Command Zone's deck building template

[Morganator 2.0]

Back on a different thread I promised to watch another Command Zone episode and break down their stats. Spoiler alert: there are no statistical analyses. This episode was actually about updating the deck-building template they had made 4 years ago or so. The commander format has changed a lot since then, and so has the recommendations for deck-building. While there wasn't any probabilities or data backing up these numbers, the hosts of this show have been playing for a while and they have played against a lot of different decks, so their testimony is valuable. Here are the numbers they came up with.

Ramp: 10-12
Lands going to hand is not the same as ramp.

Card Draw: 10

Targeted Removal: 10-12
Includes counterspells, grave-hate, land destruction, and protection.

Boardwipes: 3-4
Anything that says "remove all..." in some way.

Lands: 35-38

Standalone: 25
Cards that are either good on there own or are good with the commander. Ex: Smothering Tithe.

Enhancers: 10-12
Cards that compliment the commander, deck strategy, or the standalones. Ex: Vedalken Orrery.

Enablers: 7-8
Things that make up for the deck's potential weaknesses. Mostly just protection spells.

A lot of cards need to overlap in what they are able to do. They also briefly mention "partials" which is a card that somewhat falls into a category. Something that scrys is partially draw. Some deck themes in particular will need to adjust their numbers. Planeswalker decks should have between 15 and 18 planeswalkers. Spellslinger decks should have about 40 instants/sorceries. Lands matter decks will have 40-45 lands. And tribal decks should have about 30 tribal cards.

What do you think about these numbers? Do they ring true for most of your commander decks?

One last thing, you might find it funny. At about 1:17:04 you can hear someone off-screen talking in the background and the host on the left (Josh?) is giving them the death-stare.

[The Golgari Guy]

Kudos for noticing the "death stare" bit, that was hilarious!

Regarding Lands, Card Draw, Ramp, Removal and Board Wipes, I think their numbers are quite solid.

Personally, I tend to follow these guidelines when building a deck:

Lands: Minimum 37, independently of the curve, plus 2+ lans-MDFCs. I want to have ideally 3 lands and a ramp spell in my opening hand. Even if my curve is super low, I still want to play a land per turn, so I don't go below 37.

MDFCs that come into play untapped (e.g. Turntimber Symbiosis) count as lands, whereas those that come tapped count as spells for me: this is to take into account the penalty of playing an additional tapland in the deck.
For example, I would count Turntimber Symbiosis as a land but Valakut Awakening as a spell.

Card draw: Also here, 10 seems like a very solid number. I could go a bit below in some decks but I usually want at least 8+. I guess the exception would be a commander with heavy card advantage stapled onto it (e.g. Korvold and Chulane), but I don't really play those. An important thing to consider is that the more complex your strategy is, the more card draw you want, so in some jankier decks I could go up to 12+.

Ramp: I usually run 10+, except in decks that struggle to play good ramp (e.g. mono blue), where maybe I run 8 or 9. In specific deck, this number can go up to 15 or 16.

Removal: This kinda depends on the "power level". If I want to bring a deck to a more competitive table, 8-10 pieces of targeted removal is the default. If it is designed to be played at lower-powered tables, I feel I can get away with less, but usually no less than 6-7 pieces.

Board Wipes: 3-4 Is a solid number, with the exception of decks that go wide, in which I run one or even zero board wipes since either they hurt me more than anyone or if I'm in a spot where I have to use them I'm probably losing already (but I think they mention this).

I have more of a problem with their other categories: Standalone, Enhancers and Enablers. Usually, I work with deck-specific categories and I don't really think in terms of the categories they propose (however it probably comes down to a similar division). I guess these terms really don't resonate with me, i.e. it's difficult to me to think "oh, this is a great Enabler for my deck!". Examples of non-deck-specific categories I use are Reanimation/Recursion, Tutor, Utility and Synergy.

[robort]

I've noticed that the norm template just like the command zone has changed from 4 years ago. The having 40 lands and 10 rocks for your starting point isn't there much anymore. The board wipes were along the lines of 5-6 but are cut way back because decks now can recover rather quickly and if you wiped the board you normally are still behind. Card draw is becoming way more important then 4 years ago. Ramp has got a lot faster with 2 drops and 3-4 drops that are either rocks/ramp are going to the way side. The game in the past 4 years has got much faster so the template really has changed

[jlutzxinc]

So many of the cards in my Decks do multiple things that coming up with exact numbers is difficult, but I'd say I match most of those metrics except for the wipes and auto-remove cards like Smothering Tithe (my playgroup has several regulars with wipe-heavy Decks so we're covered there regardless).  I don't make ultra-specialized Decks like in your last full paragraph and the closest I have is probably my "Thunder Force" Storm/Superfriends hybrid that runs a few too many Planeswalkers just because they do so much.

[Slyvester12]

When I build decks, my philosophy is a little different, but mostly because of the decks that I build.

