Published Apr 22, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT

'How do you prove that you exist? Maybe we don't exist...'

I gutted Strixhaven's Prismari Commander deck to build my Vivi Ornitier masterpiece

Image: Wizards of the Coast / Square Enix

I used to hate blue — still do, in fact.

When I first started playing Magic: The Gathering in the early 2000s , I preferred grindy, creature-focused green to blue’s manipulative playstyle. My default was green or green-white, sometimes dabbling in green-black to reanimate creatures from my graveyard or green-red when I was feeling amped.

Yet here we are, and my latest Commander deck is a spell-slinging blue-red.

One of my favorite ways to play Magic these days is to treat a preconstructed Commander deck like a LEGO set I have no intention of building correctly. I rip it open and promptly strip the whole thing down for spare parts.…