Kristen sits down to talk about the decks she’s built, taken apart, and upgraded through 2025. How many will make the cut for the next year of Commander?
It’s become something of a tradition now to write a Commander Class article each year, so I’m excited to dive into another entry. You can check out previous entries here:
It’s a great way to look back on what made me hyped and what didn’t leave a lasting impression. If you enjoy the read, then maybe it’d be fun to do this yourself, too.
COMMANDERS THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT
First up, it’s Commanders that didn’t make it through the year.
GIADA, FONT OF HOPE
I rebuilt Giada because I love playing Angels decks, and because I had a point to prove: Giada is the arguably best option for Angels right now, and it isn’t close. We are still desperately in need of a good multicolor option that is actually themed around and mechanically tied to playing Angels, either in Naya or Mardu colors. My decklist shored up white’s weaknesses by leveraging the draw from Conjurer’s Mantle and Rammas Echor, while ensuring we could survive long enough with lifelink synergies.
I’m proud of the deck, and I think it’s great – but ultimately I got bored of playing mono-white Angels again. Fun note – Giada is apparently good enough to Rapid Hybridize on Turn 1, according to one of my playgroups. Not sure if that says more about Giada or my win rate.
SIGARDA, HOST OF HERONS
Speaking of that win rate, Sigarda was a hard deck to lose with if you even got an average draw. The games I did lose were to truly abysmal draws, but the rest of the time? She’s practically unassailable in the new Bracket system, as she’s too slow for Bracket 4, and in many Bracket 3 pods, people don’t find the answers they need to slow her down once she gets going – largely because they don’t play enough board wipes. While those are very much other people issues, I didn’t find it particularly fun to just roll a snowball downhill without resistance, and so I eventually retired the deck in order to try a different Enchantress build. I might break her out again once I’ve moved house and find a better playgroup for her. Case of the Locked Hot House was an exquisite upgrade.
SYR GWYN, HERO OF ASHVALE
Syr Gwyn has been a mainstay in my roster since she released, and I truly do love the deck. She’s the perfect Commander for Sunforger, and I’ve enjoyed many a stack battle with her leading the charge. She’s very lethal, and getting upgrades like Glasswing Grace, Final Showdown and Inevitable Defeat for the Sunforger package gave the deck even better tools to control the board. That said, I have played the deck to death. I have grown a little burned out from the somewhat-linear setup into swing and control gameplay, and given equipment decks are my bread and butter, I just wanted to try something new. She’s definitely entering the Hall of Fame with Sigarda, and might be recalled in the future.
DISA THE RESTLESS
I’m going to be completely honest – Disa didn’t get played much, at all. Thanks to being hella busy and experiencing soul-crushing variance while playing the precon, I never found myself reaching for it. I also didn’t much feel like spending the money to upgrade it. So, rather than being deconstructed, I’ll probably just sell her or re-gift her to a friend at some point. Sometimes things just don’t line up, and that’s okay.
VALGAVOTH, HARROWER OF SOULS
Some things just don’t line up, and it can also be not okay. Valgavoth on paper was a deck I was extremely hyped about. In practice? It ended up causing me no end of frustration and scoops. Despite other Valgavoth players managing to enjoy magical-Christmas-land, curve into Valgavoth every game, always have a redirect spell, and otherwise do everything I wanted to do, my luck was to always have my Commander removed, countered or stolen. I think my average was something like 8/10 games I wouldn’t get to stick the Commander at all.
That just wasn’t fun for me, and so I ended up retiring the deck. It’s better to quit while you’re ahead than continue rubbing your face into salt. While I could have refined the deck further to account for the storm I was weathering from seasoned opponents (i.e., players who knew my bullshit), it just didn’t seem worth the effort.
NEW BUILDS THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT
SYR VONDAM, SUNSTAR EXEMPLAR
I built Syr Vondam because I enjoyed playing him in the Brawl Queue on Arena. It’s a really well designed card and entices you with hoop-jumping. Unfortunately, my experience with the deck was that it was trying to do too many things at once (badly). Orzhov aristocrats really struggles in Commander unless you’re doing something broken and combo-oriented, and this was probably the last time I’d try the archetype. For a more detailed breakdown on my experience, there’s an article, too.
