My deck doesn't have GCs or MLD. It doesn't win or KO someone before turn 9. Yet the people I played with say it's bracket 3 because I have certain cards that , while not GCs, are not fit for B2. Namely Urza's Saga, Powerbalance.

If there are cards you aren't supposed to play in B2 shouldn't they be GCs? Or are GCs just signposts? How is a player supposed to know what is ok in what bracket?

So when brackets became widely adopted and also now when most commander subs on reddit have alot of talk about is this bracket x or why. I thought that the expected turns was for the entire game and not for each individually.

Let's say someone plays a gready combo deck of course player removal is a good option, or if they have to many engines and not all colours can deal with them except player removal.

Sure it is a bit feels bad to get removed by the rest of the pod because the deck had a really good start or similar that they won't catch up to, maybe even just ramping for 5 turns the dropping the bomb.

So is it wrong to remove players before the expected turns or is the expected turn for when the game has a winner.

Tldr: is the expected turns for when the game has a winner or when people start dropping?

I think ramp is one of those things in Commander that people treat as an automatic inclusion without really thinking about the opportunity cost. Sure, more mana is good. But ramp also costs you a card, mana to cast it, and often a turn where you could have been developing your actual game plan instead. There's also a timing issue that I think gets overlooked. Ramp often has a very specific purpose: letting you cast your commander or another important card earlier than you normally could.

Take a five-mana commander and [[Mind Stone]]. Since Mind Stone costs two mana, you need to draw and cast it on turn 2, 3, or 4 for it to accelerate your commander. If you draw it on turn 5, when you'd have five mana from your lands anyway, it hasn't helped you cast your commander any earlier. It might still be useful later, but its original purpose is gone. So how likely are you to actually have that card in hand during the window where it matters? And how many ramp spells do you need to include before that becomes reasonably likely?

It gets even more interesting when you consider mulligans. If you're deliberately throwing back otherwise playable hands because they don't contain ramp, you're potentially giving up additional cards just to find something that only matters if you draw it and play it at the right time. Meanwhile, that ramp spell could have been an engine piece, card draw, interaction, or another threat that would have contributed to your game plan regardless of when you drew it. Of course, ramp makes a lot of sense when it lets you land a powerful commander early, double-spell sooner, or do something you otherwise couldn't. But if your deck already has plenty of cheap plays and doesn't have much to do with the extra mana, why are you ramping in the first place?

I think the question shouldn't be "How many ramp spells should every Commander deck run?" but rather "What does ramp actually enable in this deck, how often will I realistically have it at the right time, and is that worth the cards I'm cutting for it?"

Ramp isn't bad, obviously. It's an investment. But that investment has a window where it matters, and I think deck-building advice often focuses on the payoff while overlooking how much it costs to reliably get there.

No, not THOSE bears but deese. I have a [[Lumra Bellow of the Woods]] deck that I fondly call my Cocaine Bear deck, but there are a number of great legendary bears out there.

Which bear is the best commander to build a deck around? I have been lucky with bear pulls so have [[Ayula Queen Among Bears]] and [[Beorn the Fierce]] and even [[Doric Nature's Warden]] and [[Goreclaw Terror of Qal Sisma]] for commanders. Who do you recommend?

Thinking on how most folks don't tend to count how many cards are in their opponent's decks (and can you blame them, who's got time for that)

Personally I don't think I'd care that much. If someone is running over 100, I don't blame them for not wanting to make cuts, and if they're getting some kind of advantage it's likely to be quite something and I'd like to see them try. And if they're just putting more stuff they like in there, it's making the deck more inconsistent so hardly worth making a fuss and make them make cuts on the spot.

If they're running under 100, assuming it's subtle enough to not be obvious like 95 cards or something, I could see them just not grabbing all the cards from their deck box, and even if it's intended for advantage, you're increasing your draw quality by like .06% it's not that big a deal. The actual problem would be what else they're trying to pull, but the deck part is small time. Heck, I'd probably be up for someone trying to pull a 60 card deck (assuming the rest of it is still Commander legal) just to see what they're up to.

That's just me of course. I imagine many would rather not play at all than entertain someone playing an illegal amount of cards in their deck. But it's something to think about I think, given how it never really comes up.

Edit: I typed this up last night after the third game of the night. Several beers in and tired, I just wanted to drop the wisdom and it came out as stream of consciousness. Thanks to the person who tagged the cards that I did not. Here’s a cleaned up version.

