Making Deck Building Super Easy
- Keir Timm
- Jun 2
- 17 min read
8 by 8 EDH - Make deck building easy again
The 8 by 8 EDH System is a strategy first approach to EDH deck building that aims to build fun and reliable decks. The system is founded upon a few simple principles that help guide strategy decisions, making deck design and building much quicker and easier.
Complexity is our brains worst enemy (apart from flying rocks). What the 8 by 8 EDH System shows you how to do, is reduce some of this complexity so you can focus on synergy and think more about gaining value with good subthemes. Sometimes, however, its useful to understand the why and not just the how so that you know with greater certainty that the process you following is generating value.
By the end of this article, at the very least I hope to inspire you with a different way of looking at deck building that ties in closer with our human limitations and shows that its not as hard as you think. Some things you learn here today can definitely apply to other areas in your life, and help you make more time for your favorite hobby.
Some additional areas that can help like better card organization or testing methods I will cover in greater detail in some upcoming articles, so keep an eye out for these!
What to Expect
This guide focuses primarily on human psychology and what we can do to better manage the energy we put into solving complex problems (and how the 8 by 8 EDH System helps you do this).
What this guide won't do is discuss strategies, manabases or card mechanics.
For information on how the 8 by 8 EDH can help you with these topics check out the following articles as well:
TLDR
deck building is mainly difficult because it is complex and requires you to make alot of decisions
to make this decision making easier we can
follow a system that uses patterns to simplify the process
convert system 2 knowledge into system 1 instinctive recognition through practice or repetition (dual process theory)
improve building efficiency through better organisation
overcome the out of sight out of mind problem
favorite cards syndrome
evaluating cards using the following
vanilla test
floor and ceiling test
4 quadrants (developing, parity, winning, losing)
Decisions decisions
And decisions about making decisions, every corporations favorite past time. But have you ever considered just how many decisions a single person can make in a day? Johnny Harris (love him or hate him) made a very interesting video on "Why you're so tired" which discusses how overloading yourself with decision making is what burns you out every day.
But we can simply consume energy to compensate right? Weeell yes and no. Realistically its not healthy to be injecting caffeine directly into your superior vena cava or snorting white sugar directly into your thought space (please don't do either of these things, seriously!) just to keep your brain going during a marathon deck building session. A better, healthier approach is to find ways to make the process easier and more efficient (and make less decisions).
Before we get into the how, we should first consider "Why are we like this?" and "What decisions don't need to be made?". This will help us focus on the most important topics during the "how" parts of the article
Why are we like this?
Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, but I did attend a session where one discussed the two systems afterwhich I had the "ah-ha!" moment that lead to this article (dual-process theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory). Now I am an expert... hahaha!
In this branch of psychology they talk about how humans make decisions using two systems:
System 1 is the instant recognition system. Kind of like reflexes. You are walking along the road and see a snake, and immediately you know to be careful and avoid it. Or someone says Hello to you, and you immediately know they are greeting you (except in Germany where they may actually be telling you that you just did something stupid). The key here is that you didn't need to think about how to act, you just react instinctively.
System 2 is the processing system. You walk into a room and forget why you went there. Now you need a moment to try to remember what you are doing. In this case it wasn't instinctive, and takes more effort.
We can see these systems at work when you are learning something new, like a new language. Often people spend alot of time learning the words and the grammar... But find them unable to easily speak back in the language they are learning. Why is this? Simply because they did not train their mind to be instinctive (system 1) with responses, so they need a moment to remember and translate (system 2) words from and to, but because its a conversation, and they want to respond quickly, panic sets in and they immediately give up and respond in their more comfortable language.
We all are human (I assume) so this applies to all of our minds. So how does this apply to deck building?
If you have to use system 2 with all your decision making, you are using the maximum amount of energy to build the deck. It will also take the maximum amount of time, because you aren't making reflex decisions. This will make you tired, you will burn through the initial motivation you had quite quickly and then give up and resort to net decking or asking a friend for help.
