For people who did the 32 colours of magic challenge, which colour-combination was the most miserable, difficult, or just un-fun to make work?

I’m still working on mine but I feel like the four colour decks will be the most challenging.

I did it back when the atraxa/saskia etc precons dropped and it really reinforced an opinion i've had for a long time in EDH.

I think EDH works best when you're in 1-3 colors. More than that and you have to have enough fixing to hit your colors, you have access to practically every best spell and you start losing the Identity of what makes each of the colors fun.

Like lets look at mono green, basically no board wipes for creatures except for [[Ezuri's Predation]] and anti flying wipes like [[Squall Line]] and [[Hurricane]] that is a weakness of the color. but there are a ton of artifact/enchantment wipes in the color a strength of the color. it also has very little unconditional card draw, you have to have a board in green to draw cards outside of [[harmonize]]

Harmonize in the context of decks without green is practically unplayable, the non-color shifted version [[Concentrate]] barely sees any play. so the more colors you have the more of these subpar but still good options you leave behind and the more generic the deck ends up feeling.

The Reason i mention 3 colors as the cutoff point, is that we've had multiple planes, sets, blocks focusing on various 3 color combos, Capena, Alara, Ikoria, the og Elder Dragons that started the format, The Primevals from Invasion/the wedge Planar Chaos versions etc. and those sets/cycles did a lot to help define the 3 color combos and give a good distinct basis to build off of. Where 4c and 5c have been largely ignored or printed as a you know this thing that exists what if you had access to all of it. (think [[Jared Carthelion]] being the only potential commander that mentions Kavu Anywhere on the card) or ( [[Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch]] doing nothing that myr do, but just buffing them into another generic 5c pile so you can play all of the 2 drop myr.) 4c+ just ends up feeling like generic piles most of the time imo.

Gruul just embodied the sentiment of 'Ooga booga' for me

Yes, that's... why I Gruul.

I used to have a very difficult time doing 4-5 color decks, until I realized that 4-5 color decks are the perfect place to have very specific mechanic/strategy decks. Let me explain.

I built a deck around attractions and contraptions in four colors. There aren't a ton of cards that create attractions or contraptions, so being in four colors let me whittle it down to the best of them.

I built a 5-color mutate deck. There's only a handful of mutate creatures so making it in 5 colors allows me to run the best of them.

I built a deck loosely around the concept of "combat damage modifiers", meaning poison, lifelink, and deathtouch. I used Saskia as my commander, and having access to 4 colors allows me to dip into the best of those four colors to find creatures that can benefit.

I'm building a 4-color Dr Who deck that is essentially Doctor tribal. Basically impossible in fewer colors.

Slivers, dragons, etc are great 4+ color decks. Think backwards from an under-represented or obscure strategy/mechanic and you might find some fun 4+ decks.

To answer the actual question in the OP: I find Simic and Boros the most annoying colors to build for. Their commander choices feel so very same-y. I dont want to do Simic lands and I don't want to do Boros equipment.

I didn't love any of the four colour options either. There are some decent options with partner, but there just aren't a lot of good options unless you're in non-black.

• Non-green: 12 options
• Non-white: 9 options
• Non-blue: 9 options
• Non-black: 39 options
• Non-red: 9 options

Even in non-black, 27 of those options are [[The Fourteenth Doctor]] and a companion.

Because the options for commanders are so limited, it just doesn't feel like there are a lot of choices while building. There are also a lot of overlap between the colours - [[Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder]], [[Kraum, Ludevic's Opus]] [[Thrasios, Triton Hero]] all seem pretty popular as options in a variety of colour options.

Add to that, that the mana base is almost as difficult and expensive to put together as 5 colour, and you end up missing a colour, so it's not quite as good for a goodstuff pile, and it's just a deck design space that I found pretty underwhelming.

I refuse the 32 deck challenge mainly because of the 4C decks. I could see myself brewing a fun Aragorn Uniter LOTR- only deck, but that's about it.

I have everything but the 4c or colorless, mainly by accident as I kept finding new commanders I wanted to build. I have a few duplicates now as well.

Took me like a year to find a dimir deck that was fun - tested like 15 online and landed on [[Tasha the Witch Queen]]

I wont be doing any of the four color combos, i just find them to close to piles like 5c. Mono color were the most fun so far for me, as they have great deck building restrictions and some of the mono color commanders are super interesting.

So far the last deck i still haven't built to complete my full set is abzan. The design space currently lacks any creativity and im trying not to have repeat archetypes. So abzan for me cause i havent even done it lol.

Wife and I attempted the 32 Challenge, but I found that we’re not going to make decks ‘just because’. I think OP Commented that 4C is miserable—am inclined to agree because we had trouble with Greenless, Whiteless and Blueless. The partner commaders could work, but we weren’t very compelled to build those 3 combinations.

Gruul, Selesnya and Mono-W were very bleh. Agree with your point on Mono-W being basically stax, weenies or Angels. We landed on Giada because we wanted an Angel deck!

Gruul was also very one note, but am happy about our [[Kibo]] build. Very fun, very artifact lock.

Selesnya was also rather samey, with 90% of Selesnya decks caring about Tokens, Counters, or Counters on Tokens. We landed on [[Gluntch]] and it’s a real blast!

I never attempted to do the full 32, but I did attempt to stick to a "no commanders with duplicate color identities to an existing commander I have built" rule for a while.

Then I realized it would be a cold day in hell before I built a Gruul deck, and went back to having 3 Izzet decks as it was meant to be.

I have a self-imposed sub-challenge for this which is to make Zodiac inspired decks. I’ve had a hard time feeling like I “accurately” represented each sign with the color pairings (it’s astrology so like not exactly a science) but then what was even harder was deciding the commanders!!! Fuck you Jeskai, it’s gonna be a bitch to build you.

