On 7’s in Commander

Everybody thinks they have a 7. You (probably) don’t.

The 1–10 Power Scale

Most Commander players are familiar with The Command Zone podcast. In it, Josh and Jimmy talk about a power scale, where 1 is the weakest and 10 is the most powerful. It was proposed as a way of quickly and easily talking about power levels while negotiating which deck you’re going to play before starting.

But everybody says they run a “7”.

It’s an easy trap to fall into: you know you’re not playing Tymna & Thrassios Consultation. But you’ve put a fair amount of effort, blood, sweat, tears, poison counters, and money into your deck, so it’s definitely better than “average”. It tends to win 25% of the time with your playgroup. So it’s a 7.

No it isn’t.

Let’s first take a look at the 1–10 power scale, starting with the most common mistake about it: the idea that a precon is a 5.

Let’s be honest, a precon shouldn’t be an average deck. It isn’t supposed to be an average deck. You’re supposed to have upgrade and customization paths to it. So in order for a preconstructed deck to be “average”, it’s conceding that subpar choices made for no reason other than Wizards’ bottom line is “average”. That’s definitely not the case.

I would posit that precons are a 3. They are typically the weakest playable deck. Occasionally one is overshot and becomes a 4. But that is rare.

A more reasonable, data-driven power scale

There are three collections of decks that get referenced before I begin. The first is the aforementioned preconstructed deck. Those are a 3. The second collection of decks is the vast majority of possible commander decks (and yes, there is a finite number of possible valid commander decks because there’s a maximum deck size and a finite number of different cards in the format), mathematically: not even playable. The space of decks is filled with decks that run too many basics to be functional. They can’t win without a major miracle.

But we’re going to begin with our third group: the 10's.

What makes a 10?

There are only a handful of decks that are 10’s. These decks constitute the Best Things You Can Be Doing In Commander. They throw a lot of things players take for granted as features of the format out the window in favor of pure power.

So what are these decks?

A list of known 10’s can be found here. Look especially at the “recommended” decks. Those are your 10's.

If your deck can put up a winrate of 22–25% against a random selection of the recommended decks on that site, it too is a 10. (If you’re consistently doing better than 25% compared to these decks, you’re dealing with a 11. This is a sign that something needs to be banned. And if you object to the scale having a 11, you really need to sit down with the 1984 mocumentary feature This Is Spın̈al Tap)

Moving down the scale

Generally speaking, your 9’s are the decks listed at the cEDH decklist database but are not recommended. These decks are either older or just not quite there. Some ate a ban. Some got worse when new cards got printed. But they still work. Typically, these decks put up a 15–22% win rate against a table of10’s, assuming equal deck familiarity and skill among the players.

The 8’s, however, aren’t typically listed there. They’re a bit fringier, and they only put up a winrate of 10–15% against the 10’s. At this point, you’re probably talking about budget builds of 10’s, other even more obsolete decks, and the occasional mistake. You will see these decks show up on popular cEDH streams, mostly because variety is good for viewership.

Casual-friendly Decks

I have been fond of saying that there are no 7’s. Let’s put a pin in that. The reality is that there’s a fairly large gulf between “has hope against 10's” and what most people want to play.

Your 6’s are about as far as most people are willing to take a deck. There’s something about the $1000 cost to a deck that presents a psychological stopping point for the vast majority of Commander players. It’s about the point where wringing more power or consistency out of your deck is going to take major financial commitments to individual cards that won’t provide enough of an advantage to justify the cost. They’ll generally win 25–35% at tables of 5's.

A 5 is the platonic ideal of a commander deck. It has a thing it wants to do, it does it, and it does only that thing. Most of these have some room for upgrades, but those upgrades would come at the cost of cutting pet cards, and the whole point of the deck is running those pet cards. 5’s should have a 25–35% win rate against 4's.

A 4 is a bit weaker. Most of The Commanders Quarters decks fall in here, primarily because of the budget limitations he imposes (which greatly restrict card pools, including some general Commander staples like Arcane Signet and Sol Ring). A 4 should have about a 25–35% win rate against a table of preconstructed decks.