So, how do you get that system 2 decision making into system 1 intuitive decision making? Well, thats simply practice. Watching youtube videos regularly about the specific cards you are interested in. I personally enjoy watching draft videos, from creators like Paul Cheon or LegenVd etc. These repetitive (and maybe boring) videos show you the same cards over and over, which helps your brain recognize the cards from that set more easily (system 1). This means while building you will already know what the card does (roughly) and be able to quickly determine if it meets your criteria or not.
What decisions don't need to be made?
Take a moment to write down the kinds of decisions you think you would need to make while building a commander deck.
What you will notice while trying to do this, is that it gets harder and harder to think of more examples to write down. If you were to actually start building a deck now, and pay attention to any moment where you need to make a choice, write it down, now suddenly it gets easier right? Plus you are more certain that its a valid question, because its being asked during the process of deck building.
This is what I refer to as the "out of sight out of mind problem". There are only so many things we can think of or remember at any moment before the complexity of remembering what you already thought of before begins to overwhelm you. The solution here is thus to write down things, and to go through the actual process to double check against what you wrote down. The 8 by 8 EDH System always encourages you to do this, as it helps keep your focus during the build, but also helps you test assumptions that you wrote down in your initial considerations.
Here is the list I came up with (doing my best to remember):
Which commander?
What cards will synergize with this commander?
What mechanics will synergize with this commander?
What power level or bracket should I aim for?
How many lands?
What win-cons should I go for?
How much removal or interaction?
How much card draw or advantage?
How many board wipes?
How many recovery?
Should I add combos?
Should I add tutors?
How much ramp should I add?
What do I cut?
How good is this card?
Now lets put these through some evaluation and try work out how much complexity each question deals with vs how much energy is required. We can also group any that happen to overlap (as some are solved by the same action/process as others and can be grouped) and also try see if theres an easier way to come up with answers.
Which commander?
Low to medium complexity, should only require minimum energy.
You see a cool commander, and think for whatever reason you want to build it. Not complex, only energy required is to order the card or pull it out a booster pack and put it aside.
OR
Your POD is a problem, you want to be the answer, what commander will defeat these fools!? This is more complex because you want to do research first, and need to take time to write down the nasty things they keep doing to you and what you want to do in response (like use more counterspells, or play Braids now that its unbanned). Remember that this is part of the fun, take your time, pace yourself and find a good solution that makes you happy and them all fall into the depths of despair.
To help reduce complexity here and to make things a bit easier, you can browse through higher power decks on websites like Moxfield or Archidekt, watch youtube some videos and see if anything makes you excited. I'm sure there are some really good websites you already know of, so definitely come let me know in the IntoThe99 discord chat!
What cards/mechanics synergize?
High complexity, maximum energy.
I group (mechanics and cards) these as they are basically asking the same question that has the same answer.
You won't know what all the cards are, and the only way to gain this kind of knowledge is typically through watching videos and playing alot. I find drafting sets to be really helpful in teaching me mechanics and synergies, but this takes time. Be patient.
Scryfall can be used to help find cards that match what your commanders freak, but again, this takes time to learn scryfall query syntax and to learn how to word the search terms. A cheat code for this is to use EDHREC or watch videos specifically about the commander. Heck you can just net deck at this point (and thats okay!).
What power level or bracket should I aim for? What win-cons should I go for? Should I add combos?
Should be low complexity, minimal energy. There's no need to overthink this. Websites like Moxfield and Archidekt will tell you which cards are game changers and what your bracket is so this is easier to determine.
I grouped these three because they really want to know the same thing: how powerful... and this depends entirely on you and what you like to do.
