I build mostly 75% decks for my own personal use. I like the flexibility it affords me, and I like going into unknown playgroups knowing that my deck is Goldilocks tuned so that I'm not likely to make anyone else or myself completely miserable. Not making anyone completely miserable is a small goal for a Commander list, but I do what I can.

75% as an ethos has helped me build decks that I can take into any situation and not have to modify, but today, I started thinking about a situation in which you might want to modify the deck. My inspiration? The Commander (2014 Edition) precons.

With the entire black Commander deck spoiled, we have a real comprehensive look at what kinds of things they're planning for every deck. I'm not going to link the list here because, frankly, I'm not a big fan of whoever leaked the whole list. They ruined spoiler season for me to an extent, and it's really unfortunate that it had to happen. Still, looking at the whole list made me think about how there is a definite theme of generating value when your creatures die and/or come back from the graveyard repeatedly and how all three of the potential commanders in the deck work with that theme. You can keep those same hundred cards intact as they come as the precon and pick a commander that fits your particular play style, and the rest of the cards in the deck will function just fine with any of the potential commanders.

I really like this concept—not only that, but I thought about the choice of commander as a way to dial in the power level of the deck. We could having a deck that would benefit from having access to a certain legendary creatures but that wouldn't be as powerful if you couldn't access them every game. I started to think about three commanders that would run in similar decks but that would have different power levels—or even just different utilities—and it occurred to me that there is an old card, a recent card, and a spoiled card that would play well in the same deck. Not only that, but you would be able to contend with different kinds of decks depending who was in the command zone. I present to you my three choices for commanders.

The deck will be functionally different, but the other ninety-seven cards will be the same depending on whom you pick for the command zone. Let's take a look at the kind of deck we'd run.

Artifact Red ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Artifact (36)
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Brittle Effigy
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Clock of Omens
• 1 Darksteel Forge
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Fire Diamond
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Lux Cannon
• 1 Memory Jar
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mirrorworks
• 1 Mycosynth Lattice
• 1 Myr Turbine
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Phyrexian Processor
• 1 Planar Portal
• 1 Ring of Three Wishes
• 1 Rings of Brighthearth
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spine of Ish Sah
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Titan Forge
• 1 Tower of Fortunes
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Unwinding Clock
• 1 Voltaic Key
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Arcbound Reclaimer
• 1 Darksteel Colossus
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Lodestone Myr
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Palladium Myr
• 1 Phyrexian Colossus
• 1 Scuttling Doom Engine
• 1 Shimmer Myr
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Steel Overseer
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 All Is Dust
• 1 Trash for Treasure

• Lands (40)
• 29 Mountain
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Gargoyle Castle
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Spinerock Knoll
• 1 Stalking Stones
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Buy This Deck

I tried to reconcile a few different strategies as well as a few different decklists that had different ideas about what kind of permanents to run, but I think I got it. Feldon fits in very nicely to the intersection of the Kurkesh and Bosh decks despite my first—and still probably best—idea about what to do with Feldon: Play some sort of Goblins value deck. Still, Feldon doesn't care if the creature you animate is already an artifact. Think of the value you can generate with Feldon! It doesn't remove or exile the creature, it just makes a copy that sacrifices itself at the end of the turn. Imagine you're making a token that is Wurmcoil Engine or Scuttling Doom Engine! There is a lot you can do here to generate value with Feldon, and a lot of the cards already exist with either of the other two creatures as your commander. Let's look at how the same cards play a little differently with the different commanders.

Bosh

Kurkesh

Feldon

There you have it. I took a page out of the precon's book and came up with a deck that scales based on which of your potential commanders is at the helm. This brainchild was the result of an entire day of writer’s block, but it was worth it in the end. I may do another one of these with three more commanders if you all want. So, which card was an obvious card I missed, something that is killer in all three decks or so good in one configuration it's worth having in the other two? Leave it below in the comments section!

As always, I rely on you, my readers, to keep me on track. Remember that the 75% ethos is a set of guardrails on the highway, not a policy that gives out tickets if you don't wear a seatbelt. I'm here to give you some guidance on how to build a deck that will never sit in your backpack if you don't want it to and to help you interact with new playgroups. Let me know how your 75% decks are working out for you, and tune in next week for more value.