Jandor, Fortuned TravelerJandor, Fortuned Traveler | Art by Justin Gerard

It's time to announce the finalists for August'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 August's deckbuilding contest the prompt was as follows: Brew a creative and interesting Commander-legal deck using a legal non-reprint commander from the just-previewed Mystery Booster Commander Edition set. This should be an innovative, novel, and attention-getting take on a deck using one of these new commanders 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 will be crowned this month's winner.

Read about each deck list below, then visit your favorite and upvote them on Archidekt. Whoever has the most upvotes by Wednesday, August 26, 2026 will be the winner, and will 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 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!

One final note before we begin: with last month's contest we had announced we were going to be more discerning regarding decks having more detailed descriptions, and the vast majority of you continued to absolutely knock it out of the park with your descriptions. It made looking through these lists so much easier for our team, and we appreciate you all for that.

The Vortex Gang by zuio

First up by random selection is zuio's The Muckslinger GangThe Muckslinger Gang list built around a clever exploit with the card Monstrous VortexMonstrous Vortex.

Monstrous Vortex is an enchantment from Modern Horizons 3 that reads "Whenever you cast a creature spell with power 5 or greater, discover X, where X is that spell’s mana value." Discover is an ability that lets you exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with that mana value or less, at which point you can cast it without paying its mana cost or put it into your hand.

How this would normally work is you would cast a creature spell with, for example, six power. You would then discover until you hit a spell with mana value less or equal to six. The best case scenario is obviously hitting a creature spell with mana value six, which if it had power five or greater would let you discover again, and maybe if you're really lucky hit another to get one more discover. However, much more realistically you'd more than likely just get one random spell off the original cast because reasonable deck construction just doesn't let you stack enough spells to allow a massive chain.

The Muckslinger Gang changes all that math by virtue of giving each other creature you control +3/+3 as long as it is not attacking or blocking. This even applies to creature spells you control and creature cards you own in any zone other than the battlefield or stack — they also get the buff.

This means that almost all creatures you cast will trigger Monstrous Vortex thanks to the buff it provides, which will then discover to more than likely hit a creature with a lesser mana value. This spell will get cast, but thanks to the commander it will have a higher power to trigger Vortex again. The Muckslinger Gang basically enables a weird mix of high power and low mana value creatures that allow Vortex chains that kind of can't exist anywhere else, and might conceivably let a single creature cast put dozens of creatures into play and generate dozens of cast triggers.

From zuio's opening description:

"This The Muckslinger Gang/Monstrous Vortex combo deck loops two drops to oneshot the rest of the table with haste. Archidekt estimates Bracket 2, but it is a Bracket 3 deck because it tries to win by turn 6 and plays a two card infinite combo."

The game plan here is simple: ramp out the commander and tutor up Monstrous Vortex, then play a two-drop which plays all the two-drops, and win by giving them all haste.

Seven different tutors make finding Monstrous Vortex simple, and the deck is filled with two-mana mana dorks that serve to speed out the game plan while also counting as two-drops that can be chained into play with discover triggers.

Cards like Toxic DelugeToxic Deluge can help clear the board early if someone races ahead, and it also can be cast for zero life if need be if hit off a Monstrous Vortex to not lose everything. There are also cards like Viridian ZealotViridian Zealot that can deal with a PropagandaPropaganda-type effect when it comes down, and ways to recur Vortex if it gets destroyed or milled.

Last, the deck has backup plans with alternate win conditions in the form of Bristly Bill, Spine SowerBristly Bill, Spine Sower, Sarkhan's UnsealingSarkhan's Unsealing and Become the AvalancheBecome the Avalanche.

And YOU get a wall! by PlagueScholar

Next up we have PlagueScholar's 'And YOU get a wall!' list built around Elda, Conjurer of SpectacleElda, Conjurer of Spectacle.

Demonstrate is a keyword ability that first appeared back in Commander 2021. It lets you copy a spell when you cast it, and if you do, an opponent of your choice then copies it as well. In theory, this is a political card, where it's generally assumed you'll let an opponent copy the spell in exchange for using the copy in a way that is mutually beneficial.

