Archetypes

+1/+1 Counters

+1/+1 counter decks put small markers on their creatures that make each one permanently bigger, and keep adding more every turn. Each +1/+1 counter adds one to a creature's power (the damage it deals) and toughness (the damage it can take). · 1,963 cards

Aggro

Aggro decks play cheap creatures early and attack every turn, trying to knock opponents out before their bigger plans come together. · 830 cards

Aristocrats

Aristocrats decks sacrifice their own creatures on purpose and profit every time one dies, often by draining life from each opponent. A sacrifice outlet, a card that lets you sacrifice whenever you like, decides when that happens. · 2,726 cards

Artifacts

An artifacts deck fills the battlefield with artifacts, cards like Sol Ring that stay in play and keep working turn after turn. Played together, they give you extra mana and extra cards. A handful of keywords turn up on artifacts again and again. Equip means you pay a cost to attach an Equipment such as Swiftfoot Boots to one of your creatures. If that creature dies, the Equipment does not go to your graveyard with it. It stays on the battlefield, and you can pay the cost again to attach it to another creature. Crew means you tap your own creatures with enough total power between them to turn a Vehicle such as Smuggler's Copter into a creature until the end of the turn. A Treasure is a token you can sacrifice (put into your graveyard on purpose) for one mana of any color. A token is a game piece that a card makes, not a card from your deck, and Pitiless Plunderer is one card that makes Treasures. Affinity makes a spell like Frogmite cheaper for each artifact you control. Unearth brings a card like Combat Courier back from your graveyard for one turn, and then it is exiled. Modular creatures like Arcbound Ravager enter with +1/+1 counters and pass them to another artifact creature when they die. · 644 cards

Aura/Enchantress

Enchantress decks fill the battlefield with enchantments and use cards that draw you an extra card every time you cast one. An Aura is an enchantment that attaches to something, usually a creature, and changes it. · 152 cards

Big Mana

Big Mana decks build up far more mana than usual, then spend it on huge spells. Some are X spells, which have X in their cost and get stronger the more mana you put in. · 613 cards

Blink/Flicker

Blink decks briefly remove their own creatures from play and return them at once, so every 'when this enters' ability happens again. The move is called a flicker, and it can also rescue a creature from a spell aimed at it. · 877 cards

Bounce

Bounce decks send cards on the battlefield back to their owner's hand, to slow opponents down or to reuse their own cards. Bouncing an opponent's card makes them pay for it again; bouncing your own lets its 'when this enters' ability happen twice. · 256 cards

Burn

Burn decks win by dealing damage straight to opponents with spells and abilities, rather than by attacking with creatures. Damage that hits every opponent at once counts three times over at a four-player table. · 1,726 cards

Cascade/Free Cast

Cascade decks cast extra spells for free, straight from the top of their deck, every time they cast the right card. Cascade turns over cards from the top of your library until it hits a cheaper spell, which you may cast without paying for it. · 469 cards

Chaos

Chaos decks fill the game with random effects like coin flips, dice rolls and random swaps, so nobody's plan goes as expected. It is built for fun and big stories more than for winning quickly. · 476 cards

Cheat into Play

Cheat into Play decks put huge creatures and other expensive cards onto the battlefield without paying their mana costs. A card says "put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield", and an eight-mana dragon is attacking on turn three. Sneak Attack Kaalia of the Vast Natural Order · 322 cards

Clones

Clone decks copy the best creature on the battlefield, whoever owns it, so they always have one of the strongest things on the table. A copy also gets the original's 'when this enters' ability, so each clone can bring a fresh effect too. · 396 cards

Combo

Combo decks hunt for a few specific cards that win the game on the spot once they are all together. Many repeat an action over and over without end, which players call an infinite combo; the rest of the deck searches for the pieces and protects them. · 73 cards

Control

Control decks answer what everyone else plays, stopping spells and removing dangerous cards, then win slowly once they are in charge. Expect lots of removal, spells that cancel other spells, and extra card draw. · 1,573 cards

Dungeon/Initiative

Dungeon decks explore dungeons, special cards kept outside your deck, and get a reward in each room they move into. The initiative sends you into one called the Undercity, and an opponent takes it from you by dealing combat damage to you. · 67 cards

Energy

Energy decks collect energy counters, a resource you save up across turns, then spend them on stronger effects. Energy belongs to you, not to any card, so losing your cards does not take it away. · 149 cards

Enrage

Enrage decks use creatures that do something every time they are dealt damage, then damage them on purpose to set it off. A card that damages every creature can set off all of them at once. · 104 cards

Equipment

Equipment decks attach artifacts called Equipment to their creatures to make them bigger and harder to stop. You pay a cost to equip each one, and it stays on the battlefield when the creature dies, ready to move to the next. · 744 cards

Extra Combats

Extra Combat decks get to attack more than once in a single turn, so their creatures can hit twice or more. They pair with cards that untap creatures, because a creature that attacked is usually tapped and cannot attack again until it untaps. · 49 cards

Extra Turns

Extra Turns decks cast spells that give them another turn right after this one, and try to take several in a row. Taking them back to back is hard to play against, so Commander's three most casual brackets ask players not to. · 52 cards

Graveyard/Self-Mill

Graveyard decks fill their own graveyard on purpose, then play cards from it as if it were a second hand. Moving cards from the top of your own deck straight into the graveyard is called self-mill. · 983 cards

Group Hug

Group Hug decks give every player extra cards, mana or life, making friends at the table while they quietly work toward their own win. The trick is to be the player best placed to use all that extra. · 329 cards