To manage the initial decision making, I advise to not worry about these questions immediately unless you already have the cards for the combo set aside and are now ready to build around them. Its better to leave these decisions to after you already have a synergistic deck and keep aside 4-8 spots in the deck for the combo or win conditions. Many times, during building, you will find the win con that makes you most excited so there is no reason to waste too much energy upfront. Its also easy enough nowadays to ask AI to give you some examples of competitive strategies or combos. Heck, drop the whole list in and ask for advice. The AI gods will hopefully give you a good response.
NOTE: Always inform your pod or table beforehand that you are playing competitive or if you have any repeating combo's (even if they are not infinite and get limited by life total or some other factor). Its also worth pointing out that there is a distinction to be made between instant win vs infinite combos. Not all infinite combo's will win you the game on the spot, but some cards will instantly win you the game. Both are considered high power level or competitive, even the janky combos which is why you should always bring them up. Just be honest, you don't be that dude who lies all the time (ignorance is also not an excuse).
Consider also checking out my article on why power levels are meaningless over here: https://www.intothe99.com/post/you-are-wrong-why-power-levels-are-a-meaningless-metric
You should avoid adding too many different combos or instant win conditions to a deck. I typically propose a 4 card strategy slot for these, maximum 8 otherwise the deck becomes over saturated with a diversity of possible outs leading to an overwhelming number of choices, leading to mistakes and brain freeze (combo's and instant wins are the ice-cream of your deck, too much is definitely a problem). Focus on quality over quantity, and add 4 tutors (chocolate/whatever you like sauce on top of the icecream) to smooth out the probabilities.
With the new bracket system, the concept of Game Changers was introduced to define cards that completely tilt the game. I think that using these as a measure of power level certainly helps, some cards are just unreasonable and only belong in higher power builds. This is at odds with the 8 by 8 EDH systems MVS of 4, though, but I still stand by that total. 4 or less is usually okay in medium power level builds, none is best for bracket 2, more than 4 is definitely competitive so build accordingly. It's not okay to build a deck that you claim is janky but contains 10+ game changers, even if it has no win-cons or infinite combos (use common sense please).
How much <enter type/strategy>?
Should be low complexity, minimal energy. But many builders still struggle with this.
If you have seen any of the 8 by 8 EDH recipe's I've drawn up, you will notice that I limit myself to a maximum of 8 strategies, and many times they are around 4 / 8 / 12 cards.
I don't have to decide whether 10 or 5 or 2... or 30... because these are decisions I made before hand already. This is kinda the point of the 8 by 8 EDH system, it has already given be a few possible templates, and all I need to do is write in 3/4 strategy names. This gives me a baseline to aim for very quickly.
For example:
Primary Stratgies (most important for the deck to function, 40 cards)
12 draw
12 ramp
12 removal
4 wraths
Secondary Strategies (extra synergy with commander, 24 cards)
8 whatever
8 makes
4 the most
4 sense
As you can see above, I am only making 4 decisions at most. For secondary strategies you can have 12,12 or 12,8,4 or 12,4,4,4 or 8,8,8 or 8,8,4,4. There are only a limited number of possibilities once you have chosen to abstract the totals this way.
To understand the reasons why 4 is my multiple see this article:
To understand the recipe better see this article:
Should I add tutors?
Low complexity, minimal energy, but will increase the difficulty of playing the deck.
As previously mentioned, tutors are the secret sauce you put on the ice-cream (infinite combo's/instant win conditions) of your competitive deck. Keep this total low to avoid analysis paralysis. Focus on quality over quantity, you don't need to try doing all the things in a deck. Its better to build multiple decks rather than attempting (and failing) to cram all into one. I have been through this many times and thats why I am certain about what will work and what doesn't.
What do I cut? How good is this card?
High complexity, maximum effort... but it shouldn't be.
The 8 by 8 EDH System proposes that you gather a particular number of cards to fill the strategy, and this total you decide before searching for any cards. This helps you decide ahead of time what your cut-off is. Already saving you some effort!