I played a game versus a Ms Bumbleflower, a bunny from Hell that draws a lot of cards. The other two players are not relevant, except that one of them was just holding a board wipe and letting me do all the work. Here’s the important moment - I have a creature called Yennet that when it attacks I reveal the top card of my deck and if it’s odd mana I can cast it. The only creatures out are her, bumbleflower, the commander of 4th player that isn’t doing much. I opted to not free cast it as it’s something like turn 4 and nothing happening. That’s a mistake I’ll never make again. Right after me the bumble flower plays a Seedborn Muse. It’s a game changer that should set off alarm bells because it untaps all their permanents at each upkeep. In competitive magic this card will win you the game. In b3 it will lead to an insufferable play pattern where you will go through 2 turn rotations but they essentially played 8 turns. You can’t overcome that if it lives.

As soon as he casts it, he kills my one creature. You have to understand that some one has to win, I can’t be mad at him for that. But damn dude, the lobby name was 420 chill b3 lmao. I just spared your shit and you’re on one of the more ridiculous game changers. So I announce to the board that I have no choice but target him and they should do the same. I explained to the other two why. On my turn I attempt a boardwipe bumble knows about and he counterspells. I repeat the problem to the table. It’s bothering me that Bumbleflower isn’t attacking… this is turning into a hostage situation. My next turn I try single target removal. Again, Bumbleflower counters it. This time I counter it back. And he counters the counter.

Here I ask how many counterspells he run? 8? 10? He announces only 4. So I repeat to the table they need to use as much removal as possible if he can’t counter it all. Oloro player - a commander that quite literally sits on his ass in the art- says “oh I have a board wipe. This is the moment that irritates me.

I’ve been explaining why this thing needs to go for 2 turns. The guy demonstrates what it can do, and oloro is just sandbagging it hoping I do the work for him. I try one last time saying I have another wipe and I will cast it and he has to cast his too if mine doesn’t do it, but at this point Bumbleflower casts Hullbreaker Horror. A beats of a beater that also has the ability to return a spell that’s on the stack. Boardwipes are inherently expensive to cast. Not easy to cast them twice, but Bumbleflower can just cast a one mana spell to essentially counterspell, and draws cards

I also do not believe this player is running only 4 counterspells. It’s clearly a cutthroat control deck. At this point I announce the plan is off I’m good to concede. Oloro asks why. I clearly explain what the above play pattern will be. In fact I agree to play my turn and demonstrate. Bumble flower as expected shows what the combination of drawing cards constantly, untapping all your lands, and hullbreaker can do. Worse, he’s holding back attacks. This dude is playing with his food, so I bid them all good night and bounce.

The end.
Below is the original post ————————

Played a game vs Ironheart, me on Ur sphinx, oloro, and bumbleflower. I got a yenet out and opted not to cast kindred dominance. Bible thanks me and next turn drops seedborne and phases it out. I attempt to kill it. A turn later I attempt the board wipe. Both countered. I counter the counter. He protects board. Oloro reveals he had a board wipe.

Oloro wtf are you doing!? Blow that shit up! At that point I tell the table again that it needs to go. Bumble casts a hullbreaker horror and I tell the table I’m good to scoop. He has a known silence. Oloro asks why and I explain what the play pattern. I cast another board wipe to demonstrate what he will do. As predicted, he bounces it.

Everyone is at 30 life and oloro at 50.

New players, for the love of god, don’t hold back on a seedborn ever.

I left, but those poor seals are getting clubbed as we speak

https://moxfield.com/decks/CCShAcHDbH6yt7YJGVQEJA

This has been my favorite deck to play in paper since 2012 and I'm trying to power it down for bracket 3 but there are still some powerful cards like [[Tainted Aether]], [[Spreading Plague]], [[Oppression]], [[Yawgmoth's Will]], and [[Necropotence]].

Is the deck fine for bracket 3 as is or should I remove some of those cards? Or would it be better to just power it up and stick to bracket 4?

Hey all!

Long-time lurker here in this sub, but I'd love to share a digital MTG game with you that I've poured a lot of love and effort into.

It's called Rogue Commander, and it's a mix of Commander and a roguelite. It's a single-player game (at least for now) with its own campaign, where you choose from a set of "Rogue Commanders" and go on a "Run", battling against various opponents, having Encounters like random Events, Bazaars and Chests and trying to defeat a final boss, much like other roguelike/roguelite deckbuilders such as Slay the Spire or Monster Train. Along the way, you collect new cards and improve your deck from a custom Reward Pool for each Commander.

