Life can get pretty stressful. Especially in our modern world, every day seems to bring new anxieties and dramatic changes. It can be hard to find an outlet for stress, but I have one that always seems to work for me: I build Commander decks for Magic: the Gathering.
This habit started almost without me noticing, and it has now become one of my go-to ways to relax in times of crisis. Deck building is a creative activity that offers a productive way to release some pent-up energy. Whether I’m doing a quick search online, or doing a longer deep dive, this is a fun way to release some stress.
Show and Tell
I’d like to share a few of the decks I’ve built when I was feeling stressed. Most of these aren’t done. They typically have too many cards or too few, and most of them have a chunk of lands set as a placeholder.
Most of these decks will likely never get finished. Still, they have served their purpose. I built them during a time of stress and they helped me to decompress and move on. Without further ado, here are three of my favorite creations I’ve built when I was stressed and needed to relax.
Class is in Session
Not every deck idea has to be super serious, and this one certainly isn’t. While noodling around trying to make an enchantment deck work, I came across “Classes.” Classes are enchantments originally meant to simulate Dungeons and Dragons classes, then used to parody learning a profession in Bloomburrow. This gave me an idea: what if I made a teacher deck?
The plan was simple: build a classroom by playing a bunch of class cards alongside some creatures named “Professor” or “Mentor.” Soon, this idea expanded as I came across more card mechanics that blended perfectly with this theme. Lessons and the Learn mechanic from Strixhaven were natural inclusions. One of my favorite mythic spells is also a Lesson, which made this deck even more enticing. Later, I also found the “training” and “mentor” abilities to be great fits for the theme.
The biggest trouble came with choosing a commander. Every Commander I found that was a mentor, teacher, professor, or dean, didn’t offer enough colors to truly let my deck flourish. That’s when I found “Urza, Academy Headmaster.”
Urza is a silver-bordered card, which means it’s a joke card released in special sets by and normally not legal in Commander. However, Commander is a casual format. It’s entirely possible your playgroup might be totally fine with you running this commander to fit the theme of the deck. Who better to lead my classroom, teach useful lessons, and direct an army of mentors than the Headmaster himself?
I haven’t finished building this “teacher” deck. As I kept finding more mechanics that were flavor wins with the theme of the deck, I got overwhelmed. So I stopped! The great thing about building decks to combat stress is that you don’t have to finish them. One day, I may put the finishing touches on this deck, but for now, this deck saved me from spiraling. Thanks, Urza!
Friends We Made Along the Way
Like many Magic: the Gathering players, I love Legendary Creatures. Inevitably, this led me to wonder how I could play the most legendary creatures. This was the genesis that led to my phone a friend deck, a deck that plays the most legendaries, by playing lots of dual legendaries.
There are a surprising number of cards that capture the essence of two creatures fighting together. Some cards depict both creatures at the same time, others use the partner mechanic to find one-half of the pair after playing the first, and others still summon legendary tokens of their friends. It helps that most of these cards can be quite powerful, especially if they depict important characters.
There was a lot of potential in this deck. In fact, there was too much potential. There ended up being so many different ways to represent pairs of creatures that there was a lot to work with. I haven’t finished this build. There were a lot of creatures, and as much as I loved them, I just didn’t have the focus or the mental space to really drill down and figure out a solution. That’s perfectly fine! Deck building is a fun way to chase weird ideas with low pressure to finish them or make a polished end product.
Every so often, I may return to this deck when I find new legendary pairs. However, I can do that as much or as little as I want. In the meantime, this is a fun diversion I can return to whenever I need something else to focus on.
Countdown to Doom
This last deck skirts the line between a stress deck and a failed deck. It is not uncommon for me to return to this deck, and I’ve done so often enough that I’m close to admitting I can’t make it work. Nevertheless, this deck, which is all about accruing different types of counters on the player, has remained a staple deck to help stave off stress.
The idea for this deck started simple. I wanted to see if I could build a deck that cared about experience counters. Unlike most counters, experience counters are placed on you, the player, making it hard to interact with them and easy to stockpile them. I wanted to know if it was possible to play all of them. I discovered that not only is it possible, but many of them work quite well together.
Building this deck led me to Azlask, the Swelling Scourge, a five-color commander who cares about colorless creatures dying. Before long, I realized that quite a few experience cards care about creatures dying, and several of them work well with Azlask’s plan to sacrifice small colorless creatures. After a while, however, this deck ran away from me.
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This deck ended up wandering pretty far from my original goal since it quickly became an Eldrazi deck. Wanting to avoid this, I tried to see if I could transition this deck into being a deck that cared about many different types of counters on players. In the end, the new version of this deck has stalled out. In the meantime though, it introduced me to a lot of fun cards and kept me occupied during times I would have otherwise spiraled.
Stress Tested
Deck building is a fun and creative way that I’ve used to occupy my mind during rough times. I’ve built some weird ideas that have come out of nowhere and been able to set them aside without much drawback. If you’re looking for a creative and easy activity when you’re feeling overwhelmed, this might be your next best fix.