We’ve established that 3’s are precons, but it’s possible to build a 3 yourself. Build a deck to win 25% of the time against a table of preconstructed decks, and you too have a 3.

Jank Decks

Our last two levels are the jank tier. Before taking that as an insult, nobody ever builds these by accident, just as nobody builds a 9 or a 10 by accident. The distinguishing factor is whether they can win at all.

A 2 can win the game on its own. It has a commander that can swing for a total of 63 commander damage or at least 120 points of combat damage before decking itself by drawing for turn. That’s the only way it can win.

A 1 can’t do that. A 1 is not designed with winning in mind. It may not even have enough creatures to win by combat. It would take a major miracle for a 1 to win. If you’re building a 1, it’s either intentional or the result of a randomly generated deck list.

Taking the pin out: Discussing 7's

So what’s going on at a 7?

7’s are the realm of pubstompers. They’re consistently better than most decks that you’d find at a no-stakes open commander night, but they’ll get their teeth kicked in against someone who actually built even a budget cEDH deck. There aren’t many decks here, either — remember that there is a gulf between “doesn’t get choked out of cEDH tables all the time” and “about as powerful as you’d care to make this on your own”.

To date, the only 7s I can really think of are properly built Nekusar decks, decently built Superfriends decks, and most popular variants of Narset, with perhaps a badly built Urza deck in here. Most pods of 6’s just get crushed by these decks, but an 8 will show that maybe pinging people for card draw isn’t the best way to break parity on wheels, and that Superfriends is a terrible way to break parity on wraths (and in fact, once you’re at an 8, wrathing every turn is not where you want to be). But since most decks aren’t expecting to have to pay life for card advantage or deal with frequent wraths, they’re more effective than they should be for what they’re built to do — at least at normal, non-cEDH tables.

There is not much space in this realm to brew, either. The combos here may attack the ideas that often get played in casual commander (especially its tendency to prioritize combat wins, its tendency to leave ramp unchecked, and its tendency to run counterspells that are no better than good, old fashioned Counterspell — these are all tendencies, not absolutes: there are casual decks that flout all of thee ideas: I have even built and played them). However, these aren’t play patterns you can rely on mattering with 8’s and above. Most decks will rely on spells that can destroy any permanent like Generous Gift, Beast Within, Assassin’s Trophy, and Vindicate to handle problematic lands. If a deck in cEDH runs Strip Mine, it’s usually because there’s a problematic land that sufficiently interferes with their gameplan that sees common play in cEDH (most commonly Tabernacle — I warned you that things got expensive when you left 6-land).

Embrace your 6-iness

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with playing Commander how you like it. In fact, that’s the whole point of the format. Don’t feel like you have to put up a tough face against the 10’s. Trust me, the people who have 10’s would rather play them against other similarly-powered decks, not the more resonant decks.

If I had to hazard a guess, the whole popularity of a 7 has come from two sources:

1. The notion that a precon is somehow higher than a 3. Yes, some good precons have been 4’s. But they’re never 5’s. Being a 5 would defeat the point of the product.
2. The idea of a “75% deck” that is somehow able to hold its own at a table of 10’s and not be miserable to play against with your more reasonable friends. This may have been possible once. But there have been a LOT of more powerful things to enter the format since then, especially in terms of combo pieces in the command zone and the ability to play any color combination.

In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve earnestly tried to brew a deck higher than a 5. Why? Because 6’s require a lot of focus and attention to detail in deckbuilding, and I just don’t have it. In fact, right now, I’m trying to find myself a good solid commander for a creature-light/creature-free enchantress build — but it must be also in blue, because there are some blue enchantments I want to use. Besides, if I want to play some Space Jam, I’ve got Urza and a webcam.

But right now, my attention is on Bear Force One: a firmly janky deck. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m making some upgrades to that deck to make it a bit more consistent at giving me an opportunity to make unbearably bad puns, or occasionally just scream like a bear as I cast my bears. I’m giving it a bit of land ramp and a few wincons that play well to its ability to go wide (Finale of Devastation, Craterhoof Behemoth, and Triumph of the Hordes).