The Weekly Draw - Commander DNA is live and Which turtle are you?

Eight months is a long time in Commander. Sets have come and gone, brews have been built and dismantled, and somehow we're all now deeply invested in teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Welcome back to The Weekly Draw. If you're new here, hi! I’m glad you found us. If you've been subscribed since we first launched, thanks for hanging around.

TMNT prerelease just wrapped yesterday and the Commander community is loud about it, in good ways and bad. This week we're covering the most interesting conversations, site updates, a post worth reading, and a hidden gem to fuel your next build.

Grab something to drink. Let's get into it.

Community Pulse

Quadratic ramp vs. linear ramp — r/EDH is making the case that Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are holding you back. Land doublers and Nyxbloom Ancient compound; two green mana rocks just don't. But quadratic ramp paints a target on you faster than almost anything else at the table. Worth asking: are you building to win, or building not to be targeted? LINK

Craterhoof alternatives in every color — Green doesn't get to have all the fun. This thread is a legit resource: Moonshaker Cavalry in white, Torment of Hailfire in black, Insurrection in red. Blue apparently just Cyclonic Rifts and swings, which tracks. Your finisher of choice says a lot about how you think Commander games should end. LINK

The best value engines that don't go infinite — Someone asked what you build when your pod bans infinites, and the thread delivered. Reanimator, aristocrats loops, wheel strategies, and landfall engines all got strong showings. The best pushback in the comments: "if you're doing this 20 times, just go infinite and save everyone's time." Hard to argue with that. LINK

45 Commander decks under $45 — Commander Clash put together 45 full decklists, each capped at $45. If you're looking for a new commander and want to figure out what fits your style before spending money, this is the kind of resource to bookmark first and quiz yourself second. LINK

EDHREC's nonbo blind spot — The PSA is specifically about Zada, but the real conversation is bigger: EDHREC recommends cards that actively don't work with your commander more often than anyone wants to admit. Command Tower in colorless decks is the running joke. The algorithm is crowdsourced data, so when enough people make the same mistake, it starts looking like a suggestion. Worth a second look before you auto-include anything. LINK

Massacre Girl

She's trending for good reason. Massacre Girl is a board wipe on a body that gets around hexproof and indestructible, the two things most removal fails to handle. The -1/-1 chain she triggers scales with how well you read creature sizing. Pack the board with weenies and she clears everything; run into high-toughness beaters and the chain fizzles.

Pair her with Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat and every death drains the table. She's also recurrable with reanimation, so she's a plan, not a one-time answer. Under $3 for what she does is a genuinely hard deal to pass up.

Share Your Stuff

Got a deck tech, brewing guide, or Commander format take you've been sitting on? Send it my way. I read everything that comes in, and good work deserves a spotlight.

Reply to this email with a link or paste it directly. The bar is low: if you built something you're proud of we'd like to share it. I’m always looking to spotlight voices in the community.

Commander DNA is live.

It works from what you actually play, not what you think you prefer. Plug in commanders you already own or enjoy, and it reads the patterns underneath: archetype tendencies, playstyle texture, card mechanics. Then it recommends commanders that fit. You can also switch between matching modes (archetype, playstyle, mechanical) or let it auto-detect your strongest signal. Try it at edhmatch.com/commander-dna.

Big thanks to @SurisMTG on YouTube for a thorough review of the tool with some genuinely useful suggestions. Worth watching if you want to see Commander DNA in action before you dig in yourself.

New on the blog: playstyle guides for both new sets.

We broke down the Lorwyn Eclipsed commanders by player identity so you can skip straight to the ones that match your style: Lorwyn Eclipsed playstyle guide.

And since TMNT prerelease just wrapped yesterday, we did the same for the turtles: TMNT commander playstyle guide. Which turtle are you? Turns out that's actually a useful question for deck selection.

That's it for this week's Draw.

If you're brand new here: this is what we do. Filter the Commander noise down to what's actually worth your attention, and frame it around your kind of game. If you've been here a while: more issues are coming, for real this time.

Either way, if something in this issue sparked an idea, hit reply. I read every one. And if you've written something Commander-related you'd like featured, send it over. I'd love to help get it in front of more players.

— Mark
EDHMatch & The Weekly Draw