The next challenge is choosing the right cards, and for this you need to consider their strength relative to the commander and any subthemes you have chosen and written down in your initial considerations (subthemes are cross strategy decisions like, spells that make food, or elf kindred etc.). Later in this article I talk a bit about how to evaluate individual cards, and what techniques can be used to help make a decision. But, that takes time, so whats the quicker easier way?
Just choose some and try them out. (aim for a even distribution of cheaper, mid-range and some more expensive bigger impact spells)
Mock battles can help you with this kind of evaluation (verse two decks against each other to test out specific cards). If they work, then you are good to go, if they feel off or wrong then swap them out. There is nothing wrong with keeping the cards on hand that you may want to try in future with the deck. Inevitably a card or two are gonna not feel good after a few games and you will need to change them. Its unlikely you will get all your decisions made perfectly during your initial build because you don't know how things will work out at the table. Some cards will work better in your LGS meta, or with your play group and this takes a few games to determine.
One question I got from people alot is how to choose when a card does multiple things like a charm, and the answer is bascially the same. Put it into one of its possible strategies and see how it works out. If you feel like its not good fulfilling that role, move it to a different strategy instead (if you still want to keep it) and replace something else instead. Theres no harm in trying things out, so don't be afraid to. Practice making quicker decisions here, and your deck building will get much easier and more fun, plus you will have gained knowledge about a card and where and why it doesn't work so well.
Being Organised Definitely Helps
There are a number of ways that you can use various kinds of organization to help you reduce barriers to entry when it comes to deck building.
Some kinds of organization are:
Start each build by analyzing the commander and writing down your initial ideas, remember the out of sight out of mind problem? Your mind can only keep track of so many different variables at a time, before you find yourself grinding your gears to try remember something... so help yourself out and write it down. I always write up a considerations section for all my decks, which helps me focus on what is important or what I want to do.
Write down the strategy recipe which will contain decisions on how many of each strategy you are aiming for, making it much easier to balance the deck; if you really want to super charge this, start each build with the golden recipe (link here), and adapt it once you develop better ideas on what you think the deck wants to do
Strategy boxes, where you keep some cards aside exclusively for deck building organized by their strategy (ramp, draw, removal, token generators etc.) this cuts down on search time, and can give you some baseline cards to start your builds with that can be improved upon later; seriously this cuts build times down significantly so I highly recommend it!
If theres something you think I have missed, come tell me in the discord!
I am still in the process of writing an article about being organised so be sure to keep an eye out for it, I will get it done eventually!
Effective card evaluation
The 8 by 8 EDH System tries to avoid discussing specific cards, instead it tries to generalize strategies so its not the best place to add principles for card evaluation, but we can't deny that many a player has spent hours pondering which card is better... this is unavoidable, but also very well discussed in the community.
So lucky me, I don't need to write much about this thanks to all the other content creators doing all the heavy lifting so I will give you some links below and summarize:
NicolaiBolas - How to Evaluate Cards in Final Fantasy Draft https://youtu.be/aVNoS0K33D8?si=Led0dEWBQzjdgOcK
Marshall Sutcliffe - Quadrant Theory https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/quadrant-theory-2014-08-20
Also, if you have any others that you love, come join the patreon and discord and let me know in the chat (its free!) and I can update this list later.
Here are my favorites which I find most helpful:
Vanilla Test: remove the bells and whistles and ask, for this mana cost, is it better or worse than another card?
Floor and Ceiling: how good is the card in its worst case scenario vs its best case scenario.
4 Quadrant test (during each phase of a game, how useful or playable is this card?)
Once you have evaluated a card, then its likely uploaded in your mind, so you shouldn't need to do this every time for every card. Plus, with using the 8 by 8 EDH System, you will be encouraged to find cards that are similar, so they can be grouped into strategies, which should make this easier also as they all roughly fulfil the same role. (Cultivate and Kodama's reach, same card, different names, easy peasy).
But how do these help?
