Deckbuilding Contest Finalists - April 2025

(Downsize | Art by Ryan Pancoast)

It's time to announce the finalists for this month's Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest!

In case you missed the announcement post, this is a monthly contest with a different theme each month.

Your goal is to build a Commander legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion.

At the end of each month, three finalists will be selected for you to vote on.

Whoever gets the most votes will be crowned the winner, although all three finalists receive a prize.

As a reminder, this month's prompt was to brew a Commander-legal deck that that used fewer colors than are in the commander's color identity.

We collected submissions from the Archidekt Discord and Archidekt newspost and evaluated them based on their creativity. It was important to have a tactical reason to abandon a color, or take a particular commander in a new direction.

Now, it's your turn to decide who will be crowned the winner.

Read about each deck list below, then visit your favorite and upvote them on Archidekt.

Whoever has the most upvotes by Wednesday, April 23, 2025 will be the winner, and receive $250 credit to cardsphere.com.

Second and third place will receive $150 and $100 cardsphere.com respectively.

Finally, here are the three finalists chosen for this months contest, presented in no particular order. Follow the link in each decklist to vote on your favorite!

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This deck seeks to use spells like Swirl the Mists to make all four of Aragorn, the Uniter's effects trigger when you cast blue spells. Not only does this make the mana base much more consistent, it means you're getting every one of Aragorn's effects with every single spell you cast. And while this does take three color hacking spells to accomplish, Aragorn already adds scrying to your spells. It shouldn't be difficult to dig through your deck to find the spells you need.

Even just one color hack should be enough to keep your opponent's in check. Facing down a couple aggressive creature decks? Swap white to blue to create an army of blockers. Got the board in control but no creatures of your own? Change red to blue to tack a Lava Spike to every spell you cast.
You can also prioritize your edits based on the cards you draw. Kindred Discovery and Skystrike Officer reward you for making Soldier tokens, while Sigil of Sleep makes Aragorn, the Uniter the ideal Counter-Burn commander.

This deck also includes a few other cards you can edit to best fit the situation. Insight and Wrath of Marit Lage are usually hit or miss, but this deck can change their text to best fit any given pod of players.

Just keep in mind Wrath of Marit Lage will stop your own creatures from untapping as well.

Lastly, Sword of Once and Future can give your commander protection from the colors you need most, while still providing value by casting spells from your graveyard.

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[Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact[/el] wants you to have as many color pairs among permanents you control as possible, which this deck accomplishes using hybrid cards that can all be cast with only red mana.

The result is surprisingly effective, as well. Blade Historian, Nobilis of War, and Ashenmoor Liege all give your commander a significant boost while helping you deal extra damage with his ability.

You'll also be drawing extra cards, letting you add more and more power and damage every turn.

The deck also features a healthy amount of interaction and card draw. This helps keep the commander safe from removal, and ensures the deck continues to function even if Niv-Mizzet is destroyed.

Having those effects attached to the sizable bodies of Deus of Calamity and Resonance Technician also keeps the pressure up, maintaining the feel of a aggressive, mono-red deck.

Even though this deck won't ever struggle to cast spells from the deck, you might think it'll have some trouble assembling all five colors to cast Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact himself.

Cascading Cataracts and Great Hall of the Citadel help with fixing, but this deck mostly relies on a set of Signets, Chromatic Orrery, and Treasures from Professional Face-Breaker.

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As it turns out, there are more haste-y creatures in green and black than you might expect, from the fairly well known, like Rankle, Master of Pranks and Questing Beast, to ones you might not know, like Banehound. Many of the smaller haste creatures also have the ability to return from the graveyard. Nether Traitor and Tenacious Underdog may not deal a lot of damage, but they will attack turn after turn. At the same time, Six, Deadbridge Chant, and a suite of Reanimate effects bring back your more powerful attackers.

These recursive engines also form the heart of a small value package with Birthing Pod. Just attacking won't be enough to take out three opponents. In order to consistently find powerful finishers, this deck seeks to trade it's Strangleroot Geist's for Academy Manufactors and Mirkwood Bats.

The many reanimation effects in the deck naturally complement this gameplan, bringing back your creatures to keep attacking and making Treasures.

But even if you can't bring them back, this deck can still keep up the pressure thanks to Tombstone Stairwell. This enchantment makes a 2/2 Zombie token with haste for every creature in your graveyard, every turn. Of course, every other player also gets zombies, but that shouldn't stop you from attacking to create Treasure tokens.

And on every other players' turn, those tokens trigger the effects of Mirkwood Bats and Marionette Apprentice, quickly dropping life totals to zero.

Rounding out the deck are a couple useful effects to keep the game moving quickly. Amulet of Vigor untaps the treasurs Ognis makes, letting you use the mana right away. Dolmen Gate means you never have to think twice about attacking with Six, or your other value creatures.

Rev, Tithe Extractor and Ohran Frostfang should also make your opponents think twice about blocking. Lastly, Nissa, Vital Force can bring back key permanents or turn your lands into Elementals with haste if an extra Treasure is more important.

And there you have it, the three finalists for the March 2025 Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest.

Which is your favorite? Be sure to follow the links in the headers of each section to visit the deck pages and upvote the one you think should win!

The final rankings based on your votes will be announced on Wednesday, April 23th, 2025.