The newest Magic: The Gathering draft set, Commander Masters, is a spiritual successor to the 2022 product Commander Legends and should offer a roughly similar experience. While some players can just buy the Commander Masters precon decks and start playing, skilled players will find it more rewarding to play booster draft Limited with this set with their friends. Commander Masters is finely balanced as a draft set, with even power levels and lots of exciting gameplay mechanics, which should lead to an outstanding Limited experience.
Like all draft sets, Commander Masters has several built-in archetypes — in this case, ten archetypes, one for each two-color combination. Draft players can build custom three-color decks around a powerful legendary creature if they wish, but failing that, the two-color archetypes are a safe bet, and each archetype has cool, powerful cards that combine in intuitive ways for multiplayer fun.
White-Blue Artifacts, Blue-Black Graveyard, And Black-Red Sacrifice
The white-blue draft archetype in Commander Masters has a strong artifact theme. These Limited decks aim to control many artifacts and benefit from strong synergy between them, with plenty of support cards in both colors to strengthen those artifacts or protect them. Hanna, Ship’s Navigator is a good commander for this archetype since it can revive any sacrificed or destroyed artifacts, though it’s a bit slow since they return to the hand. This deck can borrow a lot of good equipment cards from the red-white archetype, such as Hammer of Nazahn, while also using synergistic cards like Foundry Inspector, Inspiring Statuary, and Shimmer Myr to get ahead. On defense, this archetype can use counterspells and spot removal in both colors, and on offense, it can rely on strong fliers like Heavenly Blademaster, Coveted Peacock, and Filigree Attendant. Equipping these fliers is essential since they have limited power, and Limited players will have 40 life rather than 20.
The blue-black draft archetype focuses on the graveyard and self-mill, with creatures like Taigam, Sidisi’s hand being excellent picks as the commander to get this strategy going. The blue-black archetype can borrow sacrifice-based cards from other black-aligned archetypes to get creatures in the graveyard alongside self-mill, and this deck can generously block enemy attackers and revive those dead blockers later, which makes combat a little easier. Self-mill and “loot” effects round out this archetype, with these effects’ downside turning into an upside, such as with Frantic Search and Murder of Crows. This archetype also needs curve-toppers to reanimate, ranging from Lorthos, the Tidemaker Tromokratis in blue to Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Archfiend of Despair in black.
The black-red draft archetype can put a lot of disposable token and non-token creatures onto the battlefield, then whittle down the opponents’ resources and slowly get ahead with sacrifice. This aristocrats build is best represented by Judith, the Scourge Diva, pumping all those disposable creatures while also dealing damage as they die, taking out key enemy creatures or finishing off opposing Planeswalkers. Cheap creatures and token generators are a must, with black and red offering Carrier Thrall, Dread Drone, Endrek Sahr, Rakka Mar, and Krenko, Mob Boss to sacrifice small creatures as quickly as they’re made. Some of these legendary token makers also got downshifted in rarity so draft players can find them more easily, such as Rakka Mar going from rare to uncommon. Good aristocrat creatures include Blood Aspirant, Cabal Patriarch, Ghoulcaller Gisa, Gormand, and Legion Vanguard.
Red-Green Power, Green-White Go Wide, And White-Black Tokens
Commander Masters‘ red-green archetype focuses on creature power. In these colors, casting high-power creatures or pumping smaller creatures is easy, though that doesn’t make this draft archetype simple. The red-green “power matters” archetype still calls for creative and off-beat thinking in the spirit of Commander, such as changing combat’s rules with Zilortha, Strength Incarnate. Zilortha is Doran the Siege Tower’s inverse, which makes for some tricky combat situations where pumping a blocker’s power is the same as pumping their defense. Zilortha and Tuya Bearclaw are ideal two-color commanders, while some red or green creatures can be joined via the new Partner rules to lead this deck. Such Partner legends include Heartless Hidetsugu, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Surrak, the Hunt Caller, and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, all of which either have high power or have abilities that care about power. This archetype can also use +1/+1 counter-oriented cards in green to get power boosts for its smaller creatures.