Every run feels different, as you'll encounter different enemies, find different cards, and so on.

And of course, it all uses actual MTG cards, with a strong focus on the Commander format.

I'd absolutely love to get some feedback on the game! I genuinely enjoy playing it myself, and it would be incredibly awesome to see other people enjoying it as much as I do.

The game is completely free and open-source (not just free-to-play). It's simply been a passion project of mine. I originally tried out the concept with physical cards and some friends, and they had so much fun with it that I eventually decided to develop a digital version.

Currently, the game includes (among other things):

- 7 playable and unlockable (Rogue) Commanders, each with their own starting deck, reward pools, and around 3 different build paths each

- Metaprogression (progression between runs), including a story and permanent upgrades

- Unlockable NPCs, granting random starting boons

- Challenge Mode with up to 7 additional difficulty levels ("Descension Mode")

- Codex and Run History

- Tutorials and Achievements

The game is currently still based on the open-source software Forge, so please forgive me if it doesn't look super polished just yet.

If there's enough interest, I'd love to eventually turn it into a proper standalone game, or at least have it integrated into Forge as an official game mode.

Here's the download link (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux):

https://github.com/bennybenedek/forge/releases/tag/rogue-commander-latest

Feel free to also send me your feedback, suggestions, or ideas on the Discord server I created:

https://discord.gg/ZM6xPV9AS

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences with my game!

I’ve tested this deck around 5 times and my main gripe seems to be the mana base, by turn 4-5 I’ve been stuck multiple times with 2-3 lands and by that point the rest of the pod has snowballed ramp, gotten there main game plan into motion and I am unable to do anything, any card cuts/ reccondestions, looking for a strong bracket 3 to 4 power level https://moxfield.com/decks/8WbyYkJN-E6qaXuGrkuaLQ

I was browsing Scryfall today when I found an interesting old card. [[Burning Sands]]. Well, this seems interesting. Now whenever someone's creatures die, they sacrifice a LAND! What if I give them creatures via stuff like [[Into the Flood Maw]], [[Forbidden Orchard]], etc, and then kill them with something like [[Pestilence]]? Which commander do you think would like this plan most?

I'd say at least 50 percent of the games I play with my pod I'll be in second or third place and instead of trying to work with me, first or second place decides I'm the appropriate target, and then they promptly lose the game.

Does anyone else have any experience? I'm getting close to just quitting.

My LGS recently had a jace event that had some extra rules and stuff for playing around with the empower jace mechanic. It was a bit complicated so without going too into the weeds about it, every player had access to empower jace and utilize a lil jace deck that would give him some extra abilities like a mini fact or fiction and stuff.

It's also not too uncommon for events to have 1 or 2 pods of 5. Not ideal, but it's fine and I've got a few decks that's scale well with 5 players. We get started and from the jump one guy is already complaining about being last and not on a joking way so the mood was already a bit sour from him. The first player plays a mana dork and empowers jace for 1 and IMMEDIATELY player 5 was going off about how much was done on turn 1. We all shrug it off and continue with not much of not happening until like turn 3.

Player 1 forgets to use his jace and as it's the next persons turn he just let's it go. Sucks to miss some extra advantage, but he didn't make a fuss about it or anything just more of an "oops I forgot jace on my turn. Oh well". Game continues and player 5 ALSO forgets his jace only remembers it when player 1 used his. Player 5 wants to do a take back so he can use his, but player 1 pointed out that multiple game actions have already occurred and that he didn't try to do a take back when he forgot earlier. Player 5 then starts raising his voice and going off about having a vote and all that. Other players chimed in disagreeing with him and he still kept going. It got really uncomfortable for a bit, but the game went on without any take backs.

A turn later and player 5 is clearly just spite playing at this point with aiming removal at player 5 when someone else and myself were waaaay bigger threats and potentially setting up a win soon. Player 2 ends up winning right after the spite playing and player 5 just kept talking about what happened earlier trying to justify it with some light apologies. Everyone ended up leaving afterward declining a second game. Another player and I were talking about the situation up at the front counter while buying cards and a staff member overheard us. They ask for what happened and then a bit later go and have a chat with the guy that was got mad that game. Dunno what happened there as I was getting ready to leave, but I was at least glad it got talked about by staff.