Simic is the most god forsaken color combination.

Not a single interesting commander. theyre all: do the thing. if you do the thing, draw a card"

For me it’s always Izzet. It just seems like no matter what I pick it’s basically always going to be either spellslinger or artifacts. It just feels so cookie-cutter and it’s my least favorite guild by far.

I'm echoing most answers here, but the 4 color ones are killing me! I'm 18 decks into the 32 and I'm dreading doing the 4. I've already asked my pod if they mind I rule 0 some of them cause I hate most of the actual options.

It took me six different decks to settle on for esper my son has my favorite esper decks he likes zombies so he got my varina deck now I now have an esper flying deck but esper was the hardest one

Working on mine still but the hardest have been the 4 colour. The lack of options is really what kills.

And then Azorius. It’s the only colour combination Im not here for.

I found that I disliked almost every color combo with green. With the exception of mono green I suppose. I especially disliked gruul and abzan

Gruul is probably the most fun out of the lot for me. I always have a blast with my Gruul Monsters list.

Mono-white agreed is trickier.

Dunno about 4c. Great for cEDH style decks though.

The four color ones were pretty bland and forgettable, just because you had so few options that everything felt pretty on-rails.

Sure, as time as gone on, there's more options, but I'm now older and so long entrenched that the luster has gone of the 32 color-combination challenge long ago, especially since there's somewhere between one and two dozen new precons introduced each year, making the whole endeavour just feel less interesting.

I'm probably going to pull lots of my decks apart, leaving only the stronger and more resonant themes like the 16 Theros gods and the like.

Same with my 16 "Un-" decks. Unfinity just really threw cold water on the whole idea of decks built around "un" cards, just because they wanted to able to sell Unfinity as a "real" Magic product rather than just a fun silver border set.

But I tend to not mention this except in threads like this because I really don't want to be the guy who's picking on something people are really excited about or proud about getting done.

I know I was happy with the decks when I finished up the 32 of them like 8 years ago, it's just different times with slightly different realities.

I'm working on mine and I hate red and blue. Selesnya was easiest for me, and orzov was second. I find white the easiest.

My issue wasn't building or making decks work, it was my piloting. My friends and I drafted commanders for our 32 deck challenge and I ended up with some combat-centric commanders and I'm the type of person that ignores the combat step unless it follows a resolved Craterhoof. I lost a few games I should have won because I'm not used to attacking.

4c decks don't bother me much. I'm still in the process of completing, but right now, I hate Jeskai, and I'm not thrilled about Azorius.

I'm not rushing by any means, I just keep my eyes open for legends infind interesting. Just been in a real drought for those colors.

I'm working on it and 4c decks are really a pain, I like artifacts so I [[breya]] was a no brain choice, and since I like LOTR [[aragorn, the uniter]] was a welcome release, I can see myself building something strange with the OG [atraxa] but building non-white and non-blue is really hard, not only you have little options for the commander but also most of the time you end up building random goodstuff deck without having a specific direction

1C and 4C decks honestly are the most unfun for me to build.

Every 1c and 4c deck just looks too same-y to me, and their wincons are usually the same as well. (Black is stuff like Cabal Coffers/Urborg into Torment or Exsanguinate.

Please share your full list of commanders!

The 4Color ones I'm having trouble with. Mainly because the options are RWUG has the most outside of partners. I get stuck with Breya and the other options for the 4 colors are lackluster outside of partner combos.

I hope one day Wizards makes more.

5Color is another problematic one for me. Mainly because I like to play tribes that benefit from 5C like Eldrazi, dragon, and Slivers. It's also my first color choice to build.

I'm still chugging alone, I'm currently on my mono colored builds.

4 Colors is such a pain because of lack of options. I did an Atraxa & Aragorn deck and they were compelling to make but the others just aren’t interesting.

Mono-White, I have a Heliod deck that’s mostly life gain based and it’s fine. Sure mono white is a bit narrow but the recent push for the color to have card draw/ramp makes up for it.

Gruul, I admit is kinda blah, I did werewolves and the transformation aspect is a little annoying but I’m gonna remedy that by buying another set of the cards that transform.

Surprise no mention of Izzet, I literally can’t find a commander that interests me. It’s either you’re spellslinging or artifacts which is meh.

Also Jeskai isn’t really an interesting color combination for me either, I have two potential commanders but they just don’t lure me in to be built.

Yeah I agree with the 4 colored decks. It was hard to see all of the generic partner combos and come up with a strategy to pair with them. Although I struggled with them I feel like some of my favorite decks that I’ve made came out of them.

Currently starting this journey myself I’m still pretty new but have some friends, local card shops and the internet to help me along. Good luck look forward to seeing what u make

I've found mono red, colorless, 5 color, nonblue, and izzet the most difficult, personally. Mono red commanders are all either burn focused (which I don't find very fun in a non-1v1 game, or honestly in 1v1 but for entirely different reasons), or typal (which I just don't think is very creative or interesting to build), or voltron (almost as bad as burn and unenjoyable to me for the same reasons). 5 color meanwhile has a similar problem, everything is either very generic value (Jodah, Codie, etc.) or just a typal deck (which I do not enjoy, as mentioned). Colorless has the reverse problem in some ways - it's Eldrazi, which I don't enjoy, or artifacts, which can be fine but have a tendency to either be kinda too combo-y or too do-nothing, and there's just not that much card selection to actually branch out. Nonblue just suffers from the fact that I don't find Saskia interesting and the partner combos for it are just... bleh, imo. I tested Tymna/Tana but it felt too strong and still not all that fun, I tested Ikra/Bruse but it was just the most unga bunga no thoughts spam creatures possible, there's really just not a lot to work with. Finally, Izzet just... idk, I feel like I should be able to find something interesting but none of the combos individually did it for me. Niv-Mizzet is too combo-y and gives too much very generic value, Ghyrson is creative but just leads to burn basically, Veyran is just burn/aggro spellslinger stuff or combo stuff, it just didn't really pique my interest.

