Lessons from the Godfather: A Dive into Sheldon's Six Signature Decks and the Lessons They Can Teach Us.

    Sheldon Menery was known as the Godfather of EDH. Not only did Sheldon, along side of the rules committee, shape the commander format to be what it is today.  He also kept watch over it by creating a philosophy statement, maintaining a ban list, and making the appropriate rules updates to the format such as the invention of sending your commander back to the command zone and allowing your commander to have a dies trigger before going back to the command zone. Today, in his honor, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at all six of Sheldon’s Signature commander decks.


    Before we jump into the decks, there’s a couple of things I feel I should address. Number one, the breakdowns are not going to be looking for improvement for the decks nor judging the decision making process in building them. We are simply looking at the decks, focusing on what they are trying to do, and providing a little statistical breakdown, ultimately determining if there are any lessons we can learn from it. Number two, I have played against Sheldon at conventions before and he requested to play against decks that are looking to win in the double digit turns.  As we look at these decks, we should remember that he enjoyed the slower games that took time to develop board state.

    The first deck we will be looking at is “Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers” commanded by Phelddagrif. The premise of the deck is trying to build up a large hand and play creatures like Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, who has power equal to the amount of cards in hand. As you might expect, the deck is running an astonishing 22 spells that draw cards. There are 11 ramp spells, 5 spot removal, 3 board wipes, and 0 tutors. In addition, the deck runs 38 lands, 16 of which are basics. There are 7 of these Maro Sorcerers in the deck, with notable tech like momentous fall, which allows the player to sac one of these massive creatures to double their hand size and gain life. Azorius Chancery makes an appearance in the deck as a way to add a land drop onto the field while keeping the hand size the same. A solid finisher in the deck arrives in the form of Akroma’s Memorial providing these big creatures flying, trample, haste, and protection from black and red. The most intimidating of that being haste as you might see a 20/20 flying trampler attacking you that you weren’t ready for.

    The next deck we are looking at was the lowest on both ramp and card draw from among the signature decks.  It is “Halloween With Karador” with Karador, Ghost Chieftain as the commander. The deck has 13 cards that are used as spot removal with the majority of them coming off of creatures that have enter the battlefield effects which would allow you to use that creature again and again. As I stated, the ramp comes in with 8 and card draw with 7, but these were mostly with creatures like Solemn Simulacrum that could potentially be used multiple times. This deck contains the most board wipes with 6, which makes sense in a graveyard matters deck like this. The deck also runs 2 tutors in Birthing Pod and Sidisi, Undead Vizier. The deck has the lowest amount of lands of all the decks with 36 in total (18 Basic Lands), which is interesting considering the lower rates of card draw and ramp. The deck seems to want to end games by keeping the board clean and playing cards like Avenger of Zendikar and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

    The third deck on the list is one of the more well known decks with “You Did This To Yourself” commanded by Ruhan of the Fomori. Of all six decks that Sheldon considered his signature decks, this one was by far the most unique. The deck runs the most ramp out of all the signature decks with 14. There is 11 card draw, 4 spot removal, 5 board wipes, and 37 lands with 20 of them being basic. The deck is extremely reactionary, relishing in cards like Parallectric Feedback and Deflecting Palm sending the opponent's efforts right back at them which explains the need for the extra ramp. The deck does run some clone effects to boot as well. As far as a clear cut win condition, the deck really doesn’t have one. It really relies on your opponents to attempt to resolve massive spells or swing for lethal damage, thus the name “You did this to yourself.”

    Next is Kresh, the Bloodbraided “Kresh Into the Red Zone” with a grindy Jund power matters type of build. For those that have never had the experience to come across a Kresh, the Bloodbraided deck in the wild, Kresh is a commander that gets bigger as other creatures die at the tune of whatever their power is. The deck then utilizes that power through combat and sacrificing those creatures for damage with a fling effect, or through value like card draw/life gain. The deck runs a modest 9 ramp spells, 12 draw, 8 spot removal, 5 board wipes, and 37 lands with 15 of them being basic lands. The deck can win with a fling effect, combat damage, or my personal favorite, Chandra's Ignition. 

