Commander players don’t just build decksthey build personalities in card form. One friend shows up with a terrifyingly efficient combo machine. Another slams a deck where every card features birds wearing hats. Both are valid life choices.
If you love Magic: The Gathering Commander and you’ve ever looked at your 100-card pile of chaos and thought, “This is either genius or a cry for help,” this is your moment. This is the article that cheers on your jank tribal, your meme deck, your “why does this actually work?” masterpieceand helps you polish it so you can proudly show it off, Bored Panda style.
What Even Is Commander, and Why Is It So Creative?
Commander (formerly known as EDH, Elder Dragon Highlander) is a casual, usually four-player format where each player brings a 100-card singleton deck built around a legendary creature (or select planeswalkers) called the commander. You start at 40 life, your commander lives in the command zone, and you can cast it again and againeach time it dies or gets exiled, it costs a little more mana tax to bring back.
The rules that make Commander differentsingleton deckbuilding, color identity restrictions, higher life totals, and a separate banned listalso make it fertile ground for creativity. You’re not just trying to win; you’re trying to tell a story with cardboard.
From Highlander Joke to Global Phenomenon
Commander began as a fan format and grew into Magic’s most popular way to play. Wizards now supports it with dedicated preconstructed decks, supplemental products, and even a Commander-focused advisory panel.
But at kitchen tables and local game stores, the heart of Commander is still the same: a social, splashy format where the best play isn’t always the most efficient oneit’s the one that makes the whole table burst out laughing.
So What Makes a Commander Deck “Creative”?
“Creative” doesn’t just mean “expensive” or “full of obscure cards no one can pronounce.” A creative Commander deck usually checks a few boxes:
- Unexpected commander choices – Instead of the most obvious meta all-stars, you pick something offbeat, underplayed, or freshly printed and ask, “What weird nonsense can I do with this?”
- A strong theme or story – Think “all cats and cat-adjacent nonsense,” “deck built like a rock band,” or “everything cares about the graveyard, but politely.”
- Deliberate constraints – Only commons, only cards printed before you were born, only dragons with bad reviews on EDHREC. Self-imposed rules force unusual card choices.
- Synergy over staples – You’re not auto-jamming the top 10 cards in your colors; you’re asking, “What fits this deck’s personality?”
- Memorable gameplay moments – Win or lose, your deck leaves stories: the time you killed someone with 0-power walls, or the time you milled yourself to one card on purpose and somehow survived.
Many guides to “fun” or “janky” Commander decks specifically encourage leaning into weird themeslike toughness-matters “big butts” builds, heroic tokens, or snake factoriesover raw optimization. If your deck would make a great Bored Panda photo caption, you’re on the right track.
Inspiration Station: Wild Commander Concepts That Actually Work
1. Jank, But Make It Art
Jank decks are built around cards that look borderline unplayableuntil you build the entire deck to make them shine. Writers on Commander strategy sites have whole series dedicated to “elevating borderline unplayable Commander cards to near-game-changer levels,” turning forgotten legends and goofy enchantments into the stars of the show.
Examples of glorious jank directions:
- Vanilla legends tribal – Your commander is flashy enough, but the rest of your deck is full of big, textless monsters that suddenly matter thanks to a few anthem effects.
- “If this works, the game ends in a draw” combo pile – An intentionally convoluted Rube Goldberg machine where success is so unlikely that your pod will be rooting for you anyway.
- Group-hug chaos – Your deck ramps everyone, draws everyone cards, then throws in just enough weird global effects that nobody knows what’s happening anymore.
2. Top-Down Theme Decks (a.k.a. Meme Decks With Feelings)
Instead of starting with a mechanic, start with an idea you’d love to see on Bored Panda:
- “Cooking Show” tribal – Food tokens, chefs, equipment that looks like kitchen tools, spells that sound like recipes. Bonus points if you narrate your plays like a TV host.
- “Dad Jokes” deck – Cards chosen primarily for pun-based names. You may not win the game, but you’ll win the groan war.
- “All my exes live in the graveyard” build – A reanimator deck with a soap-opera backstory for every creature.
These decks might use solid Commanders and proven synergies, but the card choices and table banter lean hard into the theme. They’re pure, shareable content fuel.
3. Mechanics-First Oddballs
Sites like EDHREC host series that build decks around narrow mechanical ideascantrips (cheap spells that draw a card), unblockable creatures, or ultra-specific keywords. You can treat these as inspiration, then twist them further.
