Duel Commander: 5 Decks in Enemy Colors

If you'd like to see decks in allied colors, check out our last article.

Once again, we'll explore lists that are a bit less popular but still powerful, as they performed really well in some Duel Commander tournaments. They're still considered off-meta lists, though.

Besides going through their pros and cons, we'll show you some cards you could add to upgrade them (in some metas, these upgrades could definitely be quite useful).

Phlage, The Anti-Aggro Aggro

We've already gone over the best Boros Aggro list in Duel Commander, but there are other interesting options. I considered writing about Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot because of how much it leans into combos, but, in certain metas, Phlage is certainly better.

It's all quite clear: this is a Boros Aggro list, but, instead of an aggressive 1-drop in the command zone (which gives you speed), you'll have a removal (which also gives you life!). This makes aggro matchups a lot easier. It also has escape, which is graveyard recursion.

Several neutral effects (like looting) will start creating value, and this will, in turn, make a few cards that you'd already use in this deck (like Tersa Lightshatter) more valuable as well.

It's funny because we look at cards like Cloud and instantly think of which equipment cards we can use to improve our creatures. When we look at our list of possible targets, Cori-Steel and Pre-War Formalwear stand out the most, and it's not because they're equipment cards.

Pros

Boros Aggro lists are quite direct: they're full of threats, and it's up to the opponent to answer them. In an aggro mirror match, Phlage is one of the best cards the Boros player can draw, and having it in the command zone guarantees you will, sort of. Furthermore, Phlage with haste is incredibly strong. It's strong, like 12 damage in a single turn strong. Whether you pair it with Arena of Glory, Detective's Phoenix, or Cori-Steel, any window your opponent gives you can mean their end.

This deck naturally preys on aggro lists, and it is fast enough to compete against other combo decks head-on.

Cons

Several cards in it are not strong enough against control lists. Party Thrasher, Scrapwork Mutt, and Greasewrench Goblin are easy to ignore. This deck is also slower than its other Boros version, and some of its cards are part of an engine - I mean, paying 4 mana for a Skyfire Phoenix will clearly not give you any wins.

Another problem that is more complex, strategically speaking, is that this deck is easy to predict. Unlike Boros Aggro lists that push their strategies through anything, play creatures with haste, and you never know when they'll speed up, Phlage is a lot more predictable. It plays more 3-drops and common removals, and the opponent can always guess when you'll use its escape.

These cards are slow but unavoidable. The more of these you play, the worst your aggro matchups will be, but they'll perform well against control lists.

I'm a big fan of effects that stack, like the monarch, initiative, or arena effects. They give us an attack angle that most decks can't deal with, at least not effectively, particularly because this deck plays lots of removals as well. One of the greatest problems with this is that we have to give up speed (it might not be that fast, but it's still a Boros Aggro list) to win long matches. If you're facing lots of control decks, consider adding some of these cards!

Ghyrson Starn, Bolt Maker

Ghyrson is one of the most popular commanders around, and that's easy to understand. It's quite cool!

Scorch Spitter attacking for 6 is incredibly strong as well as irresistible. Lava Dart dealing 6 damage? It's like an upgraded Fireblast! Creatures like Scalding Viper are even better in this list, and, when nothing works, you can play it like a "common" UR tempo list.

In many ways, it resembles Spider-Man 2099, a tempo list with a game plan that ends the match quite quickly. The difference is that it uses many "synergy" cards to make its game plan work.

Pros

If you don't interact with it, this deck wins on turn 4 consistently. Untapping cards with Ghyrson in play is a death sentence. Furthermore, it is cheap and extremely fun to pilot. It can win out of nowhere, both after explosive openings and slow starts (that is, when the opponent doesn't give you a chance to play your commander).

Cons

It's fun and powerful, but extremely complex. The main game plan is quite obvious, and, if you can't read (or scry) the game state well, you won't be able to figure out if you're about to take a Cut Down or if the opponent is bluffing (or worse, you might believe it's a Cut Down but end up taking a Sauron's Ransom).

Besides this problem, this deck also struggles with something every "synergy" deck does: it plays cards that are individually weak. Two cards that deal 9 damage together might only deal 2 damage apart.

