Márton StromgaldMárton Stromgald by Mark Poole

It's time to announce the finalists for June'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 June's deckbuilding contest the prompt was as follows: Brew a creative and interesting commander-legal deck featuring a commander originally printed in 2010 or earlier. This means any set up to and including Scars of Mirrodin. This should be an innovative, novel, and attention-getting take on a deck using an older commander as part of its strategy or theme.

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, June 24, 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 nearly thousand decks entered, so here they are presented in no particular order. Follow the link in each deck list to vote on your favorite!

Arcum vehicles tutor by M4THI3U

Let's start with M4THI3U's list clearly labeled as "Arcum vehicles tutor," a deck headed by Arcum DagssonArcum Dagsson and themed around vehicles.

Vehicles are an artifact type first introduced back in Kaladesh in the fall of 2016. They popped up in the next set in the block, Aether Revolt, and again in the Ixalan block as well as the stand-alone Dominaria set before becoming deciduous. Simply put, vehicles are artifacts that don't become creatures until crewed by tapping a creature or creatures whose power equals exceeds the artifact's crew cost, and then they return to being a non-creature artifact at the end of the turn.

Despite being a relatively new mechanic, there are 187 legal vehicles in EDH, and legendary versions can even be your commander as of the rules update in June of 2025.

First off, let me make a note that applies to this deck, but is also going to be true of multiple brews in recent months; we have been very forgiving regarding picking finalists with meager deck descriptions, but moving forward we're going to be a lot harsher. Every month this contest gets larger, which as Marlo says in The Wire "sounds like one of those good problems" but it also makes digging through entries more and more time consuming. Moving forward, if you don't have a decent description, we're going to find ourselves a lot less willing to try to connect those dots ourselves.

That said, the game plan here is fairly simple; Arcum DagssonArcum Dagsson can sacrifice an artifact creature to tutor up a non-creature artifact. Traditionally this has been used in EDH to fetch out combo pieces, but M4THI3U did something much more interesting; he built an Arcum list that centers around fetching up vehicles, an artifact type that didn't exist when Coldsnap was released in 2006.

And while vehicles can become creatures when crewed, they aren't natively creatures, so they can be fetched with the commander's activated ability. The list is filled with small, inexpensive, expendable utility bodies that can then be turned into much more useful vehicles, and those same creatures when not sacrificed can go on to crew those vehicles. It's simple and elegant and a great way to use an old commander in a modern way.

Many of the vehicles also make their own tokens to provide further sacrifice fodder and function as added pilots, cards like CybershipCybership, Mechtitan CoreMechtitan Core and Thunderhawk GunshipThunderhawk Gunship, but the deck obviously needs fuel to get those vehicles if they aren't in hand. That's where cards like Thopter Spy NetworkThopter Spy Network, Thopter FabricatorThopter Fabricator, and Efficient ConstructionEfficient Construction come into play.

The deck has a bit of recursion in the form of lands like Academy RuinsAcademy Ruins and Buried RuinBuried Ruin as well as bodies like Myr RetrieverMyr Retriever, and a handful of clone effects like Phyrexian MetamorphPhyrexian Metamorph to duplicate the best vehicles. That coupled with a deep draw package will keep the deck from running low on gas, metaphorically and not so metaphorically speaking.

My final favorite inclusion here would have to be Mirran Spy, a creature that untaps target creature whenever you cast an artifact. This allows for repeated uses of Arcuum, but it can also be used to free up bodies to crew vehicles.

Last, there's a hefty removal package running cards like All Is DustAll Is Dust that will skip over a good portion of this deck's board.

Here-Lies White Dragons by ryankgress

Next up we have ryankgress's Here-Lies White Dragons deck, a Rashida ScalebaneRashida Scalebane list built around using Rashida to destroy their own dragons, generally to generate a death trigger, and then recast them using white's reanimation suite.

The Mirage set where Rashida first appeared was released in November of 1996, and at that time not only was Commander not a format, but there was only a single mono-white dragon in the game: namely Elder Land WurmElder Land Wurm from Legends. There were only a couple dragons period at the time regardless of color. Even today, there are only 23 mono-white bodies that are legal in Commander, and most are not very good. Ancient Gold DragonAncient Gold Dragon is by far the most popular of the bunch, and even that is in barely more than 71k decks.

