#artisan commander

[nekogirltail]

Hey Magic Tumblr, anyone else hear about Artisan Commander? It's a new Commander variant that I've heard people on Reddit talking about.

Basically, it's more or less just normal Commander but you have the additional deck building restriction of commons and uncommons only.

The cool thing is because it otherwise follows regular Commander rules, you can build an Artisan Commander deck and even if you can't find other people specifically playing Artisan Commander you can just use your deck in a regular Commander game.

I've already built two myself. It's fun digging through your collection to find a bunch of cards you'd otherwise pass over to put together a deck.

[thecommandertable]

Top 10 Artisan Cards in Edge of Eternities

In the past I've done full set reviews where I talked about every common and uncommon from a set that I thought would see play in Artisan Commander. No more! If I did that for Edge of Eternities, it would span three whole posts! (Tumblr limits the number of images/links you can have in a post.) So instead I'll just be talking about the ten cards that I think will be the most impactful.

10 — Emergency Eject

Emergeny Eject is another variation on the Oblation/Generous Gift/Stroke of Midnight template: a 3-mana white instant that can remove just about anything, but will give your opponent something in exchange. In this instance, that something is a Lander token, which is a new predefined artifact token that can be cracked for two mana to go find a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped. As Treasure tokens are to Lotus Petal, Lander tokens are to Rampant Growth. With Emergency Eject unable to target lands, the closest comparison here is to Stroke of Midnight. I've been asking myself whether I prefer having to give an opponent a free 1/1 creature or essentially adding a Rampant Growth to their hand, and I'm honestly not sure. There's also the possibility that you use Emergency Eject on one of your own permanents to give yourself a Lander token, but that seems like something of a last resort—appropriate for the card's name, I suppose.

9 — Pull Through the Weft

Pull Through the Weft is a chunky card. For five mana you regrowth two nonland permanents and return two land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. This has the potential to set you up for some truly impressive late-game plays. Not every green deck wants this, of course; it probably wants a deck with some way to fuel the graveyard, that's permanent-centric, and has enough top-end juice to offset the loss of tempo that accompanies a 5-mana sorcery that doesn't effect the board. The other prominent card in this space is Pair O' Dice Lost, which is better suited to decks with lower curves and/or are looking to return a large number of lands to hand.

8 — Meltstrider Eulogist

There are lots of cards in this set which, while being excellent for particular strategies, didn't make this list (honorable mentions to Mechan Strider and Tapestry Warden). Meltstrider Eulogist owes its spot to the ubiquity of +1/+1 counters in green Artisan decks, and how badly those decks want more card draw. I expect Meltstrider Eulogist to join the ranks of Armorcraft Judge, Inspiring Call and Stocking the Pantry as a near auto-include in any Rishkar, Hamza, or Master Chef deck.

7 — Lashwhip Predator

By contrast, Lashwhip Predator has little in the way of synergies but is just a very cheap, beefy creature for our multiplayer format. When you have three opponents, the odds that they'll collectively control at least three creatures by turn 4 are very high. You can add Lashwhip Predator into pretty much any green Artisan deck and it'll be a good card; there will perhaps be cards that might be better for that particular deck in that slot, but it'll never be embarrassing to have. One commander that Lashwhip Predator works particularly well with, however, is Imoti. Even if you're only casting Lashwhip Predator with four mana, its mana value is still 6, so you'll cascade off it if Imoti's in play.

6 — Glacier Godmaw

Ugh, this thing is so cool. For decks that are going well and truly wide, Overrun is going to be a more efficient finisher, but I think there will be applications for Glacier Godmaw in big stompy/landfall decks like Ruby and Tatyova. It's big, it's got trample, and it can give your whole team vigilance and haste; that's a lot of ground that it's covering.

