I’m Niv-Mizznt.

I’m an intermediate commander player and not very good at standard. Therefore, I am like many commander players. I appreciate the casual format of Commander because it has allowed me to develop an incredible community in my pod and gain access to the interesting, near-academic work being done in Magic: The Gathering’s Commander format these days. I am inspired by the likes of Salubrious Snail, Trinket Mage, 3/3 Elk, Rebell, and many other incredible content creators.

HOWEVER!

There is too much of a focus these days on deckbuilding. I know that sounds insane, but bear with me, the other element of playing Magic: The Gathering is pilot identity. I believe that actual pilot identities vary across store-organized pods and independent playgroups worldwide. However, so much time is spent thinking about what’s in the decks and not who the players of those decks are.

Across skill levels, types of people, and various skill sets, individuals come to this game from different backgrounds with diverse traits. However, some traits can be understood through specific gameplay patterns. Specifically, I think they can be measured across two particular questions:

1. How aggressive is your threat assessment?

This question aims to understand not the quality of a player’s threat assessment, which is more closely tied to their experience with that skill, but rather how a player responds to threats. Are players proactive in their threat assessment, targeting certain decks, commanders, and playstyles, or are they reactive, targeting only problematic permanents, varying across how quickly they respond?

2. How flexible are your card choices?

This question aims to understand whether you pick cards that are more synergistic or more functional. This is not a question necessarily about the cards themselves, although that certainly plays a factor, and more about what the pilot prioritizes.

These two questions, together, provide a spectrum of information that can be understood as archetypes. The four major archetypes that I have mapped out are as follows:

• Assassin

• Opportunist

• Snowballer

• Field General

I believe they can be mapped out across quadrants, like so:

I plan to use this blog to explore this idea, share my thoughts on the Commander format as a whole, and provide reviews of decklists that I play or have played against.