Concepts and explanations of Magic: The Gathering

Commander

The legendary creature the whole deck is built around.

Your commander does not start in your deck. It starts in the command zone, face up, where everyone can see it, and you can cast it from there whenever you can afford it.

If it dies or gets exiled, you can put it back in the command zone and cast it again. That costs 2 more each time, which is called the commander tax. So a commander is never really gone, it just gets expensive.

It also sets your colors. That is the next entry, and it is the rule that decides what the other ninety nine cards are allowed to be.

Also called general.

Color identity

The colors your commander is, and therefore the only colors your deck may be.

Color identity is every colored mana symbol on the card, not just the ones in the cost. A symbol in the rules text counts, and so does one in a reminder line.

Every card in your deck has to fit inside your commander’s colors. A green and white commander means no card in the deck may have a blue, black or red symbol anywhere on it.

This is why swapping your commander can throw cards out of the deck. They were legal under the old one and are not under the new one.

Also called colour identity.

The 99

The ninety nine cards that are not your commander.

A Commander deck is exactly one hundred cards: the commander, plus ninety nine. Not ninety eight, not a hundred and one.

If you have two commanders, because they say partner or you are running a background, then it is ninety eight plus the two of them. Still a hundred.

Also called the deck, the maindeck.

Singleton

One copy of each card, with basic lands exempt.

You cannot run four copies of your favorite card the way you would in a sixty card deck. One each, and that is it.

Basic lands are the exception. Run as many Forests as you like.

Singleton is the reason so much of the rest of this page exists. You will not draw the same card twice, so you need several cards that do a similar job rather than four copies of the best one.

Also called highlander.

Lands

The cards that pay for everything else.

Most Commander decks want somewhere between 33 and 40 lands. That sounds like a lot until you miss your third land drop and watch the game happen without you.

The cheaper your deck is on average, the fewer you need. The more expensive, the more. If you are unsure, 37 is a fine place to start and you can adjust once you have played it.

Also called the mana base.

Ramp

Cards that get you extra mana ahead of schedule.

One land per turn is slow, and a hundred card deck is full of things that cost five and six. Ramp is how you get there early: a rock like Arcane Signet, a creature that taps for mana, or a spell that fetches a land out of your deck.

Eight to twelve is the usual range. Too little and your expensive cards sit in your hand. Too much and you draw mana when you wanted a game.

Also called acceleration, mana rocks, mana dorks.

Card draw

Cards that replace the cards you spend.

You play a card, you have one fewer card. Do that four times and your hand is empty and you are drawing one a turn like everybody else, except three other people are doing things.

Eight to twelve, same as ramp. This is the job beginners cut first and miss most.

Also called card advantage, draw.

Removal

An answer to one problem on the table.

Somebody will play something that wins the game if it stays. Removal is how you say no. Destroy it, exile it, bounce it, make its controller sacrifice it.

Eight to twelve again, and at a four player table lean toward the higher end, because there are three times as many problems.

People often call this whole job interaction, which is a slightly wider word: counterspells and making somebody discard are interaction too, and they are not removal.

Also called interaction, answers, spot removal.

Board wipes

An answer to a whole battlefield at once.

Sometimes it is not one problem, it is three players with nine creatures between them and you are next. A board wipe is the reset button.

Two to four is plenty. They are a blunt instrument and they usually kill your things too, so more than that and you are fighting yourself.

Also called sweepers, wraths, mass removal.

Win conditions

The cards that actually end the game.

A deck can do clever things for an hour and never kill anybody. At some point somebody has to lose, and the cards that make that happen are the win conditions.

You need two to four. Not twenty, because they are usually expensive and you only need to resolve one, and not zero, which is more common than it sounds.

Commander damage is one route worth knowing: 21 damage from the same commander kills a player on its own, whatever their life total is. That is the whole idea behind voltron.

Also called wincons, finishers.

Combos

Two or three cards that do something absurd together.

On their own they are ordinary. Together they make infinite mana, or infinite damage, or a loop that ends the game on the spot.

There is nothing wrong with a combo, but it moves your bracket up, and a two card infinite combo moves it up quite a long way. Know whether you have one before you tell somebody what bracket you are.

Also called two card combos, infinites.

Game Changers

A specific published list of the cards that warp a game most.

This is not an opinion, it is a list Wizards maintains, and Scryfall marks the cards on it. Think Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, Smothering Tithe.

How many you run is the main thing that decides your bracket. None is a bracket 1 or 2 deck, up to three is bracket 3, and more than that is an optimized table.

Mana curve

The spread of what your cards cost.

If everything in your deck costs six, you do nothing for five turns. If everything costs one, you run out of steam by turn four.

You want a spread, weighted toward the cheap end. A good check: could you cast something useful on turn two, three and four? If not, the curve is too high whatever the average says.

Also called the curve.

Bracket 1, Exhibition

A deck built for the joke, not the win.

