Best Tools for Building Commander Decks

Building a commander deck in 2026 without using online tools is like trying to navigate a city without a map. You can do it, but you're going to waste a lot of time and probably end up somewhere weird.

The problem is that there are too many options. EDHREC. Moxfield. Archidekt. TappedOut. Scryfall. Commander Spellbook. Half a dozen others. Each one does something well and something terribly, and none of them do everything. I've been building Commander decks for years and I still bounce between three or four sites for every single deck I put together.

This isn't a "top 10 list with affiliate links" kind of article. I'm going to walk through the tools that actually matter for building Commander decks, explain what each one does that the others don't, and tell you where I think they fall short. Some of these opinions might be spicy. That's fine.

EDHREC: the starting point for every commander deck

If you've built a Commander deck in the last five years, you've probably used EDHREC. It aggregates decklists from Moxfield, Archidekt, and Scryfall, then shows you the most popular cards for any given commander. Pick Atraxa, Praetors' Voice and you'll see a breakdown of the 100 most commonly played cards in Atraxa decks, organized by category.

That data is absurdly useful. When you're building a new deck, EDHREC answers the question "what are other people running?" instantly. It shows you percentage inclusion rates, so you can tell the difference between a card that shows up in 80% of decks versus one in 15%. It categorizes cards by function: ramp, removal, card draw, lands. You can filter by budget, by theme, by tribe.

The recommendation engine is the real draw here. Search for a commander, and EDHREC pulls synergy scores for every card. High synergy means the card appears in that commander's decks way more than in the format overall. Low synergy cards are generic staples like Sol Ring that go everywhere. This distinction matters because it helps you find the weird, specific cards that actually make your deck tick.

EDHREC also tracks themes. Building Muldrotha, the Gravetide? You can drill into self-mill, lands matter, enchantress, or goodstuff variations. Each theme adjusts the recommendations. This is where it goes from "useful reference" to "I can't build decks without this."

Where EDHREC struggles is originality. If you only use EDHREC, you end up building the same deck as everyone else. The algorithm rewards popular choices, which means the most common cards float to the top while interesting niche picks get buried. It's a fantastic starting point but a terrible finishing point. Use it for ideas, then put your own spin on things.

EDHREC also doesn't have a deck editor. You can't build a deck on the site. You browse cards, get ideas, then go somewhere else to actually assemble the list.

Moxfield: the deck editor that took over

Moxfield is where most of the Commander community builds and stores their decklists right now. If someone links a decklist on Reddit or Discord, it's probably a Moxfield link.

The editor is fast and clean. You type a card name, it autocompletes, you hit enter, and the card goes into your list. You can drag cards between categories, sort by mana value or price, and view your deck as a visual grid of card images or a compact text list. The mana curve chart updates in real time. Price tracking pulls from TCGPlayer and CardKingdom simultaneously.

For Commander specifically, Moxfield handles color identity filtering automatically. Set your commander and the search only shows cards within your color identity. It supports partner commanders, companion, and all the weird edge cases. The "suggestions" feature recommends cards based on what's already in your deck, though it's more basic than EDHREC's recommendation engine.

Moxfield's social features are what set it apart. You can browse other people's public decks, leave comments, upvote lists. There's a whole community ecosystem built into the platform. Want to see what other people are doing with Hinata, Dawn-Crowned? Search for the commander and you'll find hundreds of public decklists to browse.

The downsides: Moxfield is slow to add new features, and the mobile experience has been mediocre for a long time. There's no native mobile app, so you're using the website in a browser, and some interactions are clunky on a phone screen. Playtesting features exist but feel basic compared to dedicated playtest tools.

Archidekt: the visual builder

Archidekt takes a different approach to deck building. It's more visual and more customizable than Moxfield, with a drag-and-drop interface that lets you organize cards into custom categories and sort them however you want.

The editor shows card images by default, which makes the building process feel more like physically sorting cards on a table. You can create any custom categories you want. I use "Win conditions," "Card advantage," "Interaction" instead of the standard creature/instant/sorcery split. Archidekt makes that easy.

For Commander, Archidekt handles all the format-specific stuff: color identity validation, deck size requirements, commander designation, partner support. Their mana base analysis is solid, showing your color distribution and land count alongside your mana curve.