However my favorite decks I ended up with are my Halana & Alena Gruul flicker + stompy + elementals pet deck, my Prime Speaker Vannifar deck which doesn't go for combos and instead just loops untap effects and chains of creatures to just *explode* an enormous amount of toolbox pieces onto the board, my 4c original Atraxa (no poison, no planeswalkers, no things that make counters give extra counters or double your counters), my 4c Bjorna + Wernog & Lurrus companion (who is actually the one central to the deck) artifact sacrifice and recursion deck, my monowhite Thalia gimmick showcase deck, and my Dimir pauper EDH Rilsa Rael deck.

Anything mono is hard work for me.

I'm doing it myself and I've had trouble with temur but since I disassembled my temur deck there have been a number of interesting commanders to come out. And blue red was hard to do until I went with pirate tribal

Azorius has stumped me for years now. I've gone through a dozen commanders and none have really clicked for me.

I am in the process of working on my 32 decks right now. I haven’t had a color combo that I’ve hated so far but I’m sure it will happen. I’m waiting on the 4 color decks in the hopes that more will be printed before I’m done with the challenge.

I’ve also tried to build my decks in ways that are different from each other and sometimes even kinda different for the colors they are in.

I’ve planed out a lot of my decks a little even though I only have 8 actually built so far (including upgraded precons that I really like) and I think for White I am gonna go [[Light-Paws]] Voltron and for Gruul I am going to go [[Cait, Cage Brawler]] Discard.

Whatever I do and whatever format I play, I always fall flat on my face when attempting to build Mardu.

I never really enjoyed the OG [[Kaalia of the Vast]] deck. I wanted to make it an aggro deck but Kaalia is just to much of a threat and way to easy to kill. (And I had no luck with Mardu Pyromancer in Modern as [[Faithless Looting]] was banned a couple of months after I got the cards.)

The other is 4-Color "Hot Wheels" with [[Vial Smasher the Fierce]] and [[Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix]]. The idea was to expand my Nekusar Wheel deck into green and do something similar yet different. And I swear to Progenitus I tried to make that shit work. It just didn't want to. Same problem as Kaalia, the deck was over-reliant on it's commander(s) and didn't properly function without them.

Yeah 4color has been the most challenging, mostly due to lack of commanders.

Shards and Wedges were by far the easiest. Guild combos I found a little challenging because I kept wanting to add a third color.

Mono color was a lot of fun because I just leaned into whatever I liked most about the color and built a whole deck around it: Green Stompy Black Lifedrain, Red Burn, Blue Flash, White Damage Prevention.

I'm about halfway through mine with my own set of restrictions, and rn i'm having the hardest time finishing the 4c and wubrg decks

Jeskai. I’ve built so many many many decks and I just can’t find a jeskai commander that interests me that isn’t broken or unfun to play against. I wish hinata didn’t have the clause that caused opponents to pay more mana.

For me it's a tie between mono white because it's my least favourite colour and all of the four colour combos because there are so few options (maybe with the exception of WURG)

Something to look into for 4-color decks is friends forever. I've recently built a [[Sophins, Spearsage Deserter]] and [[Cecily, Haunted Mage]], but there are some interesting, efficient combinations of abilities out there.

Mono white was tough but [[sram]] really did it for me

Boros decks in multi-player all feel kind of same/meh but I'm working on that. 

All but one of dimir decks I've built have been quickly scrapped, and that one is a nostalgia hit wheels commander [[wrexial]]

I dislike partners in general- haven't found any I liked. 4 colors don't feel distinct from 5. At least not yet.

I've built several mono red, blue, and green ones :D Any deck red, green or blue involved feels natural, minus boros and dimir. 

Esper isn't something I'd jump out and build either, on my own at least. Thinking of a flying theme.

I like White's win-con being making the other opponents miserable though :/

I'm not doing this challenge, but have already found something I struggle with. I love a 2 color commander the most. I think it makes the mana base easiest. plenty of Basics for ramp spells, and easy to get the colors you need, but I feel like 3 color commanders are where the abilities of the commander really shine the most! So do I play a simpler commander but the game will move smoother, or do I play a stronger commander but risk taking forever to get that one plains I need!

Four color, especially Glint-Eye since I hate Yidris. I wound up building Cecily and Elmar and they’re a blast to play!

Outside of the obvious four-color, I had difficulty with Rakdos and Mono Green because none of the commanders particularly stood out, but CN2 Selvala and Jasper I’ve been enjoying a lot

I personally think the challenge is a bad meme that should have never been popularized. And threads like this are a good example why... not every color pair is fleshed out enough to provide good variety (4 colors, colorless, etc) and choices. The challenge will inevitably force you into bad choices/deckbuilding decisions in order to fulfill the completionist angle.

Haven’t had issues with the 4 color ones but some of the 3 color ones have been really hard to find inspiration for. Bant does things i want to do but doesn’t have any commanders that do it, there’s similar problems I have with jeskai esper and grixis where no win condition I’m seeing feels like they’re earned or reliable.

R/G artifacts is something I’ve toyed with but my RG combo ended up being Omnath Scapeshift.

The four colors are definitely tricky and I ended up having to come up with themes that loosely fit the available four color creatures or did my best to find a partner pair that worked.

Settled on Atraxa (new one) ETBs, Aragorn Solid Gold Group Hug, Ydris combat damage matters, Breya Big Rocks (least original of the bunch), and 4 Color all the tokens (except Blue for hard mode)

Honestly, all of them were pretty easy. I am up to 50 decks now. The one I am most bored with is my mono green deck helmed by [[Greensleeves, Maro Sorcerer]]

It is just the same deck every game. Ramp, triggers, swing for lethal with lots of tokens. Need to switch it up.