Every card is a group photo. Winning would be a pleasant surprise and is not the point, and games go long because nobody at this table is trying to end one.

Bracket 2, Core

About as strong as a preconstructed deck out of the box.

This is where most kitchen table Commander lives. No Game Changers, no infinite combos, no cards that stop other people playing. Games take a while and several people get to do their thing.

Also called precon level.

Bracket 3, Upgraded

A precon somebody has spent real money and thought on.

Up to three Game Changers, a tighter mana base, cards that actually cost something. Still no two card infinite combo, and still nothing that locks the table out.

If you are not sure which bracket your deck is, it is probably this one.

Bracket 4, Optimized

Built to win, without being a tournament deck.

As many Game Changers as you like, combos, tutors, fast mana. The deck is trying its hardest with the cards you chose to build it around.

The line between this and bracket 5 is intent. A bracket 4 deck is the best version of an idea. A bracket 5 deck picked the idea because it was the best.

Also called high power.

Bracket 5, cEDH

Competitive Commander. Winning is the only consideration.

Deck choice, card choice and every play is about winning as fast as possible while stopping three other people doing the same. Games can be over on turn three.

It is a real and well loved way to play. It is also a completely different game from bracket 2, which is exactly why the numbers exist.

Also called competitive EDH, cedh.

Why we say estimated

When Trolleri puts a bracket on your deck, it is an estimate, not a ruling.

We count the things that move a deck up: Game Changers, extra turn spells, two card infinite combos, mass land denial, tutors. Then we say what that adds up to.

It does not know how you play, only what is in the list, so treat it as a starting point for the conversation rather than the end of one. You know your deck better than a count of cards does.

Brawl

Commander with a smaller card pool and a smaller deck.

What is the same: one legendary commander in the command zone, singleton, and color identity deciding what the rest of the deck can be. If you can build one you can build the other.

What is different: Brawl decks are 60 cards rather than 100, and the card pool is limited rather than the whole history of the game. Brawl is a Magic Arena format, so it moves as sets rotate, while Commander is played on a table with everything ever printed.

Life totals differ too. Commander starts you at 40. Brawl starts you at 25 in a multiplayer game and 30 one on one.

Trolleri treats a Brawl list as a Commander deck, so the deck size check and the bracket estimate are both reading Commander rules at your Brawl deck.

Also called historic brawl, standard brawl.

Tokens

Make lots of small creatures out of nothing, then win with the crowd.

A token is a creature that was never a card. Something on the battlefield makes one, and you keep making more until the board is yours. Half the deck creates them and the other half pays you for having a lot of them, so one wide attack or a single pump spell ends the game.

Also called go wide.

Build a tokens deck

Aristocrats

Sacrifice your own creatures and drain the table a point at a time.

This is the sacrifice theme with a win condition bolted on. Something drains every opponent when a creature of yours dies, tokens supply the bodies, and an outlet lets you choose the moment. You never have to attack. The deck wins by making one small trigger happen twenty times.

Also called sacrifice payoff.

Build an aristocrats deck

Sacrifice

Spend your own permanents on purpose, because something pays you when they go.

A sacrifice outlet is a card that lets you throw one of your own permanents away whenever you like, for free. On its own that is a terrible deal. Next to cards that trigger on a death, or creatures that come back by themselves, it turns your own board into a resource you can spend again and again.

Also called sac outlet.

Build a sacrifice deck

Voltron

Pile equipment and auras onto one creature until it can win on its own.

Twenty one damage from your commander knocks a player out, and a well equipped commander gets there in three swings. The deck is one creature and a stack of things to attach to it. The risk is the obvious one: answer the creature and everything you spent goes with it, so protection matters as much as size.

Also called commander damage deck.

Build a voltron deck

Stax

Slow the whole table down with rules that cost everybody else more than they cost you.

Stax cards tax or forbid something normal, like untapping, drawing, or casting more than one spell a turn. You build the deck so the restriction lands lightest on you, and win while everyone else is stuck. Worth saying before you build it: this is the theme most likely to make a table unhappy, so it wants a group that has agreed to play against it.

Also called prison, resource denial.

Build a stax deck

Spellslinger

Play instants and sorceries, and run creatures that reward you for casting them.

Most decks use spells to answer problems. Here the casting is the point: each spell triggers something, so a normal turn of removal and card draw also makes damage or creatures. Expect a deck that is light on creatures and heavy on the cards other decks think of as filler.

Also called storm, magecraft deck.

Build a spellslinger deck

Graveyard

Treat your graveyard as a second hand you can spend from.

Most decks treat a card in the graveyard as gone. This one puts cards there deliberately and then uses them, casting from the yard, returning them to play, or simply counting how many are down there. Filling the graveyard is half the deck, and the cards that care how full it is are the other half.

Also called self mill, recursion.

Build a graveyard deck

Reanimation

Put something enormous in the graveyard early, then bring it back cheaply.

