Commander Oracles: Chaos Incarnate

Welcome everyone, it is Brandon here from MTG Oracle. Your favorite guy in the chaotic world of Commander. Talking about chaos, do you like chaotic decks? The ability to sow destruction through the ranks of your opponents while laughing like a goblin in a dynamite store. In this article, I will teach each of you how to lose friends and roll dice for the glory of chaos. I will discuss the structure, key cards, and the best colors to play for the archetype. Therefore, let’s jump right in.

Structure

Yes, it’s weird to start off an article about chaos with deck structure but do I care? No. The best way to build any commander deck is to write it out in a list structure. For a chaos deck, you want to build with a normal artifact ramp base as majority of the Commanders lack green, as well as a wide array of noncreature spells. It’ll look a little like this.
– 35-37 lands
– 3 to 7 ramp artifacts
– then between 25 to 30% noncreature
– the remainder of creatures

In addition, I’d like to point out that this just an outline; you may make your deck with any structure. As the main win condition for any chaos deck is just stealing the win as every opponent is attempting to recover from your spells, there should be no solid synergy within your deck.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering what exactly makes a spell chaotic. In order to answer this, I must get really philosophic… but I won’t for time’s sake. Instead, look at a card and ask yourself, does this screw up the battlefield like Confusion in the Ranks ? Does it make your opponent’s deck slip around confused like Possibility Storm? If you answered yes to one or both, then it goes into your deck.

Way to Play

In addition to the cards above, most cards within a chaos deck have red in their mana cost, a few to mention are Grip of Chaos, Last One Standing, and Tide of War. Furthermore, as you read these cards you’ll realize that each is not just destructive and crazy for the board state but it additionally becomes an unpredictable threat that opposing decks may not expect.
A subtype of chaos decks is the coin flip decks with their key commanders Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom, and Okaun, Eye of Chaos; let’s be honest here, they’re the only Commanders that synergize with coin-flipping.

Key Colors

Finally, the final topic. What colors are the best in chaos?
Chaos decks have one thing in common, the color red, adding black grants you some great cards such as Xantcha, Sleeper Agent and Vial Smasher the Fierce. Additionally, the colors blue and green may add the Cascade cards like Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, Shardless Agent, and Violent Outburst; though if you play with Cascade never put in X cost spells. Finally, you may also add cards like Enigma Sphinx, and Maelstrom Nexus.

Conclusion

In conclusion, chaos is well, chaotic; you destroy your opponents with no real plan and finish them off with random bursts of damage. Cascade into value as your opponents scramble to regain a board state. Thank you for reading, tune in next week for another amazing article.