I prefer big mana decks that combo off and have a mana sink on the commander. Because of that, I usually try to get 35 or so lands, 20+ pieces of ramp, as much card draw as I can reasonably fit in, and 10+ pieces of removal if possible. After all of that (assuming nothing from my theme overlaps), I fit as many enablers for my chosen combo or plan as possible.

So, usually, having something like 32 lands, 24 pieces of ramp, 15 draw effects, 12 assorted removal spells, and 16 cards that focus on the theme/enable my game plan is pretty normal for my decks.

I'm currently building an Adrix and Nex, Twincasters tokens deck, so I'll see how closely I adhere to this without a mana sink in the CZ.

[Morganator 2.0]

I decided to see if I adhere to these guidelines, using the decks that I think are most like a "strong casual" deck; . If the number is in green, it falls into the recommended number. Light red is little and dark red is too much.

Scarab God
Ramp: 13
Card Draw: 11
Targeted Removal: 12
Boardwipes: 3
Lands: 36
Standalone: ~16 to 33. Does every good mana ramp or removal spell count as a standalone? Arcane Signet is technically good on it's own.
Enhancers: 22. Mill doesn't really do much unless I have access to The Scarab God.
Enablers: 8

Brudiclad
Ramp: 16
Card Draw: 15
Targeted Removal: 7
Boardwipes: 2
Lands: 34
Standalone: 33
Enhancers: 24. Practically none of the token producers are good on their own.
Enablers: 4

In a lot of these categories I exceeded the values, but I guess that's not a bad thing.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I made the same exercise for Merieke, my most powerful "casual" deck.

Ramp: 10-12
MRB: 12 rocks + 5 untappers = 17

Card Draw: 10
MRB: 13

Targeted Removal: 10-12
MRB: 4 removal spells + Merieke Ri Berit + 10 counterspells + Strip Mine = 16

Boardwipes: 3-4
MRB: 2

Lands: 35-38
MRB: 35

Standalone: 25
MRB: 12 tutors

Enhancers: 10-12
MRB: 10 untapping devices + 2 haste enablers = 11

Enablers: 7-8
MRB: 9 counterspells + Boseiju, Who Shelters All + Academy Ruins + Hall of Heliod's Generosity + Volrath's Stronghold= 13

This formula just breaks with combo decks. I mean where do I put tutors? Counterspells are both offensive and protective. What the heck is a combo piece by nature?

[WizardSpartan]

Meren
Ramp: ~10. Not sure if stuff like Ashnod's Altar or Blood Pet really count as ramp.
Card Draw: 9. There are 9 tutors (4 of which are repeatable), which add a lot to the card advantage this deck generates.
Targeted Removal: 5. I'm not including the 4 Plaguecrafter effects, although they are probably the best of my removal.
Boardwipes: 2. Yet again, my 4 Plaguecrafter effects kinda fill in this role, although they technically aren't boardwipes.
Lands: 35
Standalone: This seems like an absolute headache and is really subjective, so I'm not even going to worry about it.
Enhancers: ~10
Enablers: 12. I included protection spells and unconditional recursion.

Alesha
Ramp: 9
Card Draw: 11
Targeted Removal: 6
Boardwipes: 4
Lands: 36
Standalone: See above.
Enhancers: ~10.
Enablers: 8

I think that only newer deckbuilders or people who dislike deckbuilding and want to spend as little time as possible doing so should consult templates like these. Anyone who has even a little bit of experience playing (or even theorycrafting) a commander should know what that commander needs, and then the template goes out the window. The simplest example of this would just be graveyard-based decks like Alesha and Meren. They constantly access their graveyard for a more subtle form of card advantage, and can often get away with lower densities of certain types of cards because they can loop those effects over and over when necessary (i.e. my Alesha only has 6 pieces of targeted removal, but I really only need one Duplicant to keep the board under control).

I get the feeling there are a lot more decks/strategies that should ignore generic templates like these than there are decks/strategies that should fit within these templates.

[The Golgari Guy]

I get the feeling there are a lot more decks/strategies that should ignore generic templates like these than there are decks/strategies that should fit within these templates.

I partially agree, however I feel like there are some categories for which having a reference number in mind is useful. I found that for myself this is particularly the case for removal (8-10) ramp (10-12) and card draw (8-10+).

I agree that some commanders provide you with card advantage and therefore you don't need as much card draw in principle, but these are often also the decks where the commander gets targeted the most (since commanders that provide card advantage are some of the strongest). Therefore, in the end I always tend to end up with these numbers.

[Mynus]

I get the feeling there are a lot more decks/strategies that should ignore generic templates like these than there are decks/strategies that should fit within these templates.

I tend to agree with this. I think these templates are good starting places, and are especially good for newer players. I have only been playing for about a year and a half, and I keep these in mind as I build, but they are starting to affect me less and less.

I tend to focus my deck building on my commander, and most of my decisions deal with that. The questions now for me usually centers around - is this card in my deck because it is inherently good or does it actually have synergy with my commander/goal. I would prefer to have cards that are synergistic as opposed to just "good" cards.