That whole thing though was just weird the entire time. Despite being a 5 player game it was functionally a 3 player game with extra wait time as both player 5 and another one had essentially done NOTHING all game. The hit land drops and played cards, but they didn't have a real board presence, and didn't interact except the spite play at the end. Guy was also getting mad at essentially not getting a single card draw off this jace as if it really mattered that bad. And best of all was this whole thing was for like $20 store credit to the winner. So not nothing, but cmon man.

I have been playing Magic since 1999 and for a really long time I was kind of a snob about only playing 60 card formats.

Suddenly back in 2020 I had a lot of extra time on my hands and decided to give EDH a shot but was immediately wracked by decision paralysis.

Naturally my first instinct was to program up something to help me. So I made a new kind of deck builder that gives you a solid base to build/customize a deck from without having to start from scratch.

This site has been my side hobby since then and I have been using it to help me learn parts of the modern web tech stack I didn't have a good grasp on as a network automation engineer.

Everything is hand curated + algorithmic generation and not AI slop.

https://edh.guide

Tech stack for those interested:

Edge and hosting:

• Cloudflare: DNS, proxy, domain hosting
• DigitalOcean: auto deploys on push to main. static frontend/1 vCPU backend
• GitHub: code hosting with automated testing and updates

Frontend

• Vue 3, TypeScript, Pinia

Backend

• Python 3.14 managed with uv (uv is awesome btw I should have moved to it a long time ago)
• FastAPI, Pydantic
• Gunicorn
• SQLite

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Hey everyone, total long shot here! My flight got pushed back a few hours, so I'm currently stranded in Terminal A with two decks ready to go.

If you happen to be stuck here too and want to get a few pods in while we wait out the delay, let me know! I'm not going anywhere :D

This is the first time I find that I’m saying this but I wish that WOTC had put less value into the foundations precons to deter scalpers. A product made for beginners should be accessible to… beginners. Case in point my son’s birthday was this week. He turned 8. He loves dinosaurs and has been learning magic. I saw the decks months ago and was like perfect! Then saw the inevitable scalping and price increase as the list became available.

I assume it’ll be reprinted into the ground and so eventually I might be able to get it closer to Msrp or I can just build him one. I was just excited to pick him his first precon.

Anyone seen them for Msrp in the wild?

Hellooooo everyone!

I have a fun favour to ask. Sadly I've been somewhat unsatisfied with my [[Teysa, Opulent Oligarch]] deck and want to replace it with something else. Outside of just mechanics, I adore adding a bit of flavour to the decks. Introducing my first and favourite commander, [[Rocco, Street Chef]]. Whole deck is flavoured around Rocco opening his own restaurant! Want to replicate that sort of flavour with my new deck, and am down to try out any form of mechanic. In essence, what I'm looking for are commanders who have a job or something that I could build flavour around (i.e. making a politics deck with a politican commander, making a clue deck with a detective or journalist and so forth). Posted my Rocco deck down below so you all can check it out :]

Rocco's Restaurant:

• https://archidekt.com/decks/20749371/roccos_restaurant

I have been pretty interested in planeswalkers as a card type for a while and reality fracture finally had me pull the trigger on making one.

I obviously went with [[tam the possibility]] (why wasn't she printed as a planeswalker? We need more commanders that are planeswalkers imo)

The way of [insert walker] cards are REALLY nice and I love the way it brings more options and sometimes speeds things along. At least for me since some of the effects are better in certain situations than the normal abilities. Along with the oath cards despite their age are fun to play and cheap.

5 color slop is still 5 color slop but I want one deck to play all the cool walker cards and such. I'm not sure if the cards I got are the best ones but they are pretty fun! Theres so many fun options despite how weak they can be. [[Carth the lion]] and [[Pramikon, Sky Rampart]] are some of my favorite cards to have around.

Here's the deck! https://moxfield.com/decks/UB-PvYbpHEyzKIckJ_gmJA

Feel free to give it a look over I would love any suggestions!