I only have not-blue left, so that’s the hardest one for me. The 4 colors are hardest for sure.

I have [[Rosheen Meanderer]] for Gruul for over a decade, I don’t plan to ever take it apart. I also had [[Wort, the Raidmother]] tokens before but doing the 32 challenge forced me to have only one deck per color identity so I wasn’t as stretched on lands.

I'm working on it kind of. I'm more avoiding having multiple decks in the same CI than actively trying to get to have one for each. I currently am actively working on a BRG deck and having more troubles figuring out what I don't want to run.

I don't doubt that completing every 4-color combo is the most difficult, but amusingly the only 4-color deck I've built was itself surprisingly easy. [[Omnath locus of creation]] can run a [[Maze's End]] list since the additional gates were printed in CLB

I haven't done the "challenge"; I think I've probably experimented with every colour combo already anyway, though. Not sure I could limit myself to only 32 lists.

Anyway, Green/Blue never seems to feel good to me.

I like White a lot, actually, it's possibly the colour I've made the most monocoloured decks with (or maybe Black). It's got a surprising amount of options, it's had a lot of love recently (finally!) and you never really feel like you're missing anything like you do with other colours not having the right kind of removal.

For some reason Jeskai, Temur and Mardu are causing me trouble. No commander draws me in those colors.

I'm 5 decks away from finishing the challenge, and guess what? 4 out of these are 4c decks. I'm also still struggling with getting the one 4c deck I have ([[Cecily Haunted Mage]] + [[Elmar, Ulvenwald Informant]] - A [[Slime Against Humanity]] build) to run well.

And I want to build [[The Fourteenth Doctor]] next. After that, only three 4c decks and Naya remain.

Naya is a color combination I can't seem to find an interesting Commander for. I don't want another token (sub)strategy (already have a couple of those in my other 27 decks with Preston, Trostani, Toxrill, Ganax + Feywild Visitor, Sidisi and SAH), otherwise I would have gotten [[Rin and Seri, Inseparable]] and called it a day. I also hate Landfall as a deck's main strategy.

Simic also gave me big trouble. A lot of that feels like it's just goodstuff or +1/+1 counters, neither of which I find to be particularly interesting. Temur keyword counters? Sign me up! +1/+1 counters? Boring... In the end, I settled with [[The Pride of Hull Clade]]. Love at first sight, basically :D

Izzet was another candidate of brewing different decks, very spellslinger-y, which just doesn't seem to be my kind of playstyle. So I tried Vadrik, Astral Archmage as a storm deck and it just didn't click for me. And then someone in a Discord server mentioned they've built [[Ganax, Astral Hunter]] + [[Feywild Visitor]]. Izzet Dragons! And finally I had an Izzet deck that I enjoy playing.

And finally, I'm still waiting for a real Jund Enchantress Commander. [[Yurlok of Scorch Thrash]] got too much hate, so right now I'm playing [[Xira Arien]] as an unusual Group Slug Enchantress. But I'm still hoping for a better option there.

I’m working through this deck challenge myself and for me the hardest is Dune (non blue), Ink (non black), and Yore (non green). The commanders available for them are really limited and it’s weird that more haven’t been printed at all. Partner commanders do exist, but I would like more of the 4 color base to be printed. I have multiple 5 color decks which goes from enchantment only jank to a serious 5 color deck I made using one of the jodahs. For me I like to build more niche decks or take a color pairing and do something with it that others haven’t really done at all. I made a feather blink deck and that was really fun.

I still have most of the mono colours, Selesnya 5C, and most of the 4C to do. This far Izzet was the toughest because I was so uninspired. Then I was able to pick up a copy of my boi [[Chris Pine]] and we were off to the races! My mono white deck should get honourable mention because it is mono white [[Rograkh]] partnered with [[Keleth]] but I only produce white mana so...

Abzan.

It just has no good commanders imo.

I think I made some kind of self mill Teneb the Harvester Hermit Druid Angel of Glory's Rise human tribal deck?

I've been working on the challenge, but I've been going out of my way to not build a color pair yet if I cannot find a commander or play style I will like, so I've been waiting for a commander or support to start those decks. So far it's been hardest for me to build temur and abzan. Just can't find anything interesting or fun to want to start those decks. Especially abzan, they have like 2 styles of decks and that's it

I'm slowly working on it (mainly, I tend to make like 2-3 new decks a year, without any repeat color combos), and Dimir is a STRUGGLE for me. I've tried [[Willhelt]] and [[Tegwyll]], but just feel underwhelmed and uninterested by them

My favorite deck is probably my faldorn deck, ramp and storm off with impulse draw effects to create a bunch of wolves and then finish the game with a overrun effect.

Azorius. Until I found [[Hama Pashar]] and just built flicker dungeons. My biggest issue was not building a combat based deck or tribal. It is really hard to build a combo deck without getting bored immediately

I can’t find anything worth build for the other 4 color ones that are not Atraxa.

Boros for me. Every commander felt the same until I saw [[Feather the Redeemed]]. If I did another run at the challenge now, it’d probably be easier to decide a new Boros commander since they’re starting to get some diversity beyond Go Wide Tokens or Equipment Voltron

I have 13 combinations built, decklists made for 17 more. 4 color has been the hardest BY FAR. I've had Atraxa superfriends since before I decided to do the challenge. Been collecting cards for WURG Omnath for a while now, it's my spendiest project and I've been taking my time putting it together. Threw together a list for Yidris after I decided to do the challenge, but it's probably the list I'm least confident in. There is nothing appealing for WBRG or WUBR that I've seen printed yet. That's fine though, I'm just going to slowly put together the other 17 projects and wait for wizards to print something cool. I'd rather not force a deck just to have it and let it sit in a box every game night.