5 — Timeline Culler

Timeline Culler is being called an "Artisan Gravecrawler", and I think the comparison is well-deserved. You can cast it from your graveyard for a single black mana; yeah, technically it'll get exiled at the end step, but if you're using this to its full potential, that hardly matters. Combining the Drix Warlock with a free sac outlet, Pitiless Plunderer, and two Blood Artist effects (which we have plenty of these days) is the most obvious and direct combo, but there are plenty of other uses. Syr Konrad and other "leaves the battlefield" cards like Insidious Roots, Chalk Outline, and Soul Enervation work well with it. For those trying to make "Oops no Lands" work in Artisan, it's a creature that can be cast out of the graveyard for Dread Return to sacrifice. Point being, by outperforming previous options like Reassembling Skeleton and Forsaken Miner, it's going to be the go-to "can be cast easily from the graveyard" cheap black creature for the foreseeable future (I guess that's how it's culling the timeline).

4 — Starfield Shepherd

It looks like a small thing, but the fact that Starfield Shepherd can find you a Plains when you need it is a big part of what makes this card as good as it is. You'll feel a lot better keeping a two-land hand with Starfield Shepherd in it knowing that if you haven't drawn a third land on your first or second turn (or third turn, if you have another two drop), you can use it to find to find one—it's like a landcycler, but instead of having to discard it, you set it aside to cast later.

Of course, that's not the primary use case for its ability: what we're really playing this card for is its ability to search for creatures with mana value 1 or less. I was a big fan of Ranger Captain of Eos back in the day, and Starfield Shepherd does a pretty good impression. So what are we finding? Mother of Runes is the first thing to comes to my mind, but there are tons of possibilities—and they don't need to be white creatures! Grab Spore Frog! Ugin's Conjurant! Nephalia Smuggler! And hey, who knows what one-drop creatures will be printed in the future? Keep your eyes open!

3 — Tannuk, Memorial Ensign

We have six new Artisan-legal commanders in EOE, but Tannuk stands out to me as the most powerful. Gruul landfall as an archetype has tons of support in terms of ramp and payoffs; its shortcoming has always been a lack of card draw. Non-Artisan Gruul landfall decks can build card-draw engines by combining Elemental Bond, Garruk's Uprising, Garruk's Packleader, etc. with landfall cards that make large creature tokens like Rampaging Baloths. We now have five green 5-drops that make creature tokens on landfall at common/uncommon (see newcomer Eusocial Engineering), but none of them make creature tokens with more than 2 power.

Tannuk fills the role of card draw in these decks by getting you a card whenever you have your second land enter each turn, which is not difficult; once a landfall deck has its wheels turning, it can do that reliably on each of its turns in addition to some of its opponents' turns. And if you really want to draw a lot cards with Tannuk, enchant him with Keen Sense.

2 — Weftstalker Ardent

When MH3 released I added Molten Gatekeeper to a bunch of my Artisan decks, and now I'll be replacing (almost) all of them with Weftstalker Ardent. It's an Impact Tremors plus a Reckless Fireweaver, each excellent Artisan cards in their own right. This thing will put out staggering amounts of damage.

It'll be interesting to see how often it's cast for its warp cost. I think unearth (as seen on Molten Gatekeeper) fits the play pattern of this sort of effect a little better than warp, but the fact that Weftstalker Ardent triggers on artifacts in addition to creatures obviously puts it way over the top.

1 — Umbral Collar Zealot

And here it is, the Artisan card from EOE that I think will be the most impactful on the format. Yes, Umbral Collar Zealot costs twice as much mana as Viscera Seer. But repeatedly surveilling is far more powerful than repeatedly scrying, and Umbral Collar Zealot can also sacrifice artifacts—a factor becoming ever more relevant as Wizards prints more and more cards that create artifact tokens.

It's also a 2-mana 3/2? Wild.

[thecommandertable]

Lost Caverns of Ixalan Artisan Set Review: Part 1

Which common and uncommon cards in Lost Caverns of Ixalan might make their way into your Artisan Commander decks? Part 1 will cover the monocolor cards, and Part 2 will cover the multicolor and artifact cards. Let's take a look:

White

Manglehorn is an existing card but doesn't see much play in Artisan. Making your opponents' artifacts enter tapped has a larger impact in regular EDH where it hits mana rocks like Grim Monolith and Mana Vault, not to mention slowing down big treasure makers like Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe. In all, I don't expect to see too much of Dauntless Dismantler in Artisan games.