Casting a twelve mana creature honestly takes most of a game. Discarding it and paying three to return it takes two turns. The deck is a small number of huge threats, a reliable way of getting one into the graveyard, and several ways of pulling it back out.

Also called reanimator.

Build a reanimation deck

+1/+1 counters

Grow a few creatures a bit at a time until they are enormous.

A +1/+1 counter is a permanent size increase sitting on a creature. Nothing you spend wears off at the end of the turn, so the board only ever gets bigger. The deck wants creatures that arrive with counters, cards that add more, and payoffs that care how many are already there.

Also called counters matter, plus one plus one.

Build a +1/+1 counters deck

Kindred

Pick a creature type you like and play the cards that reward you for it.

Elves, goblins, dragons, whatever you enjoy looking at. Kindred cards check the type rather than the individual card, so every creature you add makes the ones already on the board better. Magic called this tribal until 2024 and plenty of people still do. It is the easiest theme to build against yourself, because the question never changes: is it the right type?

Also called tribal, tribal payoff, typal.

Build a kindred deck

Lifegain

Climb out of reach, then turn a huge life total into a win.

Gaining life on its own does not win a game, it only buys time. The theme works when the deck also runs cards that trigger every time you gain, or that turn the total itself into damage or cards. Treat the life as fuel for an engine rather than as the plan.

Also called life matters.

Build a lifegain deck

Life drain

Take life from everyone else and add it to your own, over and over.

Draining is the quiet way to win a four player game. Every trigger hits all three opponents at once, so a card that reads like one damage is really three, and the life it hands back keeps you alive while the small numbers add up. The deck stacks repeatable drains rather than looking for one big spell.

Also called drain and gain, aristocrats drain.

Build a life drain deck

Mill

Empty your opponents' libraries instead of attacking them.

A player who has to draw from an empty library loses. Milling attacks that library directly, so nothing on the battlefield can block you and no amount of life matters. It is slow against three opponents holding a hundred cards each, so the deck wants effects that mill in bulk rather than a card at a time.

Also called decking.

Build a mill deck

Discard

Strip your opponents' hands and keep them off balance.

Everything anyone does comes out of their hand, so emptying it stops a game before it starts. This is the least forgiving theme at a four player table, because attacking one player's hand leaves two of them untouched. The deck wants effects that hit everybody at once, and a way to actually finish, or the lock never ends anything.

Also called hand hate, stax adjacent.

Build a discard deck

Wheels

Make everyone discard their hand and draw a new one, then punish them for it.

A wheel refills your hand and everybody else’s at the same time, which sounds like charity. The trick is the cards that turn other people drawing and discarding into damage or creatures for you. Without those payoffs a wheel really is charity, so build the payoffs first and the wheels second.

Also called wheel effects.

Build a wheels deck

Midrange

A deck with no particular theme, made of individually strong cards.

Sometimes called goodstuff, usually a bit sniffily, and it is a perfectly good way to build. You are not trying to assemble anything, you are just playing better cards than the other three people and grinding them out.

The catch is that a deck of thirty unrelated good cards is beaten by a deck of thirty cards that work together, so this is easier to build and harder to make great.

Also called goodstuff, value pile.

There is nothing to start from for this one. It is a way of playing rather than a pile of cards to gather.

Start from a commander instead

Control

Say no to everything, then win at your leisure.

Counterspells, removal, board wipes, and enough card draw to keep finding more of them. You are not trying to do anything until nobody else can.

It is hard at a four player table, because you have to answer three people with one hand. Control decks in Commander lean on effects that hit everybody at once rather than one at a time.

Also called draw go.

There is nothing to start from for this one. It is a way of playing rather than a pile of cards to gather.

Start from a commander instead

Combo deck

A deck whose plan is to find two specific cards and win on the spot.

Everything else in the deck is there to find those cards, protect them, or survive until you do. The combo itself is often two or three cards that make something infinite.

This is the theme most likely to surprise a table that was not expecting it, so it is worth mentioning your bracket before you start.

Also called combo.

There is nothing to start from for this one. It is a way of playing rather than a pile of cards to gather.

Start from a commander instead

Politics

Not a deck theme. The other three players, and what you say to them.

This is the part of Commander that does not exist in a two player game, and it decides more games than any card does. Who is ahead, who gets attacked, who you let resolve something because you need them alive one more turn.

Some decks lean into it with cards that give other people things. Mostly it is just talking, and you should account for it when you wonder why a deck that looks strong on paper keeps losing.

Also called table talk, threat assessment.

Goldfishing

Playing your deck against nobody to see whether it works.

You draw a hand and play it out with no opponent, which is to say against a goldfish. It will not tell you whether your removal is good, because there is nothing to remove, but it tells you fast whether you can cast your own cards.

It is the quickest way to find out that your curve is too high or that you cut one land too many.

Also called testing a deck.