    "Dreaming of Intet"with the appropriately named Intet, the Dreamer, as the commander is, in my opinion, the closest thing Sheldon had to a combo deck in his signature six. Boasting the highest number of cards with removal at 15, this deck is looking to overwhelm the board with powerful spells and creatures casted for only three total mana from Intet’s ability off of the top of the library. With 4 different cards that allowed him to manipulate the top of the library, this deck was looking to cast eldrazis on the cheap early and often. Rashmi, Eternities Crafter was also in the deck to serve as a solid lieutenant/ backup commander. And if that isn’t working well enough, the deck also has 8 clone/copy effects to get even more value off of the best spells. Intet has 12 ramp, 10 draw spells, 4 board wipes, and 38 lands (18 are basics). These massive spells seem to serve as a sufficient enough of a win condition for the deck. 

    And the last deck in the signature six is “Myths and Legends of Korvold” starring everyone’s favorite Jund dragon of doom, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. This deck is very interesting as it contains by far the most tutors of any of Sheldon’s decks with 4, but also only runs 2 removal spells and not a single board wipe. This deck simply wants to get to value town before you do without the use of treasure tokens and with only one spell in the entire deck making treasure (Treasure Map), compared to the average Korvold deck that wants to make as many as possible. Most of the token makers/sacrifice outlets are legendary where the tutors come into play to get the value engine online. As you might expect with a commander that likely gets targeted a TON, there are 13 ramp spells and an average 10 draw spells. The deck also has the most land of any of his decks with 39 (16 are basic lands). The deck seems to want to win by grinding out the game and casting something like Heroes' Podium as a pump spell. 


    So what can we learn from the Godfather of EDH’s decks? As I looked through each of these signature six, I came up with four lessons that I would like to share.


1) Blaze your own path- When I originally decided to write the article and dive into the research, I wanted to find an average deck for each commander with a similar archetype and see how the card selection broke down. I quickly realized that plan was not going to work due to the unique nature of his decks. Phelddagrif utilizing the Maro-Sorcerer creatures, Ruhan being a 100% reactive deck instead of proactive aggro style that we are accustomed to seeing, these were extremely creative designs and you really wouldn’t be able to see what is coming when you sit down at the table. In other words, Sheldon's deck building ideas were not dictated by his commanders. 


2) Don’t get cute with the lands- All of these decks had a number between 36 and 39 lands with 15+ of them being basics. In the world of EDH today where we seem to want to cut down as many lands as possible, Sheldon wanted to ensure that he was able to get his land drops to play his game plan.


3) Sizzle over Steak- Shoutout to The Command Sphere’s podcast (newly Pie Break coming this fall) for this analogy. The premise is that some players are steak players that are more interested in the fundamentals of commander while sizzle players are looking for the wild plays that make for good stories later. Sheldon’s decks definitely favored the latter, which I am sure he found led to more memorable games. His decks didn't run a lot of counter spells. He would normally let people "do the thing," and then if he needed to redirect or remove something, his deck was prepared to do so. 


4) Enjoy the Ride- When I sit down to look at a deck list, the first thing I am looking for is how is the deck wanting to win or close out? Am I gonna get run over by a craterhoof behemoth? Will a second sun approach to enlighten my defeat? Will I be stabbed in the face by the almighty brushwagg with 14,000 power? These decks surely had cards that would lead to winning positions, but nothing that you could call an “I win” card. I think that was the point. It was never about winning for Sheldon. He simply wanted to play some spells and make some interesting games happen and he could win, great. Another way to put it, it’s not about the destination,  but rather the journey.

Sheldon, if somehow you are reading this, thank you for bringing this game to life and taking care of it for as long as you did. Your legacy will live on in all of us.

Thank you for reading.

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