Blue

An upgrade over Supreme Will, which sees some play. Putting the extra cards into the graveyard instead of the bottom of the library is relevant for spells decks with payoffs that count the number of instants/sorceries in the graveyard: Crackling Drake, Gandalf's Sanction, Rise from the Tides, etc.

Black

The closest comparison is to Infernal Grasp. Bitter Triumph can hit planeswalkers, but there aren't very many of those in Artisan. The larger difference is the flexibility in the additional cost: when you don't want to pay life you can discard a card instead and vice versa. Some decks, such as reanimator, want discard outlets anyway. I expect to see Bitter Triumph at similar rates as Infernal Grasp and Go For the Throat.

A Deadly Dispute that creates a Map token instead of a Treasure. A lot of decks that run Deadly Dispute will want this card too: Juri, Gut, Thalisse, etc.

This card's pretty interesting. It has shades of Deadly Wanderings to it, except that it only needs you to attack with a single creature instead of controlling only one creature, which is a pretty significant difference. Obviously, you'll want to put this in a deck that can attack with a single large creature. This card's not worth running over a card like Ancient Craving if you're not going to profit off the front side. I'm thinking something like Yargle or Rael Rilsa.

Ichor Wellspring is played in lots of decks that like to sacrifice artifacts. Mephitic Draught is essentially a second copy for black decks.

This card's not far from Doomed Necromancer, which has always struck me as a rare that's ripe for a downshift. The finality counter and sorcery speed are a bit of a bummer, but Soulcoil Viper is something to consider when building Barrowin of Clan Undurr, or if/when they downshift Alesha, who Smiles at Death (fingers crossed)

Any self-mill deck that can easily get four or more permanent cards into its graveyard will like this little guy. Deathtouch means you will often be able to find someone to attack who doesn't want to block, and in a pinch you can leave it back to dissuade a big creature from attacking you.

Red

I'll talk about Caparocti Sunborn when I get to the multicolor cards, but yeah, if you plan on discovering a lot, this card seems deece.

It's a red Prying Blade except: A) it's indestructible, B) it gives an extra point of toughness, and C) gives you the treasure on attack, not when it hits an opponent. Overall that's pretty good.

This card looks excellent in an artifact-heavy deck. It can provide creatures haste in a pinch on its front side, but flipping it shouldn't be very hard, in which case it turns into a land with a very powerful activated ability. Even if you never use that second ability, it's still a card that ramps you.

It's going to be fairly difficult to trigger descend every turn, even in decks that go out of their way to sacrifice stuff. Keep in mind that tokens are not cards, so sacrificing treasures or Eldrazi Spawn tokens or whatever won't trigger this. That said, getting just two or three treasures out of a two-mana creature is pretty good, and it has two relevant creature types.

Sunshot Militia is yet another creature that goes infinite with Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and a way to turn it into a pirate. Aside from that, it's still a card with a ton of potential. It works great with Curiosity effects, for one thing. But any deck that has lots of stuff hanging around, be it treasure tokens, food tokens, equipment, or dispensable creature tokens could use Sunshot Militia to deal good chunks of damage at low cost.

Great for my Syr Carah deck.

Green

Ok so a lot of these dinosaur payoffs I'm skipping over because the red-green signpost dinosaur legendary doesn't look very compelling as a commander- I'll get to it in Part 2- but Earthshaker Dreadmaw is a house.

This card reminds me of Afiya Grove, which not only is a rare but also on the reserved list. And Explorer's Cache is... better? It enters with one fewer counters on it, but gives you a lot more control over when you dole out the counter (a big mark against Afiya Grove is that you have to give the +1/+1 counter to an opponent's creature if you don't control any creatures), and of course, it recoups counters if your creatures die. I'd put Explorer's Cache into any deck that has a lot of +1/+1 counter synergies and proliferate. It also works very well with Kami of Whispered Hopes.