Archidekt also has precon support. You can import any preconstructed Commander deck and use it as a starting point for upgrades. They track precon data going back years, which is helpful if you bought a precon and want to see what the community is swapping in and out.

One thing Archidekt does that others don't is custom tagging. You can tag cards however you want and then filter or sort by those tags. Building a Tayam, Luminous Enigma deck? Tag your reanimation targets, your sacrifice outlets, your combo pieces. Then view only the combo pieces to make sure you have enough.

The trade-off is that Archidekt can feel overwhelming. There are a lot of features, a lot of menus, a lot of options. If you just want to throw a list together quickly, the interface might be more than you need. The community is also smaller than Moxfield's, so there are fewer public decklists to browse for inspiration.

TappedOut: the veteran that's showing its age

TappedOut was the default Commander deck building site for years. It has a huge archive of decklists going back to the early days of the format. Some of the most-discussed Commander decklists on the internet live on TappedOut.

The site still works. You can build decks, track prices, view mana curves, and share lists. It supports Commander and basically every other Magic format that has ever existed. The deck editor is functional if not pretty.

But TappedOut has been losing ground for a while. The interface feels dated compared to Moxfield and Archidekt. Load times are slower. The search is clunkier. It doesn't have the real-time collaboration features or the polished visual design that newer tools offer.

I wouldn't recommend TappedOut as your primary deck builder in 2026. But it's worth knowing about because you'll inevitably find decklists there when searching for older commanders or niche strategies. The archive alone is valuable. If you're building around an obscure commander from 2015, TappedOut might have primer-level content that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Scryfall: the card search engine you can't live without

Scryfall isn't a deck builder. It's a card database and search engine. But it's so good at what it does that it belongs on this list anyway.

Scryfall's search syntax is where the magic happens. Want to find every creature in Jeskai colors with mana value 3 or less that has an enters-the-battlefield trigger? You can write that query. Want every instant that costs less than two mana and can destroy an enchantment? You can write that too. The syntax guide is extensive, and once you learn it, you'll wonder how you ever found cards without it.

For Commander deck building, some searches I use constantly:

• ci:wubr cmc<=3 t:creature o:"enters" finds cheap ETB creatures in your colors
• ci:bg t:land -t:basic finds every nonbasic land in Golgari
• o:"whenever" o:"dies" ci:rakdos finds death triggers in Rakdos

Scryfall also has a random card feature, a set browser, and detailed information about every printing of every card (including prices across all printings). When I need to know the cheapest version of a card, Scryfall is where I go.

The site handles Commander-specific searches well. The ci: operator filters by color identity, not just color, which matters for cards like Blind Obedience that have extort but are technically mono-white in Commander. The f:commander filter shows only cards legal in the format, including ban list filtering.

Scryfall doesn't help you build a deck in any organized way. It helps you find the right cards, which is a different and equally important part of the process.

Commander Spellbook: the combo encyclopedia

Commander Spellbook does one thing and does it extremely well: it catalogs combos. Every two-card, three-card, and multi-card combo in Commander lives here, searchable by card name, color identity, and result.

The "Find My Combos" feature is the standout. Paste your decklist and Commander Spellbook shows you every combo already in your deck that you might not know about. It also suggests combos you're one or two cards away from completing. I've found combos in my own decks that I didn't realize existed until I ran them through this tool.

You can search by result too. Want infinite mana in Simic? Search for it. Want infinite tokens in Mardu? Search for it. Each combo entry shows the exact steps to execute it, which cards are involved, and what the end result is.

For Commander deck building, Commander Spellbook fills a gap that no other tool covers. EDHREC tells you what cards are popular. Moxfield lets you build the list. But Commander Spellbook tells you what your cards actually do together. If you're building a combo-oriented deck, or if you just want to know if you accidentally included an infinite loop, this is the tool.

The database is community-maintained, so coverage isn't perfect. Newer card combos sometimes take a while to appear. But for established interactions, it's comprehensive and reliable.

GrimDeck: inventory tracking meets deck building

I'm going to be upfront here: GrimDeck is our product. But I'm including it because it does something genuinely different from the tools above, and I think it's worth knowing about even if you never pay for it.