THEMBERCHAUD
Oh my, the Ember Chad. What a deck. I really loved brewing and playing with this deck, and it scratched an itch for the first time since I played Massacre Girl in the Command Zone. I enjoyed the challenge of working out how to give him lifelink in order to offset the incoming damage, and how best to ramp out Mountains. The deck was a blast to play, and in as many games as I came close to the sun and burned out, I also won handily.
My love affair was relatively short lived, as I felt like the deck was kinda solved. I’d done everything I wanted with it, and wanted to try another mono-Red Commander (a desire that never got fulfilled this Calendar year).
ISSHIN, TWO HEAVENS AS ONE
When we’re talking “solved” decks, another comes to mind – Ishinn, Two Heavens as One. This Commander is one I’ve had a lot of fun with, and my Dungeons & Damage build is a unique enough take on it that the deck stands distinct from the rest of the average Isshin decks. The problem is that like Syr Gwyn, the deck got repetitive, even with a new build and a bunch of new cards. The deck was also feeling somewhat solved like Emberchad, because your low end ends up the same no matter what your high end is, meaning the gameplay is very samey.
THE KAMI KNIGHT
I couldn’t not build my Mystery Commander event card, could I? Turns out it’s every bit as busted as you read. Playing the deck was a lot of fun, but it was also absurd. It was just way, way too powerful, and that’s not fun for anyone unless everyone is doing the same thing. I very much enjoyed the process of working out which creatures and which equipment could combine to create the best decklist (hello, Sage of the Skies and Hammers of Moradin – you wanna help us complete a Dungeon in one turn?). It’s been shelved with a view to rebuilding it in paper should the need transpire.
ALELA, CUNNING CONQUEROR
Typal has always been the bane of my existence. I love it in theory, but in practice, I never come away from it feeling satisfied. That’s partially because all typal decks are a variation on “go wide enough and buff your stuff”. If I wanted to do that, I’d just play my Aurelia, the Law Above deck. That said, I do really like Faeries (and not just because I’m Irish). I had some fun games with Alela, but never found myself going for it from my drawer. My decklist was probably a little unfocused as I don’t enjoy playing Dimir control in Commander (you end up the archenemy every game, and without cards like Rhystic Study, it’s hard to get to your end game). So, it was a little betwixt Control and typal.
SHIKO & NARSET, UNIFIED
Shiko & Narset wasn’t a deck I ever planned on picking up or building, but I was lucky enough to get sent a precon by the lovely PR folks in the UK. I played it and… well, I was kinda hooked. I ended up doing some minor upgrades and retooling, and found the deck to be a lot of fun. My build oriented toward Aura-enchantress (partially as I was fresh off of Sigarda, and partially because Jeskai auras is kinda neat). It became one of my more popular lists on Moxfield, with a few folks even asking for a Primer. I guess more folks than me enjoy doubling a Psychic Possession!
I deconstructed the deck in the end because my various upgrades meant the deck didn’t have a clear enough direction. It was still winning games – often from way behind, which is always fun – but I felt like I’d moved too far from the original idea and something just wasn’t jiving. I was also on a bit of a minimalism kick, and was enjoying deconstructing decks.
NEW COMMANDER OF THE YEAR
JOSHUA, PHOENIX’S DOMINANT // PHOENIX, WARDEN OF FIRE
I have already waxed lyrical about this Commander, so it’s kinda flogging a dead horse at this point, but boy oh boy did I have the time of my life brewing and playing this deck this year. I think perhaps part of why I like him so much is that I’ve cracked building a Bracket 2 deck with him, and it’s very satisfying to have a deck that plays less efficient removal and a slower gameplan but also just works fine as a deck.
Boros Reanimator has been a love of mine ever since my first Aurelia deck nearly 10 years ago, and it’s very cool to have a more casual version of my tuned-up combo-oriented Hofri deck for when I want to play the archetype. This deck feels fresh thanks to running weird stuff like Electroduplicate and other Flashback cards like Nibelheim Aflame, and I’m always happy to break it out. Also, the art on the card is fantastic.
BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO AN OLD ARCHETYPE
GO-SHINTAI OF LIFE’S ORIGIN
The other deck I’ve loved as a “new” deck has been Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin. This one isn’t a New Commander persay, but it is new for me, and it got a lot of new cards in Avatar. I wanted a new enchantress list, and I thought “hey, why not try something a little less crazy than Sigarda”. While Go-Shintai decks can be busted too (Entombing Omniscience, anyone?), I chose to keep this deck as on-theme as possible, with only cards with art or setting that could be linked to going on a Shrine pilgrimage.