Fun mechanical weirdness:
- “Only one-power creatures” aggro that wins through equipment, pump spells, or mass buffs.
- “Everything mills someone” deck where every spell nudges libraries toward danger, turning the whole game into a ticking time bomb.
- Defender go-wide where you assemble a wall army, then turn their toughness into damage and swing for lethal with what looks like an architect’s nightmare.
4. Building Against Type
One of the most satisfying ways to be creative is to take a well-known commander and build it “wrong” on purpose:
- A graveyard-focused commander built as a blink/value deck instead of reanimator.
- A “group slug” legend rebuilt as group hug and donations, turning burned expectations into table politics.
- A token-focused commander rebuilt as Voltron, suiting them up instead of going wide.
You’re not fighting the commander’s rules textyou’re just zigging where everyone expects you to zag, which makes for instantly interesting deck tech stories.
How to Build Your Own Creative Commander Deck (Without Losing Your Mind)
Step 1: Start With a Vision, Not a Card
Many deckbuilding guides now suggest starting with a vision statement for your Commander deck: a short sentence that captures what you want each game to feel like.
Examples:
- “I want every spell to feel like a tiny prank.”
- “I want to win by attacking with creatures that logically should never attack.”
- “I want the whole table to gasp the first time my deck ‘goes off,’ even if I lose.”
Step 2: Choose the Commander That Tells That Story
Once you know your vibe, pick a commander whose colors and abilities support it. This might be:
- An underrated legend that lines up perfectly with your theme (hello, “why has no one built this yet?”).
- A popular commander used in an unusual way.
- A brand-new commander from the latest set that hasn’t been “solved” yet.
Check Commander resources for ideas, but don’t feel forced to copy the “top cards” lists. Some of the most beloved decks on community forums are explicitly built to avoid the obvious staples in favor of originality.
Step 3: Build in “Packages,” Not Random Piles
To keep your creative deck functional, think in packages:
- Core strategy package – 15–25 cards that actually make your theme work (token-makers, sacrifice outlets, artifacts, whatever your engine is).
- Support package – Ramp, card draw, and removal tailored to your theme rather than generic staples.
- Spice package – The weird cards that give your deck its personality. This is where you slide in pet cards and meme-level synergies.
Step 4: Respect the Boring Stuff (Mana, Removal, Curve)
Even the wildest deck needs:
- 10–12 ramp cards
- 10-ish card draw/advantage pieces
- 8–10 pieces of interaction (spot removal, board wipes, or clever alternatives)
- A mana base that actually casts your spells on time
Think of these as the stage crew that lets your star performers shine. You can still be flavorfulmaybe your removal is all thematically “on brand”but you don’t want to be the player stuck at two lands while explaining how funny your deck would have been.
Step 5: Play, Tweak, Repeat
Most Commander deckbuilding advice agrees: you only really learn what works by playing games, then adjusting.
After a few sessions, ask yourself:
- Which cards always made me smile when I drew them?
- Which cards looked clever but never actually did anything?
- Did the deck feel like its “vision statement” most games?
Cut the dead weight, add more cards that support your favorite moments, and don’t be afraid to lean further into the weirdness that makes your deck unique.
How to Show Off Your Deck Like a Bored Panda Feature
You’ve brewed your masterpiecenow it’s time to present it in a way that deserves internet immortality (or at least some upvotes and shocked emojis).
1. Give Your Deck a Click-Worthy Title
Don’t just call it “Azorius Control.” Call it:
- “I Brought a Wall to a Sword Fight”
- “Snakes On Every Plane”
- “The Council of Bad Decisions”
A strong, funny deck name is half Bored Panda headline, half table warning label.
2. Highlight Three “Story Cards”
When you share your listonline or with your playgrouppick three cards that capture the spirit of the deck. Explain:
- Why they’re in there.
- What ridiculous situation they enable.
- That one time they almost, kind of, sort of worked.
Those little narratives make your deck feel more like a character and less like a spreadsheet.
3. Use Photos and Layouts That Tell a Story
Lay out your cards by theme (all your goofy creatures together, all the on-brand spells in a row) and snap a picture. If your deck is built around a silly concept, pose it accordingly: food deck next to snacks, dragon deck with toy dragons, cat tribal deck with your cat judging you in the background.