Poison Dart Frog looks like a decent mana dork/rattlesnake card. Pretty nice that it can block a creature with flying, then tap to help pay for its own deathtouch ability. That said, I wouldn't run a two-drop mana dork if I don't need the mana fixing; if I just want to ramp, I'd go with Llanowar Elves/Elvish Mystic/Fyndhorn Elves instead.

This is the biggest, baddest green mana sink we've gotten in Artisan. Previously the best was probably Centaur Glade. Sachi decks will be able to use this, and maybe(?) Rishkar and/or Tatyova decks. If you're making infinite mana with something like Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies, I'd recommend putting that mana into something like Goblin Cannon for the win; as cool as turning all your lands into 7/7s is, you have a limited supply of them, and they don't have trample-- you don't want to pass the turn only to have them all destroyed by a Slaughter the Strong or Kirtar's Wrath.

Alright, that's all the monocolor cards! See Part 2 for multicolor and artifact cards!

[thecommandertable]

Wilds of Eldraine - in the 99 of Artisan Decks: Part 1 of 2

A couple of weeks ago I gave my first impression of the 10 uncommon legendary creatures in Wilds of Eldraine. Now the whole set has been previewed, so I'm gonna talk about cards that seem like they'll be good in the 99 of Artisan Commander decks. If you don't know what Artisan Commander is, I made a post about that! In Part 1, I'll be going over White, Blue, and Black cards. Part 2 will cover Red, Green, Artifact, and Multicolored cards.

White

Discerning Financier definitely has potential; its ability is more likely to trigger in multiplayer and it offers you ramp and card advantage. In modest amounts for sure, but any card that does both shouldn't be overlooked. Something else I like about this card is that the payoff for having fewer lands is not, like most cards with this sort of ability trigger, getting another land, which means getting further payoffs more likely. Bounce lands, Karoo, and Guildless Commons can also help get you treasure with the Financier without actually being behind on mana.

I'll be adding this card to my Thalisse deck for sure. She rewards me for making treasure.

Another cute thing you could do is play this card alongside Viridian Revel. Not a lot of WG decks that naturally want treasure production, though; maybe Ich-Tekik paired with Rebbec? That could be cool, actually. I love any excuse to play Fangren Marauder. But I digress!

This card was previewed on the same day as the 10 new legends; I mentioned it when I talked about Neva, Stalked by Nightmares. This card goes infinite with Screams from Within, and we got a couple new payoffs that I'll be mentioning below. Knight of Doves could also see play in Siona and other WG aura decks, though it's not quite as powerful there as they don't tend to cycle through their auras as much.

This card could do good work in a GW aura deck. Scrying a card whenever an enchantment enters under your control is nothing to scoff at, and once you've got 7-8 enchantments in play, that activation is no joke.

Solitary Sanctuary is a powerful payoff for Sharae of the Numbing Depths decks. No "once per turn" or "one or more" clauses, so it scales really well. Imagine casting Cone of Cold on a crowded board! Now your creatures are huge, and they can attack with impunity!

Stroke of Midnight is a card that's instantly replacing Generous Gift in a lot of Commander decks, Artisan or otherwise. It can't hit lands, but how often does one use Generous Gift on a land anyway? Anyway, I expect this card to be even more of an upgrade in Artisan, since the difference between a 3/3 and a 1/1 is more pronounced in Artisan than it is in regular Commander.

The Princess Takes Flight looks extremely abuseable. If you can blink/flicker/return it to your hand before that third chapter ability can trigger, the creature it exiled when it came down is exiled permanently. Expect to see it alongside Reality Acid in mean-spirited Abdel Adrian/Candlekeep Sage lists.