The inventory as it stands: C: Karn, the Great Creator W: Myrel, Shield of Arrive U: Minn, Wily Illusionist B: Gollum, Obsessed Stalker R: Imodane, the Pyrohammer G: Fynn, the Fangbearer WU: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV WB: Eriette of the Charmed Apple WR: Zirda the Dawnwaker WG: Lathiel the Bounteous Dawn UB: The Scarab God UR: Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer UG: Tanazir Quandrix BR: Rakdos, Lord of Riots Obosh, the Preypiercer BG: The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride RG: Xenagos, God of Revels Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss WUB: Raffine, Scheming Seer WUR: Kykar, Wind's Fury WUG: Tuvasa, the Sunlit WBR: Edgar Markov WBG: Vishgraz, the Doomhive WRG: Shalai and Hallar UBR: Marchesa, the Black Rose UBG: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant URG: Magus Lucea Kane BRG: Indoraptor, the Perfect Hybrid WUBG: Atraxa, Praetor's Voice WURG: Omnath, Locus of Creation UBRG: Yidris, Maelstrom Wanderer WUBRG: The Ur-Dragon

While I found the process of building all the color combinations interesting, I ended up building a lot of dud decks just to have completed another color combination. It was a couple years after completing all the challenge that I had a bit of an epiphany that many of my favorite decks can be described as it does the this thing, but also this (and sometimes also this other thing). Too many of the challenge decks just did the one thing that the commander says it does.

From my favorite decks, for example I've got a Goreclaw deck that is a green stompy 4+ power matters, but it's also a Primal Surge deck (all permanents). My Prossh deck is jund legendary dragon tribal, but it's also devour tribal, and also has voltron package (and is not aristocrats). Ramos is colors matter, but it's also built around 'Guided Passage'.

The color combinations I struggled with were actually Golgari and Bant (and the four color as mentioned by many). Just couldn't find a commander that interested me. While four color was a challenge, I think it's easier now with more partners, but the two I play most often are heavily themed - Saskia, Angel Tribal and Elmar and Hargilde clue-storm.

My biggest issue is by the time I completed the 32 deck challenge I had over 50 decks (and now over 60...).

Regarding the issue with 4-color in Commander, imo Strixhaven was a HUGE missed opportunity to explore the 4-color design space.

When I think of students entering a magical school, they are entering with open minds waiting to be guided/shaped by their upcoming experiences during their school years. Comparing it to HP/Hogwarts, I shouldn't expect an 11-year-old kid to know their specialties or have their path already decided. So being sorted into a school in your first year depends mostly on which out of the 5 colors you're sure you're NOT. Like as an example, I enter this magical school, Strixhaven, and I'm not sure about my future. But what I do know is that I am NOT a green player. So I get put into the WUBR school, and over the next however-many years I figure out which color or colors I excel at. The Deans, as the heads, represent individuals who studied and excelled in all 4 colors to come back and guide open-minded impressionable students.

Practically, rather than confusing people by renaming the Ravnica guild color pairs, WotC could've given official names to the 4-color combos. The Deans could've been double-sided with 2 colors on each side, providing a 4-color alternative to partner that still gives you 99 deck slots that also allow you to focus on one 2-color side's strategy with access to 2 more colors, or try to work with both sides.

UBRG. I gave up and went for Yidris.

The color combinations where most commanders only strongly supports does one of two or three archetypes. I’m looking at your Orzhov commanders that support either aristocrat or lifegain. They all felt so boring. For the record, I ended up building a [[Tymna]] [[Tevesh Szat]] deck that could only play old border cards. It’s two main strategies are still lifegain and aristocrats >:(

My Gruul deck is [[durnan of the yawning portal]] with [[passionate archeologist]]. It escapes the general unga bunga pure stompiness of Gruul by being more about burn from casting spells. It also lets me play around with alternative casting methods like suspend, cascade, cascade 2 (discover), and adventure spells.

The only 4 color I have is [[saskia the unyielding]] at the head of a legendary human typal deck. She seemed fun, I don't play blue a lot, and I don't default to [[jodah]], [[kenrith]], or [[sisay].

Mine is still in progress, but the one I've had the toughest time is doing Mono Blue, I use blue in a couple of my decks as an accent color for solid interaction, but the highly combo centric play style for the color just doesn't do it for me, even tried doing sea critters.

Haven't really found many Naya commanders that speak to me, I like the Desert Daddy, Yuma. But like you, I already have a land deck with the GitGud Monster.

The ones I had most fun brewing though were for Jund with [[Maarika, Brutal Gladiator]] combat tricks, and my current build I'm working on with Esper, Sakashima/Tymna and a Ninjutsu dominant strategy (no Thoracle, Ad Naus, or Consultation).

I also brainstormed a fun Gruul combat/burn deck with [[Roxanne, Starfall Savant]] with an overly complicated and expensive infinite combat/burn combo.

I have multiple decks for each combo (didnt bother with 4 colour) but the hardest combo to want to build was selesnya. Its mostly +1 counter stuff or tokens and i just find other colour combos do the same thing more interestingly

The four color decks, and izzet were the two hardest for me by far. Some of the izzet commanders definitely look interesting but in the process of putting them together I realized I am far too much of a timmy to think that hard about how I play the game.

Hard: Jalira/Elesh Norn - while being in mono is nice because you just have to have enough lands to draw, you really see the shortcomings of each color. Their strengths hit harder but their weaknesses are really known because you don't have an auxiliary color to fall back onto. Jalira is fun and janky but her lack of ramp hurts her gameplan. More boardwipes are necessary to get the amount of land you need if you don't wanna rely on stay to keep the other colors in check. Elesh Norn can control the board with loads of boardwipes and has white protection spells to keep your wide board safe, but still suffers from ramp problems and she can't draw cards well.

