Are you a Magic player who loves Commander but thinks multiplayer isn’t the best way to play Magic? Then I have the format for you: it’s Duel Commander!

Duel Commander: The Basic Rules

Just like in normal EDH you choose a Commander and your deck has to be 99 different cards who share the same color identity as the Commander, but your goal will be simple: defeat your opponent and win the game!

I started playing this format for just few months, as soon as I heard that in November there’s going to be a tournament in Tolouse, France with a Black Lotus for the first place and I’m loving it!

The format has a curated banlist and it’s run by the Community, the banlist has cards that are both banned just as Commander, like Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student as well as individually banned cards like Grim Monolith and most of the fast mana.

To win a match you need to win two of three games, but there is no sideboard. There’s one thing you can change though, your Commander between games, for example you can play with Aragorn, King of Gondor for Game 1 and with Satya, Aetherflux Genius for Game 2, although you need to have him in the 99 cards presented in Game 1.

The format is very diverse and even at the highest level of competition every archetype is represented, today I will show you the best deck for each of the four major archetype: Aggro, Midrange, Control and Combo.

Duel Commander: The Archetypes

Aggro Decks in Duel Commander

Example List

Phelia is the best Aggro deck in Duel Commander because it’s not only a deck that curves out 1-2-3 drop, it also has several disruption pieces that will hurt your plan and won’t only think about beating you down like Feldon, Ronom Excavator or Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful try to do.

With Phelia, your gameplan is much deeper as you try to accrue value from your Enter the Battlefield effect abilities, and despite being a MonoColor deck you can go toe-to-toe with the Blue decks and even be able to outgrind them.

If you’re playing against a Control or Combo deck you can choose to reveal Thalia, Guardian of Thraben as your Commander for Game 2, which is a play that Phelia players often tend to do against me, which gives even more depth to the archetype.

Midrange Decks in Duel Commander

Example List

Slimefoot and Squee is the perfect Midrange deck with a mana curve slightly higher than Phelia, that tries to play a mana dork almost always on Turn 1 and follow it up its commander as early as Turn 2.

Once Slimefoot is into play, it’ll apply pressure and it will be quite difficult to kill, since you cannot only recast it for 5 mana easily with your dorks, you can also recast it from the graveyard in the very deep lategame for just 4 mana alongside another creature.

There’s a lot of recursion that this deck can do with cards like Chthonian Nightmare, Skullclamp or Birthing Pod, and it’s easier to set them up thanks to Demonic Tutor and Tainted Pact, which aren’t banworthy in this format since Combo decks don’t have any sort of fast mana.

Aragorn, King of Gondor is my deck of choice for the upcoming RelicFest in Tolouse and despite it featuring tons of countermagic I don’t feel like classifying it as a Control deck. 

With its very many cheap spells, Aragorn is able to play an early game of interactions as well as curving out with Mother of Runes and Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd.

Aragorn lategame is worse than dedicated Control deck since those Mana Tithe and Chain Lightning will be bad lategame, but will be important early to let you keep the board clear and resolve your Commander on empty board, guaranteeing a flow of cards that will let you win the game.

Control Decks in Duel Commander

Example List

A true Control deck can be found in Ertai Resurrected with a ton of removal spells and counters, as well as lots of card advantage plays like Mystic Confluence.

The deck also has cheap creatures that can take over the game like Psychic Frog and Barrowgoyf.

An inclusion that I love in TSPJendrek list is Parallax Tide and Parallax Nexus, which can combo with Ertai Resurrected, resulting in a 4 mana exile 5 lands or exile 5 cards in hand of your opponent since you’ll be countering the Fading ability on your following upkeep.

This is the first deck that features some land hate, but Harbinger of the Seas, just like Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon are really powerful effects that few decks can play but that are very powerful against a lot of decks and scenarios.

Combo Decks in Duel Commander

Finally it’s time to show you what’s the famous Combo deck, in a format where most of the fast mana is banned, the best way to be an unfair deck is by using the graveyard to reanimate large creatures.

All these decks I’ve used come from the MTGO Creator Showdown 5k that happened over the weekend and the winner of that was Todd Anderson and his Aminatou, the Fateshifter.

This deck behaves as a Cube deck, using Aminatou, the Fateshifter as a way to filter your draws or set up powerful Miracle cards like the brand new Metamorphosis Fanatic who’s just amazing in this deck since it’s a great reanimation spell that also works wonders with the Commander.

I hope this article helped get a general idea of the things you can do in this format and tickled your curiosity about a Competitive format that behaves very much as a Cube Draft both in gameplay and deckbuilding.

I also hope to see you at Relic Fest in Tolouse, which is going to be a huge event with 1000 people and of course sponsored by UltimateGuard!