Anything that has 1 power or deals 1 damage can be added to this list. I don't really know if this deck should lean more towards combo or consistency.

The cool thing about playing some of these "unknown" cards is that they'll catch your opponent off-guard. Many "joke" cards are no longer funny when they make you lose.

Wilson, One Punch Bear

It's unbelievable, but playing Wilson on turn 2 puts a huge amount of pressure on the opponent.

This card can't be countered and has ward 2. Some decks even have ways to deal with it (like Solitude, Dismember, Fatal Push, and Sheoldred's Edict), but the truth is that those often cost a lot of mana, and, for just 1 mana, you can protect it, usually. You can give it hexproof, indestructible, or phase it out*, for instance.

Furthermore, this deck can make things quite unbalanced with effects like curiosity and dominates the combat phase with vigilance and flying (Ok, we need an aura to do this, but you'd be surprised with the number of cards we can use to get flying).

The greatest difference between this tempo deck and others is how it explodes. It all seems easy until Become Immense and Berserk deal 20 damage with a single blow.

Pros

Playing against this deck is very difficult. If you're playing control, Wilson is incredibly annoying to remove. Your counters might be good against pumps, but Wilson will still hit for 2. If you spend many resources to deal with it, you may lose to a Llanowar Elves on steroids (or a True-Name Nemesis).

On the other side, if you're playing an aggro list, a 4/4 creature with vigilance and flying (considering an Arcane Flight) can attack or block. You can't really try to calculate how much damage you need to deal to win because this opponent has lots of diverse combat tricks. None of your removals will be reliable because Wilson's protection spells work against nearly all types of effects.

Cons

This deck has 3 problems.

First, it is a "pizza" deck. It plays lots of redundant effects, and ideally you should draw a bit of everything. No Curiosity? You'll run out of resources. No protection? Your Wilson will die (and you need it). No counterspell? Too many creatures?

This deck works better when you draw a bit of everything.

The second problem is that there are many hate cards in the game that are accidentally good against Wilson. No one is thinking about Wilson when they add Abrupt Decay or Long Goodbye to their lists, but these cards are accidentally super strong against it. The same goes for Chaos Defiler (another super common staple) and even things like Cankerbloom, which can destroy your "flying" aura and make things quite ugly.

Finally, and this is a matter of style, this deck often hits a drawing-dead game state.

[quote]{Drawing Dead: in Poker, "drawing dead" means that you have a losing hand no matter which cards you draw.}

It's common to find yourself in losing game states. That's how we end up losing, after all! But if your Wilson gets removed for 2, then for 4, you can't play a sixth land, and you draw a few pumps... This deck can't do anything. This might seem like a very specific situation, but the truth is, no matter how hard the opponent will have to work to remove your Wilson, if they can do it, you won't have any other strategies to play.

You might just get really bad luck. You might make Wilson indestructible and the opponent exiles it or give it hexproof and the opponent plays a global effect (and, believe me, experienced players will mulligan aggressively after any interaction to deal with Wilson).

Threats with flash, removals, and pumps are always good cards to add to lists like these. There's not much we can say about bounces and counters - they're pretty common upgrades. Like any other "pizza" deck, just remember that adding certain flavors may overshadow others.

Old Rustein, Storm-nimator

I struggled with this decision. After I moved on from Grist, the Hunger Tide (which is quite cool and deserves a deck tech of its own), our options were scarce. Some The Gitrog Monster lists have performed well, but, the more I researched more about it, the less certain I was about how it works.

So, I decided to showcase a deck that was once very successful.

Old Rutstein is a very weird commander. The idea is to play it like a reanimator list, but one of your creatures wins the game when it enters play. The loop involving Hoarding Broodlord/Saw in Half/Sacrifice-like effects is quite popular in Duel Commander. An Archon of Cruelty in play also wins games, and it's even simpler to execute.

Rutstein matches are like fist fights, but you can roll a dice to get a knife. The only problem is that, to get the knife, you'll have to stop throwing punches and start taking some. And you might not even get the knife in the end.