Blue

Claustrophobia has come a long way. Now, this isn't quite Kenrith's Transformation, but the comparison to Bitter Chill isn't totally unflattering. Imprisoned in the Moon is probably stronger, but a lot of people (myself included) don't play that card in Artisan because it's only downshifted on Arena; there's no paper copy that's common or uncommon. In any case, Bitter Chill locks down a creature for two mana and has a decent chance of getting you a card back later in the game.

There might be a high enough density of adventure cards now to build a Vega, the Watcher or Lozhan, Dragons' Legacy adventure deck, using Chancellor of Tales and Lucky Clover to double up on your adventures.

Blue-green ramp decks tend to be very good at building an imposing board state, but can struggle with defending against evasive creatures and closing out the game. Galvanic Giant looks like it will help provide some interaction in Imoti and co.

A mono-blue Goblin Electromancer will go into pretty much any deck that plays Goblin Electromancer and into many decks that would play the electromancer but can't because they don't have red. I'll definitely be trying it out in my Rootha deck. There's also a Mono-Blue High Tide deck that I've been brewing (more theorycrafting than something I plan on building in paper) where this fits nicely.

Much like how Treasure Cruise is good in blue decks that put lots of cards into their graveyard, I think Rowdy Research will be good in blue decks that attack with a lot of creatures. That said, there are a lot more blue decks that do the former than there are that do the latter. If you've got Feywild Visitor in the command zone and are running Reconnaissance Mission and Coastal Piracy, Rowdy Research might be a good addition.

This card is also an instant, so you can capitalize on an opponent's big attack to discount it. I don't think that's something you can rely on to make the card good on its own, though. If I had to guess, I'd say that only 20% of games see a player attack with 5+ creatures at once at any point.

Splashy Spellcaster looks like a fun card. Not especially powerful, since your creatures can only have one role attached to them at a time, but being able to spread around +1/+1 and "Whenever this creature attacks, scry 1" among a couple of your creatures has some utility. Might be decent in Arwen Undomiel. I love the art.

Everything I said about Chancellor of Tales applies here. Keystone card for adventure decks.

Black

Yet another powerful piece for Neva, Stalked by Monsters. That deck will have a number of ways to recur enchantments an indefinite number of times, and Ashiok Reaper's draw effect is mandatory, so you might need to have a way to get it off the battlefield so you don't accidentally deck yourself. The deck will probably have sac outlets anyway so that it can recur Takklemaggot (shoutout to Mavis on the Artisan discord for that find!).

An obvious inclusion in the green-black food deck with Greta, Sweettooth Scourge. Getting a creature token whenever you sacrifice a food complements Witch's Oven and/or Cirith Ungol Patrol fantastically.

A mono-colored uncommon legendary? Weird that there's only one, but sure, why not? Old Flitterfang seems pretty good as a source of food tokens, again in the Greta deck.

Like Knight of Doves, we saw this card alongside Neva. It does all the stuff that Knight of Doves does, essentially, because I don't think the tokens either make are going to stick around long enough for their ability to fly/block to matter. A powerful common!

A wincon for Neva. Simple enough.

A downshift! Dark Tutelage probably deserves a spot in some Artisan decks, but I wouldn't declare it an instant staple or anything. It'll be best in decks with low curves and/or topdeck manipulation to minimize the life loss. Decks like Neva! How about that!?

And that's all the White, Blue, and Black cards! See Part 2 for Red, Green, Multicolor, and Artifacts.

[thecommandertable]

Wilds of Eldraine - in the 99 of Artisan Decks: Part 2 of 2

Find Part 1 here!

Red

This card screams 'Zada'-- that deck is very good at drawing lots of cards and making lots of creatures, and any card that can draw a bunch of cards while also generating mana has the potential to turn the dial up to 11. The only speedbump here is that the vast majority of creature tokens that Zada decks create only have 1 toughness, so we have to do something to protect them before we can start flicking coins. Kick in the Door and Blazing Crescendo give them some extra toughness, as well as the new cards Monstrous Rage and Witch's Mark. Otherworldly Outburst lets you upgrade your creatures when they die. And once we've got those cards, we might as well run Spawning Breath, too.