As such, it plays kind-of suboptimal cards like Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa, Wanderer and Tamiyo Planeswalkers, and only removal and interaction with appropriate art. To go along with the theme, I created my own Shrine tokens with photos I took of Shrines in Japan. This turned out to be a powerful unity – intent and passion project. The perfect B2 deck.
WHAT’S NEXT ON MY BUILD LIST
I ended up keeping only a couple of decks that I built this year, with a massive six new builds not making it. It’s been a very busy year for me, culminating with another house move, so I’ve stuck to playing favorites far more than usual.
JIN SAKAI, GHOST OF TSUSHIMA
Next on my brewing list (when the Secret Lair arrives, of course!) is Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima. I love the Ghost games, and I love combat oriented Commanders. I also love doing things in color combinations that are a little different. Jin Sakai ticks all those boxes, and I’m excited to see what I can come up with. I have (had?) a pile of cards pulled out for brewing, which I’ll be digging into once the holidays are over.
SHIKO & NARSET, AGAIN
And yes, I want to look again at Shiko and Narset. I want to really explore that Aura-Enchantress archetype more to see how much I can cook with, and then take the best parts and cement this deck in my roster.
AURELIA THE WARLEADER
There’s also a part of me that would love to go back to my roots and see how Aurelia shapes up in 2025 with all of the new toys. In my head, she ends up as Boros version of an Isshin deck that’s a little slower to get going, as I’m not really interested in equipment combo. We’ll see how that goes.
IROAS GOD OF VICTORY
It might be that Aurelia doesn’t materialize, as I discussed the other week how Iroas looks to be a great Firebending Commander. Maybe that’s the direction I go instead.
COMMANDER CLASS OF 2025
So that brings us to my Commander Class of 2025. There are six decks graduating this year, with Sigarda and Syr Gwyn joining my unofficial Hall of Fame list.
That gives us six decks in my roster, four of which are Boros, which some might say is embarrassing, but I would say is the epitome of doing what you love to get the most out of the format. Let’s briefly cover the ones I haven’t talked about yet.
Aurelia the Law Above continues to be fun to play, especially when you can cast Elspeth Storm Slayer into Forth Eorlingas!. Part of me wants to tinker with the deck, though, and it’s likely to be plundered for parts for either Iroas or Aurelia, the Warleader. The deck does feel comfortably “finished” in some sense, so I have fewer qualms about deconstructing it and revisiting it later.
Hofri is a deck that stays winning and stays in my roster, and I have found it has benefitted immensely by some upgrades this year. Summon: Yojimbo gives it another way to survive the mid-game alongside The One Ring, and Magmakin Artillerist from Aetherdrift is another great wincon. I suspect this deck will continue to stand the test of time.
Nahiri is fun to play, and my newest iteration is probably the version of the deck I’m most happy with. The build process was engaging, and building around Surtr Fiery Jotun was enthralling. I covered the whole process in my article about how important math is to “doing the thing” in Commander, if you want to read more on that. Ultimately I like having Nahiri as my casual Equipment deck, as the variance in her ability makes every game unique, and like… I get to play with Nahiri.
I am wondering if I want a higher powered equipment list in the wake of Gwyn and Kassandra leaving rotation, so we’ll see how that goes.
Finally, let’s talk about Henzie. My decklist is the perfect balance between punchy and consistent, and I’ve made the effort to keep him reigned in away from B4 so I can still enjoy varied top-deck gameplay, and playing silly cards like Ojer Kaslem and Apex Devastator. Henzie is a really strong and fun Jund Commander, and you can see that in how much the community loves him, too. Of all the discords I’ve frequented this year on my travels to find out how the Bracket system has been received, the Henzie Discord is one of a handful I’ve grown the most fond of.
END STEP
So, that’s my Class of 2025. It’s been a year that’s seemingly gone by in a flash. I do wonder if Spider-Man into Avatar maybe cooled off my deckbuilding a little – but equally, so has having to move house twice in one year. I’ll not bore you with the details, but man, I am looking forward to a break. Six decks make the cut, with plenty being retired, and some new brews on the horizon. You can view all of my lists on Moxfield. I hope you’ve enjoyed this reflection on a year of deckbuilding, and maybe it’ll inspire you to take stock, too.
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.