It's worth noting as well that while dragons are the most popular creature type to build decks around, Rashida remains the least popular commander to lead a dragon deck, ranked 3,053 with just over 100 decks on EDHREC.

Brewer ryankgress has provided us with a detailed description of his brew, so I'll use their words to describe it:

"The primary goal of this deck is to use Rashida's ability to destroy our dragons as they attack or block, capitalize on the impressive life-gain with payoffs like Nykthos ParagonNykthos Paragon and SunbondSunbond, then watch as they return to the battlefield to fight by our side. We can return our tributes to the field in a variety of ways, with a package of cards like Brought BackBrought Back and Gift of ImmortalityGift of Immortality, a handful of ways to make them indestructible like Kindred BoonKindred Boon or Fight as OneFight as One, or even dragons that excel at returning themselves, like Eternal DragonEternal Dragon and Timeless DragonTimeless Dragon. In this way, we can constantly capitalize on the life gain and their payoffs, as well as some truly devilish ETB and LTB effects."

"With 14+ cards that help return our tributes to the battlefield, this deck is also quite resilient, bouncing back from board wipes and other forms of removal remarkably well. And with a higher mana curve (paired with some quality ramp), we can stay under the radar just long enough to get the pieces assembled. This deck is very fun to pilot, and gives a chance to play some criminally-underplayed bangers like Tatsumasa, the Dragon's FangTatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang and Magus of the MoatMagus of the Moat. Give it a try yourself, and let me know what you think!"

The deck has quite a few artifacts, many of which are ramp pieces, but quite a few are powerful utility enablers. Thousand-Year ElixirThousand-Year Elixir lets you use Rashida's ability immediately, and a second time in a single turn, and Dragon's HoardDragon's Hoard and Dragonstorm GlobeDragonstorm Globe let you draw cards and buff your flying lizards, respectively. Gerrard's Hourglass PendantGerrard's Hourglass Pendant is a solid recursion piece as well, and there's protection for Rashida in the form of Darksteel PlateDarksteel Plate and Swiftfoot BootsSwiftfoot Boots.

Probably the best recursion engine here is Celestine, the Living SaintCelestine, the Living Saint, a legendary human whose triggered ability passively brings back a creature at the end of each turn.

Tibor and Lumia Know How To Win In Blue by walruscustard

This Tibor and LumiaTibor and Lumia brew by walruscustard is built almost entirely around the least impactful thing one can do in Magic; change the color words on a card. These human wizards from the original Ravnica block give a creature flying when you cast a blue spell, and deal 1 damage to each creature without flying when you cast a red spell. When this deck is built (which is infrequently; it has a mere 549 decks on EDHREC) it's often built with ways to give T & R deathtouch to ping the board out. Here walruscustard has built it as a mono-blue list that can hack the commander's text box so you get double triggers off every blue spell.

There are seven different cards in the list that let you alter the word red to blue in the commander's text box, most of which are fairly cheap to cast, many of which are old enough to vote.

You need a plan beyond just hacking the commander, though, and the deck has one. It's filled with efficient draw and interaction spells to generate plenty of triggers, and those triggers generate value beyond just pinging non-fliers. There's Archmage EmeritusArchmage Emeritus and a few similar effects to draw cards, Talrand, Sky SummonerTalrand, Sky Summoner and friends to make bodies, and cards like Archetype of ImaginationArchetype of Imagination and Polymorphist's JestPolymorphist's Jest to knock fliers down to the ground to get pinged.

The whole plan is protected by countermagic and artifacts that protect T & R so they can do their wizardly things.

So what happens if you have multiple hack effects in hand after you've already "fixed" Tibor and Lumia? Well there's other things here to hack. DouseDouse can be tweaked to work as a counter for whatever color you most need to counter, and King CrabKing Crab can be similarly tweaked to allow you to interact with whatever creature you need to interact with.

Finally, there's CharismaCharisma as the coup de grâce, because stealing all those creatures on the ground is better than just killing them.

So there you have it, our finalists for the June 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, June 24th, 2026.