A Trumpet Blast with a dual role in aristocrats decks? That seems pretty good.

Hearth Elemental takes some maneuvering to get maximum value from it, but if you do, it's essentially a 3-mana 3/4 that draws you two cards; if you cast Stoke Genius and don't have any cards left in hand, you don't have to discard anything and you draw 2, then, if you have enough of the appropriate cards in your graveyard, you can cast the creature half for a single red mana.

If your red voltron deck can make good use of the adventure half of Two-Headed Hunter, Twice the Rage, adding the option of getting a 5/4 menace creature for 5 mana afterwards is nothing to scoff at. For example, I recently played against a Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder deck that this giant would probably feel at home in.

Unruly Catapult is the latest in a line of creatures that tap to deal 1 damage to each opponent and becomes untapped when you cast a certain type of spell. They are underwhelming on their lonesome, but can enable some very powerful things. In a Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and/or Breeches, Brazen Plunderer deck, if you change the Catapult from a Construct into a Pirate (with something like Amoeboid Changeling), you get three treasures and/or impulse draw from each of your opponents' libraries. You can also pair it with a Curiosity effect to draw three cards for every activation.

Green

There are a number of big green creatures that can help you ramp early in the game if you need them to, but they're all 6-mana or greater: Krosan Tusker, Shefet Monitor, Greater Tanuki, Beanstalk Giant, etc. Explore-type effects are generally less reliable than Rampant Growth-type effects, but Beanstalk Wurm's unique spot on the curve might get it into some decks. Having reach is another big point in its favor as green ramp decks often have a difficult time defending themselves against fliers.

When I gave my first impression of Greta, Sweettooth Scourge, I wrote that "I expect the deck to be functional, but not especially powerful unless we get some exceptional food payoffs at common/uncommon". Well, this is an exceptional food payoff at uncommon. This will be the card that food decks will want to draw the most; having Night of the Sweets' Revenge on the battlefield will give them access to a lot of additional mana and a win condition.

Just as green decks that care about +1/+1 counters tend to run Snakeskin Veil over Tamiyo's Safekeeping, I expect decks that care about auras or enchantments to run Royal Treatment.

A very functional Naturalize (sorcery speed, but that's ok) stapled to a 6-mana 6/7 with an evasion ability!? Stormkeld Vanguard looks excellent. I expect to be playing with and against this card a lot.

Most of the Artisan 'enchantress' decks out there are aura-centric as it is, so Tanglespan Lookout joins the ranks of Mesa Enchantress, Satyr Enchanter, Gnarlback Rhino, and Season of Growth; we're getting closer to the critical mass of enchantress effects needed for these decks to become truly degenerate. Note that Tanglespan Lookout's ability triggers upon etb of an aura and not on cast, which means it draws when you attach a role token to a creature or flicker an aura with something like Flicker of Fate.

Normally I'd advise caution about cards that trigger off of doing high-mv stuff, since the average deck only has 8-10 cards with 5 mv or greater. But Up the Beanstalk draws a card when it enters the battlefield draws a card when it enters the battlefield, so the floor here is super low. You only need to trigger it one time for it to be good, and obviously a ramp deck or a deck that is otherwise built to cast big spells should be able to trigger it more than once. An excellent card.

This isn't quite the marquee payoff for food decks that Night of the Sweets' Revenge is, but it's still good. The two separate instances of token creation synergizes well with Peregrin Took.

Multicolored

Callous Sell-Sword fits well into Juri for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, Fling effects are a crucial part of eliminating players once you've built up a gigantic Juri, so having that attached to a creature is helpful. Second, Callous Sell-Sword is another way to generate a large creature by sacrificing small creatures, which is good in a pinch if you've drawn an extra fling effect.

Likewise, Frolicking Familiar fills both roles needed in Balmor decks; it's a small, evasive creature that gets pumped by instants/sorceries in addition to being an instant. It's even a wizard, in case you're trying to optimize with Adeliz, the Cinder Wind!

