When you play Commander, you end up having way more decks than when you play other formats. How many is too many? What’s the right number for you? Let’s figure it out.
WHY IS IT SO EASY TO KEEP BREWING COMMANDER DECKS?
The first question we need to answer to figure out how many decks to have in your roster is “what makes Commander such an attractive format to keep brewing in?”. The answer is pretty simple: Commander is a format about self-expression. You have infinite ways to express yourself, from the Commander you pick to the cards you put in the 99, the win conditions, the removal, the ramp… it’s all customizable down to the last detail, and that’s even before you consider what basic lands to pick, what foils and showcase arts to choose, and even your sleeves and deckboxes.
If that wasn’t enough, it’s a heavily supported format, with new cards entering the format every month, and new cards designed purely for the format itself entering the format multiple times a year. There’s always something new and interesting to get excited about, and even if – or hell, especially if – you take a break, there’s stuff to come back and rediscover.
So, what are the most common quantities of decks that Commander players have at their disposal? I’m gonna go in descending order here, because it makes the most sense.
20 DECKS? ROOKIE NUMBERS, GET THOSE UP
Let’s start with the argument for having drawers full of decks. Commander is where many long-term and invested players hang out, and a lot of people find it very rewarding to partake in what’s known as the “Chromatic Challenge”. The Chromatic Challenge involves building a Commander deck of every color and combination.
That means having decks that are:
- White, Blue, Black, Red, Green
- All 10 of the Ravnica Guild Pairs
- All 5 Wedges from Tarkir
- All 5 Shards from Alara
- All 5 Four-Color Combinations
- A Five-Color Deck and a Colorless Deck
That’s a grand total of 32 decks!
While that may seem like a lot – and realistically, it is – given the scope of what you can do in Commander, and the different approaches you can take when brewing (budget, win condition, theme, kindred, etc), it can come together quite easily and offer a varied set of decks to pilot.
The issue with the Chromatic Challenge, though, is that you might not actually enjoy playing a deck of every color and style. You might gravitate towards some colors more than others, and in particular sets of decks – think Simic, Sultai, Temur, WURG and URGB, – you might end up with very similar decks and card choices if you’re not careful. This can exacerbate the feeling of completing the challenge for completionist’s sake.
If you’re interested in experimenting, a more achievable challenge might be the Guildpact Challenge: brewing a deck for each of the 10 Ravnica Guild Pairs. Two color decks offer the most differences between them, and it’s when you add a third or fourth color that things get a little muddy. If you want to experiment a little more, you can pick your 5 favorite three-color combinations and do some mono-color decks too, taking you up to 20, which feels like a nice stopping point.
Overall though, unless you’re heavily invested and have a large collection, having 20+ Commander decks can get quite unwieldy. You end up having to upgrade them all or leave them as-is, and unless you play multiple times a week, it’s a struggle to play with them all.
10-12 MIGHT BE MORE REASONABLE
A common number that people report having built is 10-12. This is a pretty nice number, as it allows you to explore a good amount of color combinations and strategies. It also gives you room to build decks with different goals in mind.
When you’re building decks to play with different playgroups, the Commander Bracket Beta system is a great way to figure out the “elevator pitch” of your deck. Are you intending to build for that Core experience where players can bust out a strong Precon, or are you building at Bracket 4 level where things really heat up? Having 10-12 decks can give you room to have decks with a broad range of win conditions, velocity and table experiences.
When you have this many decks, you can find room for multiple decks with similar themes or strategies that you really like, with power level and intent, number of staples and Game Changers, and/or budget being what sets them apart. This is great if you’re a fan of one archetype or creature type that can wildly differ in consistency and velocity depending on how optimized your build is.
The downside of having this many decks is the same as the previous ballpark figure – you end up with more decks than you can feasibly play in an evening, and more decks than you can carry (unless you’re really swole). You’ll naturally gravitate toward your favorite children, and other decks will see play less often.
It’s for this reason that I personally have 10 decks as my hard cut-off. Once I hit 10 decks or more, I end up doing a purge, and cutting right back down to my (more or less) forever decks, and then letting things naturally grow out from there once more. It’s kind of like managing a garden, or letting the deadwood have a controlled burn. You prune and get rid of what isn’t quite bringing you joy, but only once in a while. For periods of time, it’s completely fine to hit that 10-12 mark – you just know that eventually you’ll Kon-mari your way through the roster to cut it back down again.
