The Importance of Math to “Doing the Thing” In Commander

The most common type of math we talk about in Commander is land counts. I’m not going to go over this one again, as it’s well trodden ground, but I quite liked Rebell’s latest video on it. Instead, I want to talk about how math can help your deck even when you’re not being sweaty.

SWEATY MATH

If you’re thinking about math at all, you’re probably among the sweatier end of Commander players – and I say that with affection. The average casual player isn’t thinking that deep on math, other than how many lands they should run at minimum (always too few) and how many card draw spells or board wipes to run (again, usually too few). 

cEDH is the obvious place where math is king, and this is no more obvious than in Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow decks. Those decks simply must play a one drop in order to Commander Ninjutsu on Turn 2 reliably, and so much work goes into the math of pulling that off. 

Commander players who care about maximizing a deck’s potential to follow through on winning obviously care about math a great deal more than players in Bracket 2 or Bracket 3, who still build mostly on vibes. That’s not to say that players in these brackets don’t follow principles of deckbuilding, but generally speaking if you’re caring enough about your deck to apply hypergeometric distributions, you’re likely not in Bracket 2, are you?

Let’s look at one of my favorite decks, Henzie. While my B3 list is content to eschew turn one mana dorks completely and be happy with a Turn 3 Henzie (and therefore get much better hits off of Etali, Primal Conqueror and Apex Devastator), there are versions of Henzie that take the archetype to its very limit. 

Take a Bracket 4 Henzie deck, for example. This build is concerned with winning quicker and playing lines with Protean Hulk and maybe even pulling off combos. To get a Turn 2 Henzie (and therefore be able to Blitz a creature on Turn 3), you have to run around 12-15 mana dorks, and/or cards like Utopia Sprawl and Elvish Spirit Guide/Simian Spirit Guide. My good friend PapaZedruu has written a rather excellent Primer on Henzie, and in it, he looks at calculating these exact odds.

When you’re in Bracket 4 and cEDH (Bracket 5), the goal and intent isn’t really the same as it is for Casual players in lower brackets. Putting aside the avoidance of choosing “suboptimal” Commanders for archetypes, the lack of pet cards, and never picking cards for “flavor”, a B4/B5 player is mathing on gameplan and win conditions, and not on what most players could benefit from considering using math for: getting to enjoy the reason you put the deck together in the first place, commonly known as “doing the thing”. 

DOING THE THING

While “correct” templates for building a Commander deck vary between deck archetypes, and based on what you have in the Command Zone, there’s one more area of math (other than land counts) that holds true for all deck types, at all power levels, more or less: “doing the thing”.

Your “thing” can be basically anything, but this is easiest to see if we look to Kindred decks – having a critical mass of creatures of your chosen type and/or cards that care about that type is crucial to amassing synergies and building a board. Your Olivia’s Wrath and Captivating Vampire in Edgar Markov won’t work nearly as well unless you’re jamming as many Vampire creature cards in your deck as possible. Artifacts and Enchantments can be good, especially for drawing cards, and having some Instant removal is great too, but if you go too deep? You’re going to run out of creatures, fast.

Where possible, Kindred decks like to put key effects – ramp, removal, card draw – on their chosen creatures, as this advances their gameplan at the same time. But what about decks that aren’t Kindred decks?

USING MATH TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL DECK

A common signpost number for “doing the thing” is to have at least 30 cards that fit that “thing” in your deck. But how do we get to that number? Well, let’s take a look at a great tool you can use. Salubrious Snail (who puts out some great video content on YouTube) has a site with some handy calculators you can use, for free. 

If you want to see two of your chosen theme by Turn 3, running just 25 of that card gives you a 77% chance, which is pretty solid. If you go to 30, that shoots up to a much more comfortable 86.9%. If you drop to as low as 20, you’re barely over a two thirds chance to hit two of the specific kind of card you need. And generally speaking, getting two or more of that card by Turn 3 is a reasonable goal when you have a theme that triggers things like card draw or synergies with your Commander.

Obviously this number can change if you do have card draw in the ‘zone or in your opening hand, but it’s a good baseline to go off.

Let’s apply this math to one of my Bracket 3 decks to see how deck construction is such a huge foundation to playing fun and meaningful games of Commander – even when you don’t win. Because let’s face it, as long as you get to “do the thing”, losing to another player feels infinitely better than losing to your deck screwing you.

NAHIRI’S MOLTEN AMBITION

After deconstructing my B4 Kassandra deck which was way too quick and consistent for my average playgroups, I went back to my old flame Nahiri. 

Nahiri, Forged in Fury is much more suited to Bracket 3. She has no evasion naturally, which means I need to find it in the deck. She also encourages me to build with a more narrow set of equipment cards – those with Living Weapon, For Mirrodin! or Job Select – instead of just jamming the Greatest Hits of equipment cards into the deck. And, while Enlightened Tutor is a nice Game Changer for the list (owing to the fact you can tutor Kaldra Compleat or something to cast for free), I chose to go lower on Tutors just to increase that variance.

Because that’s the other thing about Nahiri: she scratches those neurons with getting to flip cards off the top, and potentially score big by playing an Equipment for free. It feels great to do.

On the flipside of that, missing on those impulse draws can feel horrible. While opting for low mana value cards and modal spells and taking plenty of MDFC lands can help to decrease the chances of missing out on those top decks, you really do need to sit down and apply some math here to get a smooth running machine.