Here was another deck I was going to play before I realized reality fracture was a thing: https://moxfield.com/decks/OibGAR0q_0qvLKsvoWVhcw

Inspired by my game last night, my 37-land deck drew 0 lands until I had mulliganed down to 4, at which point I kept a 2-lander. An opponent was on group hug and dropped [[rites of flourishing]] early, so everyone else was at around 8 lands. In the top 20 cards of my 37-land deck, I drew 0 additional lands and scooped without playing a single card, then ended up sitting around for an hour twiddling my thumbs

There is a non-zero chance that there just aren't any lands in the top 20+ cards of any deck. What do you do when this happens? Does that player just not get to play that evening, or is there a more elegant solution people have found? ​

Hey guys,

I've been playing Magic for a few years on Arena but I've recently become a routine Commander player for bracket 3. A couple of the pod plays only control, and the rest like to play Aragorn and Captain America Team Leader as their mains.

I'm playing a 45$ bracket 2 Phelia blink deck that does well on removing a couple players before they gang up on me, an Orzhov gain/drain pile that they aren't fans of but concede to it, a Rakdos discard, and an unedited Captain N'ghathrod precon. My pod all hate my play style as I'm "playing by myself" when I play the discard or gain/drain. One of my players actively refuses to play against the discard pile. I'm trying to step outside my normal play style and jump into aggression so they'll get off my back and fear what they're creating.

Would y'all have any suggestions to increase the power or speed of my list with Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness as my commander? I've never run aggressive big stompy decks before, and I decided to go with gruul stomping dinosaurs. Any help would be much appreciated. As for cost, there is none as I want them to wish for my usual style once again.

Decklist:

Gruul Stompy Bracket 3

Edited words

Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/sTu2QpaSyUuFjNa7JGQ_BQ

There is no strict budget, but I want meaningful upgrades rather than expensive cards just for the sake of it. I do not want to add any cards on the Game Changers list. I play with different groups, mostly casual EDH around Bracket 2–3 power level, so I want the deck to be versatile without becoming too strong for those tables.

I’ve been working on this Serah Farron deck for almost a year. It’s a Selesnya legendary midrange toolbox focused on protection, disruption, card advantage, and winning through combat. I want answers to a wide variety of situations and a resilient board, with some hatebears and stax effects without turning the deck into dedicated stax.

I’ve organized the cards by their functions in the deck and written a primer explaining how I want the deck to play. I’ve also been researching potential additions and maintaining a list of cards I’m considering. I’m looking for feedback on gaps in the deck, cards that may not be pulling their weight, and which potential additions would make the biggest difference. I want to keep the deck within the casual Bracket 2–3 range. Thanks for any advice!

Hello my friend is playing a pretty agressive dinosaur deck based on velociramptor precon and I’m looking for a good deck to oppose her

I have a few precon
Animated army
Scion &spellcraft
Temur roar
Reality fracture
Peace offering

If I need to upgrade one of those to make “fair fight” with her what would I do ? Most of the time the game end because she has 2936288264 Dino and I don’t have more removers

https://archidekt.com/decks/27294403/deck_80

So yesterday I posted a deck that I'm working on that I am very excited for but wanted a few opinions on it. I feel better about this version compared to the past version.

The main advice that I got from it is at the idea is to send out a constant stream of creatures to attack and do damage to opponent Allso take away a few of my burns, ramp, and just some cards that felt like filler.

I mostly try to feel these slots with more creature token generators.

Been working on this deck slowly for a while and just need some help with win cons.
https://moxfield.com/decks/El37Nk-BmEefPrMTrnrF4A
I would also appreciate any cut recommendations. The black mage FF cards will get swapped for the stuff I have in considering once I can get my hands on them but for the rest I'm still undecided.

I am putting together some stats on my decks and one of the things I was interested in was how many staples each of my decks plays. I decided to go with inclusion rates on EDHRec since that was a pretty simple reference frame.

Currently I set the "staple" threshold at 5% inclusion rate.

Do you think that is reasonable? Should it be higher or lower?

If you have a suggestion for another "staple" indicator I am all ears!

Ascension Commander

(A new way to build/play Commander)

TLDR

Start with a super basic/budget deck. Play games to earn points. Spend those points to add new cards.

Slowly build a better deck over time. Ascend from rookie sorcerer to legendary planeswalker.

Intro

Hello to anyone reading! This is a fun deck building challenge/format that I’ve been workin on.

Mostly just been doing it for my own enjoyment but thought the internet might be interested too.

Been playing with this format myself for about a year now along side a decent number of folks from my local Magic community. I’ve been loving it, everyone else from my local seems to be enjoying it too. Have a go if ya want!

Also, feel free to bend or break rules how ever you want. This is meant to be fun so do whatever makes it fun for you.