This is a great way to have yourself a core of reliable favorites, and maybe match that quantity with the same again of “rotating” slots. So, maybe you have five decks you absolutely adore, but then you have five more deckboxes that have other decks in for 6-12 months (maybe more, maybe less) before you deconstruct them to try something else.
8 DECKS IS SWEET FOR A BATTLE-BOX
Another quantity of decks that is a great place to stop is eight decks. This is a number I find really great if you’re putting together a battle-box, or a set of decks that you might want to lend out. Maybe you designed the decks to all be at a similar power level, or maybe you picked a theme or setting for the decks. It’s a little like when you build a Cube – you’ve curated an environment or vibe, and so you want to communicate that in an easy to understand way.
Eight decks is ideal for this kind of project as it gives multiple configurations of four decks for a game of Commander, which keeps things fresh. It allows for plenty of playtesting, and is a low enough quantity that you get enough time with each deck and don’t spend overly long working on them in perpetuity.
5/7 AIN’T BAD
The sweet spot that I’ve found myself at more recently is between 5 and 7 decks. There are a number of reasons for this:
- It’s very manageable to upgrade them and keep the decklists updated
- I can play them frequently and see new cards more frequently
- I can keep fresh on play patterns and sequencing so I can play faster
- I can ensure they are all doing something different
The last one is super important to me – keeping my decks as fresh as possible, and not overly relying on the same cards or play patterns. I say that a little tongue-in-cheek given that I trend toward playing decks that win through combat – and favoring the colors in the Mardu part of the color pie – but that in itself is another reason to keep this quantity of decks.
When you have more than 5-7 decks, you end up with decks that you might not “love”. You experiment with things that aren’t your bread and butter, and so they might not see much play; you might not reach for them very often.
It just so happens that my main loves are Voltron, Reanimator, Equipment and Attacking. When you look at my current roster, you can see:
- Henzie – Bracket 4 – High Power Reanimator
- Hofri Reanimator – Bracket 3 – Combo Win Cons
- Joshua, Phoenix Dominant Reanimator – Bracket 2 – Lower Velocity
- Aurelia, Law Above – Bracket 2/3 – Humans/Tokens Go Wide
- Isshin, Two Heavens as One – Bracket 3 – Dungeons & Burn Good Stuff
- Nahiri – Bracket 3 – Voltron/Equipment
- Sigarda – High End Bracket 3 – Voltron/Enchantress
So, within those seven decks, you have similar themes or strategies, but with different flavors, and different heat levels. That means I get to play the decks and cards I gravitate towards, with different intent and vibes, for different tables.
Once I go beyond five or so of these core decks, I end up with what I spoke about in the previous section – those decks #5 through #10 that may or may not stay built. Quite recently, that has been Shiko & Narset, and Syr Vondam.
THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
There’s another number of decks which is quite common too, and that’s only 3. However, there’s a relevant context to this, and that is that it’s the number of decks most people like to take to a MagicCon or Commandfest.
Three decks is still a good number, variety wise, as it lets you bring say a Precon, a Bracket 3 deck, and then a Bracket 4 or cEDH deck. You get a broad spectrum of power levels, meaning it’s easy to get a game in.
Three is also great number to take, as you can fit three decks in your backpack or storage cards with ease, and it’s not too heavy. You can fit alongside them a Cube, Pauper decks, a Canlander deck, Modern or Standard Competitive decks, or a draft kit to play Sealed, Booster Draft, Boxing League, or the Unknown events.
Would I recommend three decks as the number for your whole collection? Probably not, as I think 5-7 is probably a better number. That said, it’s how many decks I’ve taken to events recently, and found it to be more than enough.
END STEP
In truth, there is no “perfect” number of Commander decks. The amount that works for you heavily depends on the size of your collection, your preferences for power-levels, your common playgroups, and mostly how often you get to play Commander.
Maybe the real answer is that it should depend on your storage solution. It could be that I’ve hit on having 7-12 decks at any one time because that’s what fits neatly in the drawer of an IKEA Kallax unit.
How many decks do you have, and how often do you play? Let us know on Socials.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.