Pros

Every unfair deck has potential in Duel Commander because unfair strategies are better by the minute. I see Premodern decks happily reanimating Symbiotic Wurm, while we have Griselbrand and Archon of Cruelty.

Every deck that doesn't play blue can be destroyed by a fast strategy. Decks without blue give you tempo, and this deck plays discards. A reanimated Grief is enough to put a huge hole in the opponent's game plan, and you won't lose after that.

Cons

On the other side, when we look at other reanimator lists, like Emet-selch, Unsundered, we'll find Brainstorm, Ponder, and countless other card selection effects. Playing two colors that aren't blue or red (we mentioned the reasons why this deck doesn't play blue, but there are red looting effects like Faithless Looting that allow you to improve your hand - you can even play any cards you don't want in the graveyard, where they should be) is risky. This deck often bricks and you'll often lose with the feeling that you never had a chance at all. You might, for instance, draw reanimation spells and never get to play a single big creature in the graveyard.

It's not that these strategies should win always. You may take counters or removals and lose. But when you simply can't even try, it's just terrible. And there's nothing you can do to prevent this.

There's not much we can add to this deck. Do you want to swap your Titan of Industry for a Woodfall Primus? Go ahead. This deck is precisely what it is, perfectly imperfect. Any change you make will lead you to play better commanders.

Sorin OTK

The decision between Sorin and Amalia was tough, but Sorin is simply more fun. This deck works around two main cards: Renounce and Zuran Orb.

Sacrifice your permanents, gain a lot of life, transform Sorin, and kill the opponent. This strategy is pretty simple. Because this list is black, we can play tutors like Demonic Tutor and Tainted Pact, besides lands like Urza's Saga. And because these are 2-card combos, the rest of the deck is a blank slate. We can add the effects we want - but please consider whether a certain cool creature wouldn't be better with lifelink. If you don't really want to sacrifice all your permanents, this type of effect could be quite useful.

This is an aggro list in theory. Thirty-one creatures is a lot, and many Sorin lists play something between 18 and 24. Many "synergy" cards are also in this list - Haliya, Karlov, and others. You may use more discards and protection, more removals, or more generically good creatures.

Pros

Gaining life to deal damage is incidentally good against many decks that focus on dealing damage. Boros Aggro lists, Monored lists, Rakdos lists in general... They all struggle with ending the game if you heal a bit.

Ending the game with a combo is a very interesting strategy. If you focus on not taking combos, you may simply take too much pressure. But if you try to trade resources equally (1 to 1), the best cards you can get in the late game are not as powerful as a Zuran Orb (which can literally win the game).

Cons

Like some of the decks we listed below, this one also struggles against blue lists.

Before we go further into this matter, let me make something clear: blue is not the big bad evil guy in Duel Commander. Blue decks struggle a lot against well-established midrange lists - Slimefoot, Deadpool, Yoshimaru. Furthermore, mirror matches between blue decks (for instance, a Spider-Man 2099 and an Aragorn) are often be full of difficult decisions.

Most tier-2 decks are built to beat the tier-1 decks directly. Beating these competitive decks is usually good enough. But these decks play specific answers: a Slimefoot, for instance, will play lots of removals that don't deal with your Sorin (Lightning Bolt and Galvanic Discharge only deal 3 damage, Flame Slash only works at sorcery speed). Blue decks don't struggle in the same way because Mana Leak is worse as an answer (it is 1 mana cheaper) but it is more generic. Attacking from several angles doesn't work that well.

So, many cards this list plays are not good enough. A Stern Scolding on a Sun-Blessed Cleric is a 3-mana tempo loss. It might be interesting, but it won win games by definition. Having a Rennounce in hand when you can't resolve Sorin, then...

Competitive MTG is often repetitive MTG. The strategies are the same: add more discards to try to combo more safely, or add card draw to drown your opponent in resources. Morlun is interesting because lifelink is very valuable when you can't combo with Sorin.

These are our recommended fun options for those who have just started playing Duel Commander (experienced players use these decks, they just don't usually pick by color...). These strategies are diverse, competitive, and extremely viable, as well as relatively cheap (3-color decks, though, are a bit more expensive because they need dual lands).

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!