APPLYING MATH TO NAHIRI

So, the gameplan with Nahiri is as follows:

1. Play cheap equipment to reduce Nahiri’s casting cost through Affinity for Equipment
2. Get two to three creatures equipped and ready to swing as fast as possible
3. Play Nahiri to get a look at up to three cards off of your top deck
4. Play equipment for free
5. Go wider, casting even more cards off of the top of the library
6. Snowball value
7. Recast Nahiri after a wrath to clean up, switching to a Voltron finish.

In order to maximize the chances I hit the cards I needed to in the right order, I opted to run a huge 36 equipment cards in my Nahiri list. That’s the same number as the number of lands (including MDFCs) that I’m running. Of those equipment, 28 of them are three mana or less, which means they’re likely to come down before I cast Nahiri. Let’s look at Nahiri’s Molten Ambition by the numbers:

• 36 Equipment
• 28 Equipment @ 3mv or less
• 14 Living Weapons
• 5 Creatures that can tutor up Equipment or put it into play (Kassandra, Gilgamesh etc)
• 5 Early drop Creatures that reduce or free equip (Puresteel Paladin, Fervent Champion, Helitrooper etc)
• 31 Creatures (+4 if you factor in Pre-War Formalwear, Raven Clan War-Axe, Emeria’s Call and Inkmoth Nexus)
• 36 Lands (+ Land Tax, Sword of the Animist, Bitterthorn, Sword of Hearth and Home, & 2* Equipment Tutors)

So, with 36 Equipment and 5 creatures that can find one, we’re at a whopping 96.9% to see two of them by Turn 3. We’re at 86% to see three of them by Turn 3, and still 66% to see four of them by Turn 3. 

Lands wise we’re a little sketchy on 36, with a 78% chance to see three of them by Turn 3. If we add on the tutors and cards like Land Tax, that’s a much more comfortable 88.2%, ignoring how Land Tax basically gives us 100% hit rate on land drops if we have it. The thing about lands in a list like this is that you want to edge on the lower side, because excess lands means you’re going to hit too many off of Nahiri’s triggers. Ideally, through Land Tax and equipment that pull lands out of the deck, we should be maximizing the chance that our Nahiri triggers give us all gas. 

But what about curving out into Nahiri? Well, 10 of our Living Weapons come down before Nahiri. We also have 11 Creatures at MV 3 or less, giving us a 71% base chance that we get two creatures to swing with when casting Nahiri on Turn 4, and a 77% chance we can do that on Turn 5. Bear in mind that should we get any equipment that draw us cards or ramp us, or cheat equip costs, that number will go up quite a bit. 

So, while my Nahiri deck is intended as a Bracket 3 deck, I am still applying math to “do the thing”. Most of my drive to do this is squarely in the “I want my deck to not be boring to play” category, but it does have the nice upside of increasing the chances I have to win games, too. Speaking of winning games…

EVEN MORE NAHIRI MATH

Part of the importance of maximizing the math of swinging early with Living Weapons and low drop Creatures is to get the engine going before people start deploying too many 2/4s or 4/4s. Getting more equipment in play also helps us swerve Commander Tax on Nahiri, too. However, particularly in games where the board gets gummed up and I can’t find my unblockable equipment, Nahiri can run the risk of stalling out. 

It’s safe to say that Eivor, Battle-Ready is something of a “Secret Commander” for the deck. She thrives in these situations as a way to close out games. She’s also incredibly effective at coming down as a surprise after a wrath or bounce wrath; opponents will remove Nahiri and remove a haste equipment, but less often will they Vandalblast my whole board. Eivor rockets into play, often dealing 6-8 damage to each opponent.

What makes Eivor so good here is those 36 equipment – but also the fact I can run the intro deck Raven Clan War-Axe to grab her. Ordinarily this equipment is a little medium, but when it synergizes with my overall strategy and can be a free-cast tutor for Eivor? Hell yeah. It even acts as one of our sources of evasion. Usually I’d be higher on a card like Sword of Vengeance here, but the upside of getting Eivor is too good to pass up. 

You want even MORE math? Well, sit back for this one. Surtr, Fiery Jötun is another card I’m running to get more value off of math. When we run 36 Equipment cards, that’s a lot of hits for Surtr to Lightning Bolt people, places and things. 

36 is rookie numbers, though. While it’s gonna feel amazing to get free Lightning Bolts off the top when you’re freecasting Equipment with Nahiri, the deck has more than 36 ways to trigger Surtr. It actually has a massive 45 spells that can give you a Lightning Bolt for free. And when Gilgamesh and Nahiri can help you fire off a salvo of molten doom, you’re going to be removing blockers and melting life totals quite consistently.

END STEP

Math isn’t only for blockers, or Math graduates. It’s not even only for Bracket 4 and cEDH decks. Math is crucial to helping you have a good time and “do the thing” in your Commander deck.

Math can ensure that even if you don’t win a game, your deck still gets to enact a gameplan and work toward something, and it stops you from feeling like you lost the game to your deck screwing you over.

My Nahiri deck is a lot more fun to play than the deck I first conceptualized on her release, and that’s owing largely to my iterations maximizing the math on what I’m trying to do. 
Let me know if you found this article helpful – or if you’re a fellow equipment gamer, over on Bluesky.