic, etc…

You want Protection if your commander…

1. is costly.
2. has an important triggered, activated, or static ability.
3. is good at attacking.

Tips on protection:

1. Cost 1 mana if it protects 1 card, 2 mana if it protects multiple cards. Examples: Loran’s Escape, Spell Pierce, Heroic Intervention.
2. Hexproof or indestructible alone is not enough. You need both or an additional effect. Phasing out is also ok. Examples: Apostle’s Blessing, Tamiyo’s Safekeeping, Slip Out The Back.
3. Blink is ok if you have many enter-the-battlefield abilities. Examples: Ephemerate, Essence Flux, Malakir Rebirth.

7. Wincons

A win condition is a card that allows you to close the match. In general, you’ll want to accrue some advantage before slamming one of these down, but it may be the kind of card that doesn’t need a setup.

1. Don’t start here. If you build the rest of your deck first, it will be clear whether you need to include Overwhelming Stampede (creatures), Aetherflux Reservoir (spells/artifacts), or Doubling Season + Planeswalkers.
2. Include more than one. I usually go with 3+ in a deck plus some way of drawing into them or tutoring them.
3. See if they can do double duty. If you are losing, your win conditions may not work at all. But if they are also removals or card draw, then you can play them even if you are not on the lead.
4. Look for non-combo strategies. This is a personal preference. Examples include combat damage, commander damage, mill, sheer card advantage, or non-infinite card engines. If I add a Combo, I add one that relies on 3+ cards or lots of mana to work. (EDHREC has a list of combos by color identity.)

One step further

All cards get bonus points if they fall into more than one of the categories above. And more points if they need the commander or the commander wants them.

And as you build the deck, cards will fall into categories. Look for patterns in your deck and repeat this same process but instead of putting your commander first, put these groups of cards under the scope.

If you work long enough on it, you will end up with layers upon layers of synergy that will all have your commander at the center of it. And playing a card will feel like it’s doing more than what it could do on its own. Maybe even come full circle.

Hope you found this useful,

Manuel

Other resources

• Synergy article by Mike Flores. A clear explanation on how cards build on top of each other.
• Building DePietro DePauper. The 7 by 9 rule is mentioned. Which explains card ratios in Commander, as well as other deckbuilding principles.
• 7 by 9. On card ratios in commander and a different list of card categories.
• EDHREC & this list Secret EDH Staples. For card examples, and a guide to card evaluation.