Vanilla Test
This helps you gauge roughly how efficient a card is, but its pitfall is that some cards (like planeswalkers) cannot be effectively measured this way so we need to be more pragmatic with this approach. The amount of abilities matter, as well as the quality of the ability.
What makes this even easier, is to set an effective baseline. Find a card which you know is good (usually by its popularity) that is roughly in the same strategy, and do a side by side check, mana value vs impact OR versatility (I wrote an article about this check it out here).
Floor and Ceiling
Worst case, card is just its vanilla version, and you never get to use its abilities or triggers.
Best case, you get all the triggers and activations multiple times. Ignore this case, because thats what we call "living the dream", and not all of us invested in Crypto (I don't advise doing this, please be reasonable). Think planeswalker ultimates, how many times have you ever ultimated?
More pragmatically, assume atleast one activation when determining value. The more expensive (manawise or hoops to jump through), the lower the chance you get to have fun. This is simply how it is.
Four Quadrants
Think about the card in the different phases of a game:
- Opening (hand and first turn) or Developing (first couple turns): you should be ramping
- Parity (or stalling): you should be drawing cards so you get ahead
- Winning: things are looking good, your opponent is wounded (living the dream! too the mooooon!)
- Losing: You need an answer! Heart of the cards baby! (you should have added more interaction...)
But what is the point? Inevitably you will need a card for each of these stages, and Magic the Gathering is random, so its not likely you will always have the right cards at the right moment. Well that is where the 8 by 8 EDH System tries to help by balancing probabilities, and as part of this you balance your curve as well which means you have a reasonable probability of having cards that can be effective in each of these phases.
For example, if all your ramp cards just get you 1 land, in all but development/opening (75% of the game), they are not great. Thus, you would want some cheaper, lower impact ramp and some more expensive, improved ramp and just a few that are elite ramp that maybe do something extra (like kicker put counters on all your creatures, or draw a card). Versatility and extra value comes at a cost. Balance matters.
What this means is, you don't just need to put cards that work well in ONLY ONE of the quadrants, they can overlap.
Learn to let go of your Favorite Cards
If you have just one or two commander decks, and your plan isn't to build endless amounts then you very likely will run into the issue of cramming favorite (or fashionable) cards into just those few decks. The consequence of doing this is either goodstuff monotonous builds or really janky decks that underperform due to lack of synergy. So what do you do?
Well, this is entirely up to you and how willing you are to let go of your favorite cards in favor of cards that synergize better. Theres really no harm in trying out cards that you are unfamiliar with and mock battling to test them (verse two or more of your decks against each other to see how a potential game goes). This kind of testing has its limits though, but the key take away is usually, did you get to try the card out? Or did it get stuck in your hand and you felt like it wouldn't have any impact. If randomness means you just don't get the card, simulate having it in each of the 4 quadrants by keeping the card aside and introducing it instead of a draw during the test (or make sure its in your opening hand).
Worst case, the card is trash, and you can substitute the goodstuff old faithful card you're keeping in the sideboard (I like to keep a few cards on hand in my deck boxes just in case). And if you end up feeling super inspired, well, theres always building a new deck that will make better use of that card.
Final Remarks
The main goal of this guide was to explain to you some of the reasons why deck building is hard. We went over how having to make lots of decisions using System 2 is what wears you down, and what steps you can take to reduce how many decisions you need to make, as well as what resources are available to help you build easier.
We also covered how using the 8 by 8 EDH System can save you energy through it making several of the decisions on your behalf as well as how it encourages you to write down your strategy considerations and recipe upfront which saves you from the "Out of sight, out of mind problem".
I really hope this helps you find ways to build decks more efficiently and remember to stop by in the IntoThe99 Discord. Also don't forget to subscribe to the free patreon over here: https://www.patreon.com/intothe99
You may now be wondering a bit more about other ways the 8 by 8 EDH System can help you build better decks, and I hope to explain more in some upcoming guides, so make sure you subscribe/follow @intothe99podcast on YouTube and Instagram to keep up-to-date!
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