GrimDeck started as a card inventory tracker. You scan or search your collection, and the app tracks what you own, what it's worth, and where the cheapest printings are. The collection angle matters for Commander more than any other format because Commander players tend to build multiple decks from a shared collection. Knowing what you already own saves money and prevents you from buying duplicates.

The deck builder works within that context. When you're building a deck on GrimDeck, you can see which cards you already own and which you need to buy. The search filters by color identity for your commander, and the editor handles partner commanders and the standard 100-card deck size.

GrimDeck also tracks bracket data for Commander cards, which matters now that the Rules Committee has formalized the bracket system. You can see at a glance where your deck falls in terms of power level classification.

The AI-enhanced features generate deck names, descriptions, and tags based on your card list, which saves time when you're organizing multiple decks. It's a small thing, but if you have 15 Commander decks and they're all named "Untitled Deck," it helps.

Where GrimDeck falls short compared to Moxfield or Archidekt is community size. There aren't thousands of public decklists to browse for inspiration yet. The social features are newer and the user base is still growing. If your primary need is "I want to see what 500 other people built with this commander," Moxfield or EDHREC is still where you should go.

But if your primary need is "I want to build decks from my actual collection and track what everything is worth," GrimDeck fills that gap. You can build a deck, see which cards you need, and check prices across printings without leaving the site. You can also import your existing decklists from Moxfield if you want to consolidate.

Check out the public decks page to see what people are building, or browse through some of the Commander decks the community has put together.

How these tools actually work together

Nobody uses just one of these. Here's the workflow that has worked for me across dozens of Commander builds:

Step 1: Pick a commander. I usually start on EDHREC because it surfaces commanders I haven't considered. The "new commanders" page after each set release is where I find most of my brewing ideas.

Step 2: Research on EDHREC. Once I have a commander, I look at the EDHREC page for popular cards, high synergy picks, and theme variations. I spend maybe 20 minutes here getting a feel for what the deck wants to do.

Step 3: Search for specific cards on Scryfall. EDHREC shows you popular picks, but it misses niche cards that fit your specific build. Scryfall's advanced search fills those gaps. I always run a few targeted searches for cards that do exactly what my strategy needs.

Step 4: Check for combos. Commander Spellbook gets a visit once I have a rough idea of the deck. I search for combos within my color identity and strategy to see if there's a clean win condition I should include.

Step 5: Build the list. I use a deck editor (Moxfield, Archidekt, or GrimDeck depending on the deck) to actually assemble the 100 cards. This is where I make cuts, check the mana curve, and balance the categories.

Step 6: Price check. Before I buy anything, I check prices. Scryfall shows the cheapest printing of each card. GrimDeck shows what I already own and what I still need.

That's six steps across four or five different websites. It's not elegant. But until someone builds a tool that does all of this in one place, it's the reality of Commander deck building.

What to look for in a commander deck building tool

Not all tools matter equally. When I'm evaluating a deck builder for Commander specifically, these are the features that actually matter:

Color identity filtering. This is non-negotiable. If a deck builder lets you add cards outside your commander's color identity, it's not built for Commander. Every tool on this list handles this correctly, but cheaper alternatives sometimes get it wrong. Cards like Kenrith, the Returned King have tricky identities that a good tool handles automatically.

Partner and companion support. Commander has some weird deckbuilding rules around partners, partner with, friends forever, backgrounds, and companion. A good tool needs to handle two-commander decks correctly and validate the combined color identity. This trips up more tools than you'd expect.

Mana base analysis. Commander mana bases are harder to build than any other format because you're usually running three to five colors with exactly one copy of each land. Tools that show your color distribution alongside your mana curve help you catch problems before you sleeve up and get stuck with three Islands in a five-color deck.

Price tracking across printings. Commander is the format where budget matters most because decks are 100 cards instead of 60. A card that costs $0.25 in one printing and $8 in another is the same card. Good tools surface the cheapest option so you're not overpaying.

EDHREC integration. Whether it's native (like Archidekt and Moxfield feeding data to EDHREC) or through a link, being able to jump between your deck editor and EDHREC recommendations saves time. The tools that exist in the EDHREC ecosystem have an advantage here.