Also, it's adorable.

Colorless

Collector's Vault looks like a serviceable little card selection/ramp piece. It might find a spot in decks that get extra value from treasure tokens like Juri and Thalisse.

To be honest, I don't know where Eriette's Tempting Apple fits into the format. It's entirely possible that no one will use it. I did want to note it, though, because it's the only colorless card with a Threaten effect (ignoring Turn Against). Blue has had Ray of Command, but now green, white, and black have access to the effect.

Whew. That was a ton of cards! This is my first time writing a set review like this, but I suspect that this is a higher density of Artisan-relevant cards than the average Standard-legal set. A lot of the draft archetypes here overlap with existing Artisan deck archetypes, or push themes that weren't quite there before into viability. There's plenty to be excited about!

[thecommandertable]

Artisan Commander: an Introductory Tour

Artisan Commander is my favorite way to play Magic these days. It's Commander using only commons and uncommons. That's it. Yes, your commander has to be common or uncommon in addition to being legendary. Yes, downshifts are included, just like they are in Pauper. No, there isn't a separate banlist (at the moment anyway, this could change in the future); everything banned in regular Commander is also banned in Artisan Commander, and all commons and uncommons that you can play in Commander you can play in Artisan Commander. This means that all Artisan Commander decks are also legal to play in 'regular' Commander. "Won't they get stomped on?" you might ask. "Rare and Mythic cards are so much stronger!"

Well, before you consider any conclusions foregone, here is a list of cards you may not have realized were common/uncommon:

Demonic Tutor

Reanimate

Demonic Consultation

Enlightened Tutor

Force of Will

Mana Drain

Mystical Tutor

Personal Tutor

Sylvan Tutor

Worldly Tutor

Land Tax

Mystic Remora

Power Artifact

Rhystic Study

Sylvan Library

Ancient Tomb

Cabal Coffers

City of Brass

Glacial Chasm

Maze of Ith

Those are some powerful cards! Not everyone who builds Artisan Commander decks uses these sorts of cards, but it's an option. For those who do, it's entirely possible to build an Artisan Commander deck that goes toe-to-toe with casual Commander decks. You might have trouble keeping up with highly optimized or cEDH decks, but that much is to be expected.

(And yeah, I know a lot of those cards are expensive. Just proxy them. It's ok.)

That said, I prefer to play my Artisan Commander decks against other Artisan Commander decks. The exclusion of rares and mythics means a couple things for the format:

There are fewer cards that run away with card advantage. Yes, there's still Rhystic Study, but not Consecrated Sphinx, Wheel of Fortune, Kindred Discovery, Necropotence, etc. Generally speaking, you need to be more conscientious about card economy when you play Artisan than regular Commander; it's a lot easier to find yourself with no cards in hand later in the game.

Most ramp cards are still legal, but the payoffs at the top of the curve are less powerful. You'll see ramp decks playing cards like Pelakka Wurm and Pathrazer of Ulamog instead of Craterhoof and Void Winnower. Green decks are still good, but they don't pubstomp the way they can at casual Commander tables.

Less multicolor. Unfortunately there aren't yet any 4 or 5-color uncommon legendary creatures, so unless you "rule 0" in a Fusion Elemental or something, there's no way to play more than 3 colors in Artisan. (New Capenna brought us a cycle of 3-color legends, all "shards"; and the recent announcement of a return to Tarkir in 2025 has us crossing our fingers for a wedge-colored cycle.) For the most part, Artisan decks are mono-colored or dual-colored.

Fewer board wipes. They exist for sure, but the majority of them deal 2-4 damage to each creature or give each creature -2/-2 until end of turn, so creatures with 5+ toughness tend to stick around for a while. (Though with the recent downshift of both Extinguish all Hope and Kirtar's Wrath, this might change) Generally speaking though, you can expect less swingy, more attrition-based games than regular Commander.

