We live in a world where there is always a bigger and a better. Get that new wardrobe, upgrade your house with the latest technology and trade in for this year's new vehicle. What happens if we want something a little more simple? We very rarely hear about downgrading our lives. There are tons of benefits to keeping used vehicles, holding onto our old, still usable, tech and repairing our old clothes. This could easily be translated to the hobby of Magic The Gathering. Every few months we are inundated with new, more powerful cards that have the potential to slot into multiple formats and the average player is always looking to make upgrades.

With the advent of the new Commander Bracket system we may find that our decks don't quite align with our design philosophies, play styles or play groups. What kind of tools can we implement to bring down our decks power level? Let's take a look at one example to slow our deck down and bring our play style into parody with the rest of the table.

Outside of the color Green, most commander decks rely on artifacts, commonly referred to as mana rocks, to act as acceleration to get us to our bigger spells faster. Common cards we see in this bracket are Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Commander's Sphere. In an attempt to get our deck off of the ground faster and faster we typically see players play Mana Rocks with smaller and smaller casting costs. Zero, one and two mana mana rocks can easily dominate the game and generate so much advantage that we easily become the target in our politically geared format. Let's take advantage of some overlooked mana rocks in the 3 mana slot that will slow our play down and diversify our gaming experience.

Honorable Mention: Bobbleheads

Let's take a look at an honorable mention. The Fallout set gave us the bobbleheads. The bobbleheads all tap for one mana of any color and synergize with each other to produce various abilities. Charisma Bobblehead makes tokens, Strength Bobblehead puts counters on our creatures and Intelligence Bobblehead draws us cards. These are an easy include if you'd like to hit a critical mass of artifacts for your deck.

1. Spectral Searchlight

First on our list is Spectral Searchlight. It has a super simple design and is perfect for the political stylings of Commander. The searchlight taps for one mana of any color, but we can allocate that mana to any player. So if a player is behind on mana or you want to gain favor with someone else at the table you can offer them a mana in these trying times.

2. Patchwork Banner

Next is Patchwork Banner, a recent release in Bloomburrow. Besides tapping for one mana of any color it also slots into all of our Kindred Decks. When Patchwork Banner enters the battlefield we name a creature type and all of the creatures of that type that we control get +1/+1. This should be an easy auto include in any creature synergy deck.

3. Strixhaven Stadium

In the third position is Strixhaven Stadium. This rock is unique because it has the potential to knock a player out of the game. When we tap it for mana or deal combat damage to a player we add a point counter. When we take damage we remove a point counter. When we get 10 or more point counters, and deal combat damage to a player, we can remove all the counters on the stadium and that player loses the game. This gives us a great alternate win condition in proliferate decks, go wide decks or unblockable creature decks.

4. Decanter of Endless Water

The penultimate spot on our list is taken up by Decanter of Endless Water. It's a great common from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. If we're looking to slow down our deck we can replace Thought Vessel with this and if we need the extra security of having no maximum hand size we can play this along with Thought Vessel or Reliquary Tower. The big benefit it has over the other two is that it provides mana of any color instead of Colorless mana allowing us to stay on curve with our multicolor commanders.

5. Relic of Legends

Rounding out our list is Relic of Legends. This handy rock has the added benefit of allowing our legendary creatures to become mana producing machines. Commanders like Emmara, Soul of the Accord or Annie Flash, Veteran who actively want to be tapped, can take advantage of Relic to generate multiple avenues of value. Relic is also an easy auto-include for commanders like Kethis, the Hidden Hand or Dihada, Binder of Wills that care about having as many legendary creatures as possible. A handy trick with the relic is that it can protect your commander if there is a player in your group that goes a little too heavy with the goad effects.

Hopefully these suggestions will help out when it comes to adjusting the power level of your Commander decks. Tossing these cards into already established lists should help you change your play patterns and some of them have dynamic effects that could even change the way your deck wins the game. Have Fun!