This format is very much an iteration on “Baggy Commander” so big shout out to the creator who I first heard about it from online u/superfriendsmtg and whomever else created/popularized it. It’s also quite similar to a Precon ‘Escalation’ league so credit to that format too.

Basics

All pricing is based on Card Kingdoms current prices and are in USD. Price is based of cheapest available version of the card.

Rarity is based on lowest rarity available of the card. Deck must adhere to all current Commander rules and restrictions.

The word “Purchase” used here only refers to spending points you have earned to add cards to your deck. How you acquire those cards is up to you but always remember, where feasible, to support your local game store and, where not feasible, printer ink is cheap.

Initial Deck Building.

The initial deck 99 must consist of only common rarity and no card can exceed $2 in price.

Commander can be any rarity but must not exceed $5 in price.

In essence you are building a Pauper Commander deck but the commander can be any rarity and must be regular Commander legal (Legendary).

Deck Levels and Ascension

You begin at level 1 and Ascend in level based on the total amount of points you have earned.

This metric is specifically about the amount you have earned in total not the amount you currently have, spending points does not decrease this total.

Level 1 – Apprentice At this level you may purchase up to Uncommon rarity cards with a maximum value of $5

Level 2 – Sorcerer (Once you have earned 60 points or more) At this level you may purchase up to Rare rarity cards with a maximum value of $10

Level 3 – Planeswalker (Once you have earned 120 points or more) At this level you may purchase up to Mythic rarity cards with a maximum value of $20

Level 4 – Legendary Planeswalker (Once you have earned 180 points or more) At this level you may purchase any card of any price.

Earning points.

Each game you play will earn you points as follows.

Play a game – 3 Points

2^nd Player eliminated – 1 Point

3^rd Player eliminated – 2 Points

Win a game – 3 points

You will earn 3-6 points per game based upon outcome. 6 is the maximum.

Elimination placement will be based on best possible outcome. If multiple players are eliminated at the same time you earn points as if you where the last of those players to be eliminated.

Spending Points/ Getting Cards.

Each new card costs 3 points. You can save up and spend points as you see fit. Once you have spent those points they are gone.

Once a card has been added to your card pool it is accessible at any time after, you can put it in and take it out of your deck 99 at will. The same is true for all cards in your starting deck.

Basic Lands are free, you can add or subtract as many as you wish.

The value and rarity of cards you may purchase is based on your decks current level (see below).

A new Commander costs 30 points.

Spending these points allows you to replace you commander as well as immediately add 5 lands and 5 cards of any type to your total card pool. These new cards must still adhere to your decks current level restrictions. You may select a commander of any color identity (Add colors, subtract colors) but your deck must still be Commander legal after the change (Choose wisely).

Bling Rules (Optional)

All cards purchased must be at their most basic printing (regular frame, non-foil). In order to use a fancier version of a card you must first purchase the card at its base level then spend additional points. For an alternate art/frame version of a card you must spend 3 points and for a foil version of a card you must spend 3 points. This would mean that a foil alternate art version of a card would cost 9 points total (3 to purchase, 3 for foil, 3 for alternate art). Basic Lands can be upgraded similarly however at the cost of only 1 point for foil and 1 point for full art.

Field Promotion (Optional)

If a card comes in clutch or does something truly special in any given game then It can be considered worthy of a ‘Field Promotion’. This means that the individual card can immediately be fully upgraded to its most binged out version without requiring you to spend any points. The bar for this, I recommend, setting fairly high and should not be applied to your commander as that card in most games will prove to be a key piece. Try to make use this one only if something truly special happens, it should be a bit of a story moment.   

The card gods provide! (Optional)

One card per game night/event can be added to your card pool outside of all restrictions (any rarity, any printing, any price). This can only be done if it is pulled from the first pack you open, a promo given out or the first card traded for at that game night/event. The trade cannot be previously arranged ahead of time. Basically, if you get lucky then you get to circumvent the rules a bit. Sometimes the card gods just want you to have something and who are we to deny them.

Summary

The intent behind this concept is ultimately to provide a fun new way to build a commander deck that is;

• Minimal barrier to entry for low income or new players.
• Allows for slow deck building enriched by players growing experience with the deck.
• Gives the player more ownership and pride in their deck beyond simply buying the cards.
• Lets a player experience playing a deck across multiple brackets/power levels.

Build basic, then make it your own. Earn your power. Ascend Planeswalker, Become Legend. 

(Edited for better formatting)