4. Be Honest About Power Level
When showing off your deck, always add a short note about power level: “casual jank,” “precon-plus,” or “this looks silly but can actually kill people on turn six, sorry.” That way, people can appreciate the creativity without feeling ambushed by a secretly spiky build.
Table Etiquette for Extremely Weird Decks
Creative decks shine brightest when everyone at the table is having fun. Before you unleash your chaos:
- Have a Rule Zero talk – Quickly explain what your deck does, whether it runs combos, and what kind of game you’re aiming for.
- Accept that jank sometimes flops – Part of the charm is that your deck might do literally nothing in some games. Laugh it off and shuffle up again.
- Celebrate other people’s nonsense – Compliment their wild plays, unexpected card choices, and thematic commitment. The more you lift up others’ creativity, the more people will want to see yours.
Many Commander writers explicitly encourage embracing weirdness and avoiding auto-builds, as long as you remain respectful of other players’ time and expectations.
Commander Stories: Real-World Experiences With Creative Decks
To really capture the Bored Panda energy, let’s talk about the kinds of stories that come out of creative Commander decks. These are stitched together from countless local game stores, online posts, and playgroup tales that feel very familiar if you’ve played even a little EDH.
The Wall Deck That Accidentally Became the Villain
Picture this: someone shows up with a defender tribal deck. Everyone relaxes. “Oh good, the wall player. They’ll just sit there and be adorable.” The first few turns are harmless0/4s and 0/5s clogging the board while everyone else builds their battlefield.
Then, suddenly, the defender player drops an enchantment that lets creatures assign combat damage equal to their toughness and another card that lets creatures with defender attack. In one swing, an army of “useless” walls becomes a battering ram that knocks one player out from 38 life and leaves the rest in panic.
That deck might not win every pod, but everyone remembers The Night The Walls Came Marching In. It turns a pile of commons into a story people retell to new players as a warning: never underestimate the jank deck.
The Five-Color “Voltron” That Shouldn’t Work, But Does
In another pod, a player brings a five-color commander typically used for goodstuff value. Instead, they’ve built it as a Voltron deck: a single creature stacked with a ridiculous amount of auras and equipment.
The mana base is held together with budget duals, slow fetches, and pure optimism. On paper, it looks fragile. In practice, it creates cinematic games: the table scrambles to remove the commander before it gets hexproof, indestructible, and +12/+12; someone burns an entire hand on a board wipe; the Voltron player dramatically replays their commander at a terrifying tax just as everyone runs low on answers.
The fun isn’t just in the eventual win or loss; it’s in the collective effort to stop this clearly overambitious plan. When it finally goes off, it feels like the climax of a movie everyone wrote together.
The “Kind of Bad On Purpose” Lottery Deck
Some players build what they call “lottery decks”piles of chaotic cards that only assemble their big combo once in a blue moon. Think coin flips, random-copy spells, and win-conditions that require six different pieces and a minor miracle.
Most games, the deck stumbles, does something mildly funny, and dies gracefully. But on that one glorious night when the stars align, the deck chains together three coin-flip wins, copies a spell eight times, and accidentally drags the entire table into a draw.
Is it good? Absolutely not. Is it Legendary with a capital L? 100 percent. The next week, people don’t say, “Remember that tight midrange mirror?” They say, “Remember when the chaos player accidentally ended the game for everyone?”
Why These Stories Matter
What all these experiences share is this: they’re social, they’re memorable, and they only happen because someone chose creativity over optimization. Commander is uniquely designed to reward that mindset. The format’s flexibility, huge card pool, and social norms mean the coolest thing at the table is often not the strongest deck, but the one that makes everyone say, “Okay, that was awesome.”
When you build a creative deck and show it offwhether it’s in your local pod, a decklist site, or a Bored Panda-style galleryyou’re not just displaying card choices. You’re inviting people into the little world you built. And that’s the real win, even if your life total does, in fact, hit zero.
Ready to Show Off Your Most Creative Commander Deck?
If your Commander brew makes you laugh, surprises your opponents, and leaves the table with a good story, it’s exactly the kind of deck that deserves a spotlight. Give it a great name, snap some photos, write up its favorite shenanigans, and share it with the world.
Somewhere out there is another player looking at their pile of weird cards, wondering if it’s worth turning into a deck. When they see yours, they’ll realize the answer is yesand that Commander is at its best when we all bring our strangest selves to the table.