Most Fun: Mono- Gonti, consistently pulling cards from other people is always fun, doing it in a monoblack shell is Supa spicy, I have overloaded a Cyclonic Rift, I have instant speed stolen someone's reanimation target out from under them, I have had no board and won games off the back of Bola's' Citadel. It's so versatile and has really cemented where I like to sit gameplaywise: midrange Control

Dual- Firesong and sunspeaker / nazgul spellslinger is super rewarding. Firesong was more unique. Nazgul was just generically better.

Tri- I have more favorites in this category. 3 colors is the perfect balance for having 2 main colors and 1 to splash to have a more focused game plan.

Least Fun: Obeka/Rubinia, she got made during covid, but with the types of effects I was running: cheat stuff out and end opponents turns. It was just kinda mean and rude, typical grixis... so it didn't stick around long. Rubinia also isn't my wheelhouse since her theme is to just steal opponents stuff. I don't jive with my opponents committing to cast stuff and I just reach across the table and take it. That's why Gonti works for me because they don't even know what I'm gonna play from them because it's off the top of their deck and they can still play interaction, but still have other cards. Taking cards straight off the board is just super rude to me.

(♦️) Kozilek (☀️) Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (💧) Jalira, Master Polymorphist (💀) Gonti / Sheoldred / Greel (🔥) Birgi/ Magda

(☀️)(💧) Kwain (☀️)(💀)Liesa / Teysa (☀️)(🔥) Firesong & Sunspeaker (☀️)(🌲) (💧)(💀) Nazgul/Umbris/N'Gathrod/ Runo/                    Vela (💧)(🔥) Melek (💧)(🌲) Verazol/Zeganna (💀)(🔥) Xantcha (💀)(🌲) Savra/Glissa

(☀️)(💧)(💀) Yennett (☀️)(💧)(🔥) Shu - Yun (☀️)(💧)(🌲) Arcades / Rubinia (💧)(💀)(🔥) Obeka (💧)(💀)(🌲) (💀)(☀️)(🔥) Kaalia 1 & 2 (💀)(☀️)(🌲) Biolante / Ghave (🔥)(☀️)(🌲) Kaust / Jared (🔥)(💧)(🌲) Xyris

(☀️)(💧)(💀)(🔥) (☀️)(💧)(💀)(🌲) (☀️)(💧)(🔥)(🌲) Kynaios & Tiro (☀️)(💀)(🔥)(🌲)

(☀️)(💧)(💀)(🔥)(🌲) Jodah/ Najeela /                                        Reaper King

Green-blue, and any decks that used those colors together sans 5 color.

Jund. Jund is boring. No matter how different you think you built it, you didn’t. It’s jund.

No green can be a breya artifact deck. No red can be atraxa. I feel like the other 2 were a struggle I haven’t solved. And I personally can’t for the life of me make a Boros deck that I enjoy

BTW, I personally enjoy my mono-white [[Lita, Mechanical Engineer]] vehicle and wrath deck.

Likewise my gruul [[Ruric Thar]] Stax deck is very enjoyable.

The 3 4c decks I’ve made so far, theme and why; Atraxa infect - popped a showcase version

Breya brothers war - bought both precons and wanted them as one deck

Omnath copies - what’s better than one omnath, only other creatures are ones that make copies

But as for the least enjoyable, I’m currently struggling with picking a golgari deck. Elves are the obvious choice but I have a Marwyn mono green elf ball and also a lotr only galadriel bant elf deck so don’t want another elf tribal

I've not heard of this little game but now I kind want to give it a try. I'd like to think I'm clever enough to find something fun each but sure I'm going to hit some sticking point for me.

Most 4C don’t have their own color identity. 5C is “everything”, but finding a commander&deck theme combination that works well in 4C is really odd.

The one you can do is [[The Fourteenth Doctor]], do a doctor tribal, maybe try to pull off [[Gallifrey Stands]]. That’s the only 4C one I am even remotely tempted to try to pull off

Atraxa&Aragorn are the other two, but I find 14 more interesting to build than Aragorn (who is very open ended, and feels like I’d be stuck in 4C good stuff), and both Atraxas already see play in my playgroup

Currently working through mine with 11 left to go. Pretty much all of it comes down to the commanders that are available

I’ve specifically avoided the 4 colors aside from the non-black one because of the lack of commanders. With every successive product/set, I’m hoping that we just randomly get an interesting new commander because the 2016 ones aren’t cutting it for me.

Gruul was a sticking point until [[Yarus]] came out, likewise with Grixis and [[Don Andres]]. Jund and Temur are still up in the air because I want to do something interesting, but just haven’t found the right commander.

I did it before Strixhaven and making a Boros deck NOW is way easier than it was then.

I first built Depala but there wasn't enough vehicle support (at the time)

Then some kind of eggs gerrard but it got hated on pretty hard

Then i built winota and she was too strong.

I felt like i could never get it right. Anyway the boros options are way better now.

With each of the four color decks I chose themes that really necessitated the four colors to be playable: As such my four that I made were WUBR Backgrounds whose gimmick is that having two commanders doubles up backgrounds and backgrounds are across all the colors so I excluded green cause it had some of the least interesting options imo. UBRG Mutate which has little support and as such would require atleast 3 colors to work. This ones a little jank but I still kinda like it. BRGW Multicolored Go-Wide which is a bunch of multicolored payoffs as the engine; plus having two multicolored spells in the command zone helps with the theme. RGWU Omnath Caves which I made to try and not do Omnath things (but that it still kinda does anyways). And lastly, GWUB Turbo Initiative which will loop and recur Initiative creatures for a lot of value. Generally with the four color stuff, choosing like a theme that you could play in five colors and then just cutting one of the colors is my main advice. The main problem obviously is that the commander won’t particularly synergize with the deck particularly well but if you’re willing to play some jank it’s fine.

