Atraxa, Praetors' VoiceAtraxa, Praetors' Voice by Victor Adame Minguez

It's time to announce the finalists for April's Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest!

In case you missed the announcement post, this is a monthly contest with a different theme each month. Your goal is to build a Commander-legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion. At the end of each month, three finalists will be selected for you to vote on. Whoever gets the most votes will be crowned the winner, although all three finalists receive a prize.

For April's deckbuilding contest the prompt was as follows: Build a unique, different take on a Commander-legal deck around a keyword or ability word. This should be an innovative, novel, and non-typical take on a deck where a keyword or ability word is featured prominently as part of the deck's strategy and makeup.

We collected submissions from the Archidekt newspost and evaluated them based on their creativity and originality.

Now, it's your turn to decide who'll be crowned the winner.

Read about each deck list below, then visit your favorite and upvote them on Archidekt. Whoever has the most upvotes by Wednesday, April 22, 2026 will be the winner, and receive $250 credit to cardsphere.com.

Second and third place will receive $150 and $100 cardsphere.com credits, respectively.

After much deliberation we chose three finalists from among the almost a thousand decks entered, so here they are presented in no particular order. Follow the link in each deck list to vote on your favorite!

Modular by mlzr

Let's start with mlzr's list simply titled Modular, a deck led by Shalai and HallarShalai and Hallar based around the modular mechanic. Modular first showed up back in the Darksteel and Fifth Dawn sets, and it was revisited in both Modern Horizons 3 and Transformers.

Modular is a mechanic where an artifact creature enters with some amount of +1/+1 counters on it determined by the modular number. Then when that creature dies, those counters can be moved to another artifact creature.

Several variants on a "fixed" versions of modular have shown up over the years, either not requiring an artifact creature as the target of the counters as in the case of Iron ApprenticeIron Apprentice or with the counters being moved as a leaves the battlefield trigger instead of a death trigger like with Hei Bai, Spirit of BalanceHei Bai, Spirit of Balance.

One of the things that stood out about this list was the clean path to victory; the deck has a win condition right there in the command zone given that Shalai and Hallar deal damage to target opponent whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put onto a creature you control. Coupled with any kind of sac outlet like Arcbound RavagerArcbound Ravager and you can chain sacrifice modular creatures and deal damage to your opponents, with each subsequent creature dealing more than the one before it.

Sacrificing a creature with five counters on it deals five damage, and those counters move over to another creature that already had five counters, so when it is sacrificed it deals ten damage, and those counters move, and so on and so forth.

The deck is running 20 different modular spells, but access to the color green really pushes the game plan ahead thanks to the color's preponderance of counter-booster cards. Being able to double the counters on each creature every time it attacks with Kalonian HydraKalonian Hydra is backbreaking, and things like OuroboroidOuroboroid and Loading ZoneLoading Zone also keeps the line moving up.

Lands like Drannith RuinsDrannith Ruins and Gavony TownshipGavony Township have little opportunity cost even if never used, and they can also help put the first counters on things like Shalai and Hallar and Ouroboroid to start rolling those upward. That's also important to help dodge one-sided sweepers like Damning VerdictDamning Verdict.

Kodama of the West TreeKodama of the West Tree does double duty as a ramp spell, and to help punch damage through by granting all your modified creatures trample should combat damage become necessary, and the deck has plenty of ramp and protection, including anti-blue tech like Red Elemental BlastRed Elemental Blast and PyroblastPyroblast.

Stuck on Repeat by ifnjeff

Next up we have ifnjeff's Stuck on Repeat deck, a Sami, Wildcat CaptainSami, Wildcat Captain list built heavily around the buyback mechanic. Buyback was first printed in the Tempest block, and several cards were later printed in Time Spiral as well as Modern Horizons.

Mechanically, buyback lets you pay an optional additional cost to return the spell to your hand after it resolves instead of sending it to the graveyard.

Constant MistsConstant Mists remains the most popular card with buyback, showing up in 60,000 decks in the EDHREC database. It's followed by ReiterateReiterate and ClockspinningClockspinning.

Archidekt user ifnjeff has really taken advantage of the new primer feature on the Archidekt, writing up a detailed description of just how this brew works, and I'll just quote them here:

"Spellslinger decks are often stretched thin between spells to cast, card draw to replenish them, ramp to pay for them, and payoffs to make it worthwhile. Buyback is a keyword that can return a spell to hand when it resolves, distilling the entire spell/draw requirement into a handful of cards that we need find only one of. This means we can sling spells indefinitely with a deck full of ramp and payoffs. Every bit of cost reduction we can get multiplies the number of spells we can cast, so Affinity is an incredible supporting synergy."

You'll play a handful of artifacts, and each of those artifacts will reduce the cost of the spell you're casting, including the optional buyback cost. So for example, a card like Seething AngerSeething Anger costs to cast and has a buyback of , as long as there are three artifacts in play you can cast it and buy it back for a single red mana.

There are several ways in the deck to turn this storm of spells into a win condition.

First, cards like GuttersnipeGuttersnipe and Sentinel TowerSentinel Tower deal damage whenever you cast a spell. Then there are cards like Monastery MentorMonastery Mentor and Akroan ConscriptorAkroan Conscriptor that will make you a token creature every single time you target them with a spell like Haze of RageHaze of Rage.

Finally, creatures like Anax and CymedeAnax and Cymede will buff your entire board whenever targeted, and there's a lot of ways in this deck to target them and then buy it back for a single mana.

It's Giving Lifelink by Recumen

Recumen's entry features a commander so new and fresh it hasn't even been officially released yet, in the form of Killian, Decisive MentorKillian, Decisive Mentor. This brew is built around lifelink, a keyword ability introduced back in Future Sight, though non-keyword variants on the mechanic have existed since as far back as El-HajjâjEl-Hajjâj in Alpha.

Lifelink causes the controller of a damage source to gain that much life, and lots of decks over the years have been built to take advantage of this. Recumen's list is a bit different, however, in that it's built around giving lifelink to your opponents' creatures. Why would one do that, you ask?

Because this deck turns gaining life into damage.

False CureFalse Cure, Plague DronePlague Drone, and Tainted RemedyTainted Remedy all cause your opponents who gain life to instead lose it, and the deck has a handful of ways to find these cards, like Demonic TutorDemonic Tutor and Enlightened TutorEnlightened Tutor.

Similarly, these search effects can find the lifelink enablers, like Celestial MantleCelestial Mantle and Eternal ThirstEternal Thirst, that force your opponents to gain (or rather lose) life.

So what's to keep your opponents from just not attacking with their lifelink'd creatures in a situation where doing so would cause them to take damage?

Killian.

Thanks to Killian's goading ability, your opponents don't have a choice to not attack. And not only is it goaded, but it draws the pilot a card when it swings. That attack will inevitably gain life and that life will become damage, and so on and so forth.

There are backup plans and safety valves here, too. Pillowfort effects like Sphere of SafetySphere of Safety, Ghostly PrisonGhostly Prison, and Koskun FallsKoskun Falls also make the pilot hard to attack, and there's recursion aplenty to get back the Auras and things like Tainted RemedyTainted Remedy should they get removed.

So there you have it, our finalists for the April 2026 Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest.

Which is your favorite? Follow the links in the headers of each section to visit the deck pages and vote for the one you think should win!

The final rankings based on your votes will be announced on Wednesday, April 22th, 2026.