The green-white draft archetype has strong elements of “go wide,” which is common in this color combination, though many cards in this archetype also care about counters, typically +1/+1 counters. Ideally, a green-white draft deck in Commander Masters will do both, making lots of creatures before pumping them all with +1/+1 counters to slowly but surely assemble a powerhouse army. Ideal “go wide” cards in these colors include Jade Mage, and Nemata, Grove Guardian in green, while white offers a variety of cheap creatures and plenty of ways to pump the entire team. White will strengthen that “go wide” army with cards like Intangible Virtue, Angelic Field Marshal, and Supply Runners. Counter-oriented cards include the likes of Armorcraft Judge, which draws cards as a payoff for having creatures with +1/+1 counters on them, and Mowu, Loyal Companion.
The white-black draft archetype blends elements of “go wide” with aristocrats, feeling like a blend of the black-red and the green-white archetypes. This deck can just as easily be built to assemble and pump an entire team of creatures or sacrifice most of them for huge benefits, depending on the cards chosen. As an example, Teysa Karlov, a white-black legend, rewards both lines of play by enhancing creature tokens while also doubling creature death triggers. This is also one of the fastest archetypes, so players are encouraged to pump the team and attack with cards like Pianna, Nomad Captain and use ample removal in both colors to clear enemy blockers. Then, the deck can sacrifice its tapped attackers for added value to finish off the opponents.
Blue-Red Spells, Black-Green Tokens, Red-White Equipment, And Green-Blue Ramp
Commander Masters‘ blue-red draft archetype focuses on instants and sorceries since these colors tend to have less efficient creatures aside from curve-toppers like Lorthos the Tidemaker and Inferno Titan, both of which are in this set. Blue-red draft decks want legends like Melek, Izzet Paragon and Mizzix of the Izmagnus to lead them, which benefit greatly from instants/sorceries being cast while also making those spells easier to find and cast, creating a positive cycle. Other creatures in this deck, aside from curve-topper beaters like Dragons, should also focus on spells, such as Guttersnipe, Cyclops Electromancer, Cryptic Serpent, Torrential Gearhulk, and Kaho, Minamo Historian. This archetype also has curve-topper instants and sorceries to finish off the opponents, including Aminatou’s Augury, Commandeer, Disrupt Decorum, and Insurrection.
The black-green archetype is a slow but steady one that makes lots of creature tokens, and in these colors, a draft deck can focus either on pumping all those tokens for combat, sacrificing them to aristocrat creatures, or both. This means having plenty of overlap cards with the white-black, black-red, and green-white archetypes, but what sets black-green apart is its particular focus on Saproling creature tokens. These tokens have ample support from cards such as Slimefoot, the Stowaway, Nemata, Grove Guardian, and Verdeloth the Ancient. This archetype may also run a minor self-mill theme in both colors and get them back into the hand or onto the battlefield with cards like Eternal Witness, Wretched Confluence, and Whisper, Blood Liturgist.
Commander Masters features a red-white equipment archetype, a medium-speed archetype that wants to equip powerful legendary creatures who provide extra bonuses for having equipment on them. This archetype also makes moderate use of “go wide” cards in both colors, such as to create disposable blockers after a heavily-equipped creature became tapped after attacking. In fact, cards like Kemba, Kha Regent care about both equipment and creature tokens, rewarding players for blending equipment like Hammer of Nazahn with cards like Intangible Virtue and Pianna, Nomad Captain.
The green-blue ramp archetype is a slow, relatively unfocused archetype that uses mana-boosting effects to power out strong creatures and spells to overwhelm the opponents, and almost anything goes. This simple archetype should draft all curve-toppers it can find, from Lorthos, the Tidemaker and Tromokratis to Craterhoof Behemoth and Rampaging Brontodon, though this deck doesn’t ignore the early game. This flexible archetype can use various utility creatures and spells like Fierce Empath, Azusa, Lost But Seeking, Inga Rune-Eyes, and Spellseeker to keep pace with other players while preparing to ramp into game-ending threats later. The green-blue archetype’s commanders are also generic but relevant, such as Tatyova, Benthic Druid to reward playing lands or Experiment Kraj to slowly pump friendly creatures with +1/+1 counters or steal an enemy creature’s effects.