I do think the hardest for me was colorless. I did not want to build artifact pile or just eldrazi pile so I struggled for a while. Ultimately I went with a Traxos Equipment deck which is pretty fun if a little straightforward in gameplay

The 4 color decks are miserable to me

Finished mine pretty recently and did a little write up regarding each deck if you want to check my history. Gruul have me issues as nothing really sparked interest, trying [[Agatha of the Vile Cauldron]] atm. I was worried about mono white but tried [[Preston, the Vanisher]] as a reanimate deck and it’s one of my favorites. I do also wish 4c had more options, struggled with blueless and white less

The reason there are few good 4 colour commander is they deliberately don’t want to make them, which is a good thing.

strange that you don’t like mono white or gruul, bc those were two of my favorites to build. i went with delney from mkm and went crazy having what is essentially a 3 mana panharmonicon if you build it right, and did roxanne from otj for gruul which is also a blast

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/spAg66TKM06XggDaHJlrXA

I heard you’re not a fan of good stuff piles so I have an example…

You know what? I disagree with white being boring. Angels are awesome just run a giada deck. Here’s mine https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zdBYtfvujkS5q5u-m2jEGg

I’ve done all but Dune, Glint, and Yore. Mainly the commanders just didn’t interest me other than Saskia. As for the other color combinations, Izzet and Orzhov took the longest to find something I liked, I’m still just not into my Orzhov decks really. Eriette was my choice but now she’s Esper, and I’m working on a King of the Oathbreakers deck to fill that slot. Burakos and Folk Hero will be my backup if that one doesn’t pan out. As for Izzet, I’ve got a fun Ghyrson Starn build, and Bria Riptide Rogue from Bloomburrow looks like another I might make. I’m quite happy with the rest of my decks, around 80 or so, Gruul and Rakdos heavy in overall numbers, but a couple of each other than Orzhov and Izzet.

I built a [[Rosheen]] Gruul X spells deck. It's got some Hydras and several "Deal X damage" red cards like [[Banefire]] or [[Burn from Within]]. The list could probably be refined with better, newer options, like [[Storm King's Thunder]] or [[Crackle with Power]], but I enjoy the spellslingy aspect of it over stompy Hydras only.

I am almost done with mine. Green was hard because every thing sums up to stompy, counters, tokens or typal decks and I had plenty of those already and I was hoping to play something different. Grixis was also a pain because I already had 3 spellslinger decks and most of the other commanders in those colors are unappealing to me (gameplay wise). Amd lastly 4 colors... can we get more 4 color commanders please, I don't want to do partners!

If you had made this post early last year, I would have said Abzan, no doubt. But I've been running Frodo & Sam and it literally became one of my favorite decks.

For me, it was the four color pairings. Mtyere are few commanders for those pairings, outside of partners, and most have very clear building strategies that don@6 leave a lot of room for for creativity.

For minus red, I built [[Atraxa, Predators Voice]] as Sapring tribal.

Luckily they came out with [[Aragorn, The Unifier]], making minus black more interesting. I built mine as charm Spellslinger.

For minus green I built an equipment deck around [[Silas Renn]] and [[Akiri Line-Slinger]].

for minus blue, They build [[Ikra]] and [[Bruse Tarl]] around doubling combat and attack triggers. It is my least favorite deck.

For minus white, I went Spellslinger with [[Kydele]] and [[Vialsmasher, The Fierce]].

Besides the 4 Color stuff. I have been having a hard time finding an effective commander for Temur (RUG), Jund (RBG), and Bant (WUG). I originally had a [[Borborygmos and Fblthp]] But it didn't function the way I wanted. And i've had a lot of trouble finding a commander I enjoy in those colors. I'm in the process of making [[Kellan the Kid]] for Bant, and was recently suggested [[Riku of Many Paths]] for Temur. Still struggling to find a Jund commander I enjoy, a lot of them have always felt pretty samey to me.

I felt that bant and abzan were the least fun for me, and my creativity sort of stifled after the first dozen decks. Decks just became “I attack, I draw cards, I play interaction” with mostly efficient cards in my colors, and less synergy.

I think making 32 CASUAL decks that are highly synergistic would be incredibly challenging yet rewarding.

So I did an extra challenge, with no 2 commanders allowed to be from the same set, and so that made more 3 color decks really hard than any other. I'll admit I haven't committed to a Dune-Brood or a Yore-Tiller deck yet, but the other 3 4 colors are just Omnath lands, New Atraxa Blink+poison, and Glint-Eye takes the concept of the Game Knights Fan episode deck "Anything you can do I can do better" but theft instead of clones

I started the challenge, but ended up never finishing any four color decks besides Breya, in addition to never getting around to simic, rakdos, mono black, mono red, or gruul. I’m pretty uninterested in red in general. Idk I just found many of the design spaces limited or dull. I have the best time finding niche interactions within selesnya, dimir, golgari, orzhov, and mono white. Wotc has thrown mono white so many nice token payoffs lately so I lean into that. Darien, king of kjeldor is my favorite deck, but I’ve always liked mono white. I really didn’t pay attention to jeskai until Optimus prime came out. Made him my equipment deck, eliminating my need for a boros deck. I like having the option to remove everything and rakdos/mono black can’t provide that, their still interesting in their own ways, but not too me. Closest I came to building mono black was king Midas and his gold touch to contrast Darien. Four color is boring in my eyes, I only use Breya for color-identity in my cedh deck that I switched over from Kess. 5 color is just Ur-dragon, Sliver Overlord, so nothin too crazy. Mono colors are the most creatively fun to build though.

