There's been a lot of drama recently in the Commander format. I wrote about the bans before the format officially changed hands, but a lot has happened since. I am cautiously optimistic about the proposed four-tier system — it has exactly four tiers (I'm a fan) and it seems to align with my playing preferences — but I don't want to speculate too much at this point.
Instead, I want to talk about how I build Commander decks today. This will focus on my philosophy in deck building, not my technical approach.
Inspiration can come from anywhere, though it usually manifests as one of two questions:
That looks like a cool commander, can I build a deck around it?
That looks like a cool theme/combo, can I find a commander that fits it?
For an example of a commander I consider cool, check out Braids, Conjurer Adept. Her unique ability accelerates the entire table, but there are ways to make her ability asymmetric, which allows you to get some big stuff into play ahead of schedule.
For an example of a combo I consider cool, check out Acererak the Archlich. If you're careful, you can repeatedly recast him from your hand to venture into the dungeon over and over. There are a lot of fun synergies in green (Goreclaw makes Acererak cheap) and red (Warstorm Surge makes Acererak a direct threat), so a commander like Darigaaz Reincarnated fits.
For an example of a theme I consider cool, check out these popular cascade cards. Casting two spells for one is fun, and the surprise of a shuffled deck even more so. There are lots of great commanders for a cascade theme: I've built Maelstrom Wanderer, Gandalf, Westward Voyager, and most recently Jodah, the Unifier.
One of the reasons I like Commander decks is the focus on variance. With 60+ unique non-lands in each deck, even a solitaire game plays out differently every time. In fact, I tend to lean into variance even more than usual: one of my favorite cards is Winota, Joiner of Forces. Her ability is extremely powerful if it works, but it doesn't work every time, which is part of the fun for me. Sometimes I call this type of variance "spinning the wheel" — think of a Wheel of Fortune or Price is Right wheel, where you give it a big spin and see what happens.
Of course, there are many ways to work against variance. Not every card in the deck will do something totally unique; for example, people play both Swords and Path in a lot of white decks, giving you two chances to draw creature removal instead of just one. Simply playing more card draw has a similar effect: the more cards you draw, the more likely you are to have the one you need at any given time. You could play tutors, but I tend to leave them out unless I have a strong reason. Tutors undercut variance too much for me to enjoy, not to mention they take a long time to resolve, requiring finding the right card as well as shuffling your deck.
In fact, tutors are one of a few types of cards that I don't play unless I have a strong reason. Stax pieces, i.e. cards that prevent certain game actions like Drannith Magistrate or Rule of Law, can be strategically interesting, but I don't prefer the slower games they lead to. Other cards lead to slower games not through resource denial per se, but through excessive communication: cards like Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe make you ask "Do you pay the tax?" after every spell cast or card draw, and I find this exhausting no matter if I am benefitting or not.
I'm not saying I never put tutors or stax pieces into decks. In fact, my current Abdel Adrian deck has both: a Moon-Blessed Cleric that can tutor out a win condition, and a Tax Collector that makes my opponents' spells cost more. But these cards are not the strongest versions of their effects (see Enlightened Tutor or GAAIV), and they fit uniquely well as creatures in a creature-based deck, which makes me happy.
My favorite cards are ones that fit well in this deck, but not anywhere else. I have a Gishath, Sun's Avatar deck that includes about 30 different dinosaurs. Now, some of those dinosaurs would be much less powerful outside of a dinosaur deck (e.g. Earthshaker Dreadmaw), but that's pretty obvious and not very satisfying from a deck building perspective. Consider instead a card like Penance which can put dinosaurs from your hand back on top of your deck in response to Gishath's ability. That's interesting to me.
Many of my decks have at least one card that is strong for my commander, mediocre or useless for most others, and (usually) very cheap to purchase, which is even more satisfying. Braids loves Vanishing. Winota loves Lena. Gisa loves Glasses of Urza. Seriously, let me know if you can think of a better use for Glasses of Urza!
After that, I look through cards I already own that could fit in the deck. There's a certain kind of satisfaction in digging a card out of storage to slot into a deck. Sometimes those cards came from booster packs, or speculative purchases, or previous decks. Aura Mutation was simply a removal spell in an old deck of mine, but it fits great in Cadira because it makes tokens. Ral, Crackling Wit was a lucky pull from a Bloomburrow pack and fits great inside my Mizzix deck.
You do have to eat your vegetables in order to build a successful deck. It's very easy to leave lands, removal, ramp, and card draw until the end and then struggle to fit everything in. I try to include cards that are related thematically, whether artistically or mechanically—my Gwaihir birds deck includes a Dazzling Denial, for example—but that can only get you so far. Most of my decks have multiple ways to remove creatures, multiple ways to remove artifacts and enchantments, 1-2 board wipes, and a couple of ramp cards.*
If you're like me, you will have a lot of possible inclusions and you'll need to cut down to precisely 100 cards. I frequently struggle here, in part because I enjoy the variance of a large deck. I don't have an exact formula for this process, but I often start by cutting high mana value cards as well as weak cards, even if they fit thematically. If I have enough cards in my collection for a rough 100-card list without buying new cards, I'll do that to get playing with the deck sooner to make sure I enjoy it.
Playing the deck once or twice in person is the best way to figure out how it feels to play and what types of effects should be included. My Six deck originally included a lot of spells that seemed to thematically fit with lands and graveyard stuff, like Roiling Regrowth and Mulch, but it only took a couple plays to notice that the deck needed more permanents. I swapped out the instants and sorceries for cards like Springbloom Druid and Satyr Wayfinder, and the deck runs much smoother.
* I'm down on ramp cards these days—I'd rather run a 2-drop creature than play a 2-cost ramp spell in most of my decks—but Arcane Signet and Sol Ring are hard to pass on, and plenty of decks need to cast big spells to keep up. I am not claiming to be correct here, just opinionated!
Sometimes the length of time from inspiration to deck list is very short. I think I made a Delina list in a weekend, though it went through many changes afterwards. Sometimes I stop at every station along the way: see a cool card, find enjoyable thematic pieces, search for unique effects, add in removal, cut down to 100 cards, purchase, build, playtest... Cadira took a long time to build (in part because Bloomburrow didn't exist yet) and her deck has also changed a lot since. But I love the deck building process no matter if it's fast or slow, and playing the perfect card in a real Commander game is one of the most rewarding feelings in all of Magic.