Group Slug

Group Slug decks hurt every player at the table at once, then make sure they can survive the pain better than anyone else. Typical cards make each player take damage or lose life whenever they draw, cast a spell or tap a land for mana. · 604 cards

Hatebears

Hatebears decks play cheap creatures that each carry a rule making life harder for opponents, such as spells costing more. Each one is small, but together they slow the whole table down while they attack. · 125 cards

Infect/Toxic

Infect and toxic decks win with poison counters instead of damage: a player with ten or more poison counters loses the game. Creatures with infect give players poison counters instead of normal damage, and creatures with toxic give poison counters on top of their combat damage. · 167 cards

Landfall

Landfall decks reward you each time a land enters the battlefield for you, then find ways to play extra lands. You can normally play only one land a turn, so cards that let you play more, or pull lands out of your deck, make everything happen more often. · 345 cards

Legends Matter

Legends decks fill up on legendary cards and use cards that reward you each time you cast one. A legendary card has the word Legendary on its type line; you can only keep one with the same name in play, and nearly every commander is legendary. · 79 cards

Lifegain

Lifegain decks gain life over and over and use cards that reward each gain with extra cards, creatures or damage to opponents. Everyone starts at 40 life in Commander, so the extra life also keeps you safe while you set up. · 1,168 cards

Madness/Discard

Discard decks throw away their own cards on purpose and play cards that reward each discard. Cards with madness can even be cast for a different, usually cheaper, cost at the moment you discard them. · 1,363 cards

Midrange

Midrange decks play solid creatures that also deal with opponents' cards, attacking when it is safe and defending when it is not. They sit in the middle: slower than an all-out attacking deck, sturdier than a deck built to answer everything. · 477 cards

Mill

Mill decks win by emptying opponents' libraries, the decks they draw from: a player who has to draw from an empty library loses the game. Milling means putting cards from the top of a library straight into the graveyard. · 294 cards

Morph

Morph decks play creatures face down, as mystery 2/2s for three mana, then flip them face up at the right moment for a surprise. Turning one face up costs its morph cost and can be done at almost any time, even on an opponent's turn. · 330 cards

Pillowfort

Pillowfort decks make attacking you so costly or unappealing that opponents attack each other instead. Cards like Ghostly Prison make a player pay mana for every creature that attacks you, buying time for your own plan. · 159 cards

Pingers

Pinger decks deal one damage at a time, again and again, to pick off small creatures and wear opponents down. The damage usually comes from creatures you tap to deal 1 damage, or from cards that deal damage whenever something happens. · 728 cards

Politics

Politics decks turn opponents against each other, making their creatures attack someone else or letting the whole table vote. Goad is the most common tool: a goaded creature must attack, and must attack someone other than you if it can. · 518 cards

Reanimator

Reanimator decks put big creatures into their own graveyard early, then bring them back onto the battlefield without paying their cost. It gets a huge creature into play far sooner than you could afford to cast it. · 814 cards

Sacrifice

Sacrifice decks give up their own creatures, Treasures and other cards on purpose and get something back each time. A sacrifice outlet, a card that lets you sacrifice whenever you want, is the heart of the deck. · 1,111 cards

Spellslinger

Spellslinger decks cast lots of instants and sorceries, one-time spells, and play creatures that reward every spell you cast. Instants and sorceries take effect once and then go to your graveyard, and an instant can even be cast during another player's turn. · 726 cards

Stax

Stax decks slow the whole game down with cards that make spells cost more, stop lands from untapping, or limit what players can do each turn. The deck is built so those limits hurt it least. Many groups dislike playing against it, so check with your table first. · 1,355 cards

Storm

Storm decks build up to one huge turn. They cast a long chain of cheap spells, using rituals (spells that add mana) to keep going, and finish with a spell that counts every spell cast before it that turn. · 91 cards

Superfriends

Superfriends decks play lots of planeswalkers and protect them so they can use their abilities turn after turn. A planeswalker stays in play and uses one ability each turn by adding or removing loyalty counters; opponents can attack it to knock those counters off. · 142 cards

Theft

Theft decks take control of opponents' creatures and other cards, or cast spells from their decks, and use them against them. Some steals last one turn so you can attack with the borrowed creature; others are permanent. · 425 cards

Tokens

Token decks fill the battlefield with small creatures made by their cards, then attack with all of them or make them all bigger at once. A token is a creature (or other object) that a card creates, not a card from your deck. · 2,774 cards

Toolbox

Toolbox decks carry one perfect answer for each kind of problem, plus plenty of cards that search the deck for whichever one they need. A card that searches your deck for another card is called a tutor. · 290 cards

Treasures

Treasure decks make lots of Treasures, small artifact tokens you can trade in for one mana of any color, then spend that mana on big plays. Many of the same cards reward you for having or sacrificing artifacts, so each Treasure does two jobs. · 226 cards

Typal/Kindred

Typal decks are built around one creature type, like Elves, Dragons or Zombies, with cards that make that type stronger. The type is printed after the dash on the card's type line, and the strategy is also called kindred or tribal. · 1,291 cards

Vehicles

Vehicle decks use Vehicles, artifacts that become creatures when you tap your own creatures to crew them. A Vehicle is not a creature the rest of the time, so it survives spells that destroy all creatures and then turns into an attacker when you need it. · 315 cards

Voltron

Voltron decks load one creature, usually the commander, with Equipment and Auras until it can win by attacking on its own. In Commander, a player dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the game loses, so one huge commander can knock a player out. · 960 cards

Wheels

Wheel decks make every player swap their whole hand for a fresh one, then profit from all that drawing. One way is making opponents lose life for each card they draw. The name comes from the card Wheel of Fortune. · 220 cards