I haven't attempted the challenge (I need to build my tenth rakdos deck you feel me) but I have a pretty Good Idea of what deck I'd play for each color combination and none sounds "miserable" to me, the issue is more that a lot of (if not every) 4 color decks would devolve into partner Good stuff piles without a lot of identity.

The 4-color Commander, as obvious as it is. I've already got [[Aragorn the Uniter]] built, and I have an idea for [[Atraxa, Praetors' Voice]]. I'm also planning on using Rule 0 to use a Nephilim for another one, most likely going to be [[Glint-Eye]] with a Mutate theme, with [[Yidris]] as backup for those who don't want to have any fun.

Other than that, I'm stumped on how to do Off-Blue and Off-Green. I already have way too many Artifact decks to want to build [[Breya]], and [[Saskia]] doesn't really appeal to me.

For 4 color can I recommend yidris with living end and your favorite 40 cycling creatures? It's p fun great deck to play when I wanna turn my brain off

My friend said 4 color was hard

I am on a journey the same as you and well I have some colors that struggle with. Like you I did enjoy the challenge cause in the same way I have to challenge my thinking and experience going way outside how I like to play in general. I have also found that I love tribals cause it can balance out the decks quite a lot.

Mono white, black and red. It is not that I can't build anything but I have a hard time building something I find interesting and not something that everyone one else builds. Goblin deck for example. I asked here a while ago and got some good ideas. Phyrexian monowhite tribal is one example. Ninjutusu lononlack rat tribal.

Dual Black/White It has a lot of options but somehow I can not find something that makes me thrilled and inspired.

The 4 color decks are a challenge mostly cause you either need partners or that there is limited 4 colored commanders in some combinations.

These are my challenges with the 32 card building journey :) But it is fun!

To respond to your post Gruul I found Wort really interesting option. It plays a little different than a typical gruul deck and you can do some fun stuff with it

I'm still working on my 34, but I'm waiting for new more unique commanders, especially for the 4 color. Grixis has been the most challenging because Grixis commanders are either tribal, goodstuff, or just not very good. I've built Marsil, The Pretender but he's not very good so ill probably replace him at some point.

I've done it almost twice over at this point and there are two that gave me just the absolute most difficulty:

URBG & Selesnya

My biggest issue was I prefer to do things that aren't as typical for the colors/commander. For UBRG, I tried Win/Lose the game effects, I tried -1/-1 counters, Sagas, Backgrounds, Wizards, Shaman, Clones, each and every one of them just didn't play well or was boring. I finally ended on Reanimator using [[Yidris]] to cascade into [[Living End]]

Selesnya on the other hand, everything felt uninspired and I swear every deck does the same boring things. Tokens, Lifegain, Counters, Enchantments. I've seen all of them so many times and it was dull to me. It wasn't until [[Samwise Gamgee]] that I finally got something interesting in Historics and Artifact Synergies, yes he makes tokens and they can be used to gain life, but I opt to use them with [[Clock of Omens]] to untap [[Guilded Lotus]], [[The One Ring]] or other artifacts to push through a lot of value.

I’m at 29/32. I have more than 29 decks, some colors with more than one, but 29 color identities of 32 so far, missing only Orzhov, Yore (greenless), and Dune (blueless). Sultai didn’t turn out well at all, I tried a Turtle tribal with Archelos and that just wasn’t it. So I really only count that I have 28/32, I need a new Sultai deck. My Esper deck and Abzan deck are also rule 0 commander partners, so I’m fine if you count me at 26.

Whatever number you count me at, you and I are deckbuilding opposites lol.

White is one of my favorites. [[Ardenn]] and [[Rebbec]], it’s fast, it’s reliable every time, and it’s a ton of fun. There are no tutors, so you just basically have fun seeing what you draw into and knowing whatever it is will be fun to cast. But that’s if you like Voltron.

I also really like my gruul enrage/fight deck. It’s nothing special, but it’s fun haha. But that’s if you like big stompy.

I wish we had more options for more variety, but Atraxa was my third or fourth commander I built and I will always have a special place in my heart for her. Built her as poison as one should, specifically because my buddy hated the one infect card I had in my lifegain deck. So I built Atraxa lol.

Four-color Omnath is one of my strongest decks and one of the more fun ones to play, but it needs a lot of tuning. It’s fresh out of the decklist, I never modified it and it shows, but it’s fun.

Yidris is maybe my overall favorite deck? I never play it because it’s too OP for my group by a lot, but it’s the definition of “good stuff.” Ah, what shall I cascade into today? My my, it’s a [[Sorin Markov]]!

The ones I struggle with are sacrifice-based. I’m a terrible Jedi, I can’t let go of my attachments at all, I don’t want to sacrifice, discard, mill, pay life, I suck at all of those things. I’ve tried to build decks specifically for fighting those instincts, like my new Sharknado [[Shabraz]][[Skyshark Rider]] deck, or my forthcoming [[Xavier Sal]] Ooze tribal deck. My mono-R and Rakdos decks are awful because I don’t know how to build that theme hahaha. But I’m working on it!

I'm doing this challenge right now and Bant has been a challenge just because I already have a lot of Bant themes represented in my other decks.

Gruul was kinda boring but I'm happy with my Omnath ramp deck with [[Hurricane]] [[Earthquake]] and the other x-finishers.

I hummed and hawed about mono white for a while but Odric keyword soup is a blast and avoids all of white's worst traits.

Most fun for me to build was azorius and mono red

I have an Etali, Primal Conqueror gruul deck (first self made deck btw) and its loads of fun. I run alot of red "copy of creature" spells (to copy etali for another trigger) and high cmc stuff like eldrazi's and insurrection. Its always fun because you have no idea what youre gonna get.  (I dont run top deck manipulation, you could tho)