Just like in regular Commander, there's a spectrum of power levels amongst Artisan decks. Some folks jump into the format with their favorite uncommon legend and a collection of cards they've accumulated from drafts and their lgs's common/uncommon bulk boxes, while others go straight to building cutthroat decks packed full of tutors, combos, and cheap interaction. I'm going to go over some decks archetypes that have shown to be popular and easy to enter into the format with. Keep in mind that this is only a sample of what you can build-- there are tons of other strategies and commanders you can build around-- some of which no one's even explored yet!

Red-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

It's a running joke on the Artisan Commander discord server that each set that comes out these days gives Juri new toys. It's funny because it's true! Red-Black sac is an evergreen archetype, and the card pool for it is super deep. Other commanders you could use are Lagomos, Hand of Hatred, Judith, the Scourge Diva, or Gut, True Soul Zealot + Agent of the Iron Throne. It's exactly what you'd expect: lots of cheap artifacts and creatures that give you value when you sacrifice them, sac outlets, and aristocrat cards like Zulaport Cutthroat to drain opponents out, or in the case of Juri, some Fling effects to lob 20+ damage at people.

Blue-Green Ramp

Tatyova is a powerful card, but Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty has also been popular, as have Gilanra, Caller of Wildwood + Brinelin, the Moon Kraken, and Gretchen Titchwillow. Again, this strategy is what you'd expect from the color pair. Ramp, ramp, and ramp some more, draw a bunch of cards, and play some ginormous creatures.

Red-White Equipment

You may be noticing a very high correlation between these decks and the draft archetypes in Commander Masters. I don't think it's a coincidence; these are the things that these color pairs do best with their commons and uncommons, so it makes sense that they'd be supported in a draftable reprint set. Anyway, this archetype has a lot of possible commanders aside from Bruenor: Koll, the Forgemaster; Akiri, Fearless Voyager; and Reyav, Master Smith. My Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist + Alena, Kessig Trapper deck is one of my favorite decks. Watch out for Colossus Hammer and Loxodon Warhammer!

Green-White +1/+1 counters

Hamza is a house. Play some creatures that put +1/+1 counters on themselves or others, then Hamza comes down for cheap to discount all of your subsequent creatures. I haven't seen any other Artisan deck put so much raw power onto the battlefield so quickly. It also gets access to some good +1/+1 counter-centric card draw in Armorcraft Judge, Inspiring Call, Deepwood Denizen and Towashi Guide-Bot, so it can hold reinforcements in hand in case there's a board wipe.

Blue-White Blink

Abdel Adrian is pretty busted. He goes infinite with a bunch of different stuff and as you work towards setting up one of those combos, provides a relentless stream of 1/1s to defend yourself with-- or even to attack with, if you accumulate enough. For an even more combo-oriented build, you could swap out the blue Candlekeep Sage background with the black Agent of the Iron Throne, then loop Adrien with Animate Dead, Necromancy, or Dance of the Dead. If you want something less combo-oriented, Oji, the Exquisite Blade does a good job.

Blue-Black Reanimator

Vohar provides a cheap and reliable way to discard creatures you want to reanimate. Another good option is Taigam, Sidisi's Hand. As far as reanimation spells go, we have the aforementioned Animate Dead, Necromancy and Dance of the Dead as well as Reanimate, Victimize, Exhume, Diabolic Servitude, etc. Add Demons, Krakens, and/or Eldrazi to taste.

Red-Blue Spells Aggro

This deck plays cheap creatures with evasion, prowess or get otherwise buffed by instants/sorceries (such as Electrostatic Infantry and Umara Mystic), spells that create creature tokens (Rally at the Hornburg, Goblin Wizardry), and a lot of cantripping spells to unload a ton of damage onto its opponents.

I could go on, but I think that's enough for now. I'll share more Artisan decklists in the future- stuff that's more niche to particular commanders that myself or others in the Artisan Commander Discord have built. If you're interested in trying the format out, I highly recommend joining the server - here's a link. Among other things, we talk about cards new and old, decks that we're brewing, and organize games over Spelltable.