That's not what PlagueScholar is doing here, however. No, in this case they're copying Walls and creatures with defender while playing a deck that is built to ignore the restrictions placed on those creatures, knowing that their opponent will not be able to do the same.

I'll let PlagueScholar explain their plan:

"I love the demonstrate mechanic because of all of the political and group-hug shenanigans you can get up to. So of course, I wanted to build Elda, Conjurer of SpectacleElda, Conjurer of Spectacle. But what if we weren't up to any political schemes or group-hugging? What if instead we found a style of creature we could give away with little to no worry of retaliation?

I landed on Walls — creatures that famously cannot attack. Then we play effects that let our creatures deal damage with their toughness, and attack as though they didn't have defender — but we don't give those effects to our opponents. Sure, everyone has Walls, but my Walls are also battering-rams."

Beyond the strategic soundness of the strategy, killing people with multiple copies of Wall of JunkWall of Junk is just objectively funny as well.

The setup and game plan here is simple. First, you're going to ramp hard, using mana dorks and green land ramp. Especially fun are cards like Overgrown BattlementOvergrown Battlement that you usually only see in decks like Arcades, the StrategistArcades, the Strategist, Felothar the SteadfastFelothar the Steadfast and various Dorans.

Once Elda is out and Walls have begun to be copied and dispersed, the deck is filled with ways to use their toughness as an offensive utility, like Huatli, the Sun's HeartHuatli, the Sun's Heart or Wakestone GargoyleWakestone Gargoyle, a card that can be specifically tutored up a handful of ways.

Then the finishing blow can be dealt either with the toughness-as-power inverters, or with alpha strike staples like Craterhoof BehemothCraterhoof Behemoth and Moonshaker CavalryMoonshaker Cavalry.

Ashaya Saw the Future by drcroissant

User drcroissant is also using discover in their list, though in a much different way than our other discover deck. In this case, they're using Ashaya's Enduring BondAshaya's Enduring Bond as a commander, currently the only non-permanent you can have as the commander of your deck.

Ashaya's Enduring Bond is a legendary sorcery for that says discover X, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast this spell. In theory, this means the first time you cast it from your command zone you'll discover 3, then when you do so again, thanks to the commander tax you'll discover 5, then 7, and onward.

That's not quite the plan in this deck. From the description:

"Ashaya's Enduring Bond is unique in that it discovers the mana used to cast it. This means if we can cast it without paying its mana cost and we can discover for X=0 and cast a 0 mana spell from our library. In this case we abuse this fact to cast Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow as a secret commander. To discover 0, it is as simple as casting it from our graveyard for free using a card like Finale of PromiseFinale of Promise, Goblin Dark-DwellersGoblin Dark-Dwellers, or Mizzix's MasteryMizzix's Mastery.

In playtesting, on turn 6-7 its not uncommon to flip 20 permanents and draw 10 cards, with plenty of fresh mana you'll see more than enough cards to finish the game. However, should you not dig for the answer you need, with all the landfall permanents you are extremely likely to flip into more permanents that you had before, and then using a recursion spell that you either drew or had extra in your hand, you can cast Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow again to flip into even more permanents!"

Since all the permanents from Glimpse enter simultaneously, the deck has quite a few ways to take advantage of landfall, ranging from Avenger of ZendikarAvenger of Zendikar to Omnath, Locus of RageOmnath, Locus of Rage to Moraug, Fury of AkoumMoraug, Fury of Akoum.

The deck's draw is tied to big butts entering the battlefield, something that Glimpse will enable. Vaultborn TyrantVaultborn Tyrant could single-handedly refill your grip and gain an insurmountable amount of life, and there are multiple creatures that function similarly.

The most important thing, however, is to have plenty of tokens in play to enable all of this. There's the previously mentioned Avenger of Zendikar, but there's no shortage of token makers like Kibo, Uktabi PrinceKibo, Uktabi Prince to fill the battlefield with permanents that will eventually become things much more impactful once Glimpse is cast.

So there you have it — our finalists for the August 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, August 26, 2026.