(Treasure | Art by Dan Scott)

Let's Build a Treasure Deck

The Treasure token is possibly the strongest one someone can make in a game of Commander. Building a deck around Treasures can be versatile, potent, and powerful.

It can be a strategy that spans all colors with creating Treasures featuring on various card types within the game.

The Treasure taps and sacrifices to add a single mana of any one color to your mana pool. Decks built around this token often play with the intent to get out ahead of the opposition. Many creatures with enter-the-battlefield abilities and strong sub-themes based around artifacts and sacrifice are frequently present in the deck. Game actions are something that will be had early and often in these decks, and Treasure decks should have a few practice runs before being busted out at the main table.

Treasure, in most minds, reminds people of Pirates and maps where X marks the spot. Let me, Nick, take you on a tour of everything Treasures offer.

Why Should You Play Treasures?

You should want to play Treasures if you want to be able to do anything in Magic. This sounds unhelpful and possibly hyperbolic, but it's the truth.

Magic as a game has a core mechanic of a resource system based on mana. The easiest way to get mana is to play lands, and in many formats in the game, having more mana available puts you in a favorable position compared to your opponent(s).

This is especially true when talking about Commander games.

No matter your strategy, a Treasure deck is built around making the most tokens and artifacts.

After all, you create a token every time you make a Treasure. And every Treasure is an artifact. Playing a Treasure strategy also allows you to play more colors consistently.

If you want to play impactful cards before your opponents can play theirs, then Treasures is the place for you.

Who Are the Best Commanders for a Treasure Deck?

Treasure commanders, including (Prosper, Tome-Bound, and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King), find themselves in the top 100 commanders of the past two years. Players often see commanders that can either gain extra benefits from their permanents being sacrificed, like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, or with a commander like Prosper, Tome-Bound, who make Treasures almost for "free" as the most threatening at the table.

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King.

Not playing against a Korvold deck built around Treasures will give you the same experience as playing against one. That is to say, if you're not the Korvold player, you're not doing much playing. It's often mentioned that the two most important things in the game are mana and card draw. Korvold is the king of turning your mana into card draw.

Turning every Treasure into mana and a card means this deck never runs out of steam. The Jund () color combination gives you access to some of the best ramp, removal, and card draw in the format as well.

If you enjoy being the target at the table and taking many, many game actions on your turn, you might want to become a part of this king's court. Be warned that some citizens (the other players) might wish to overthrow you (not play against this deck).

Prosper, Tome-Bound.

Another deck that doesn't run out of steam is Prosper, Tome-Bound. The shift to what red does in the format means that with Prosper triggering the Pact, Boon's ability to make a Treasure when you play something from exile will happen more than once a turn.

But even if you don't draw cards that exile your other cards, Prosper will do it for you, thanks to their Mystic Arcanum ability. Once again, mana and card advantage are the two engines that power a deck led by this commander.

Not as groan-inducing as Korvold, this deck does offer the ability to play cards from many different places at the table. Your hand, graveyard, exile, deck, and all of those spots of the other players at the table with you are up for grabs as the pilot of this deck, and the other players will often be more jealous than vengeful when you play Prosper.

Some Treasure commanders are powerful but less explicit about their threat level. One of the best Treasure commanders Magda, Brazen Outlaw, will disguise just how powerful it can be by having an ability dependant on tapping dwarves, a less than top tier creature type.

Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Magda might only have 58 dwarves available to them, but that is no reason to doubt their power. The best thing about Magda, Brazen Outlaw is that they only cost 1 to cast. Early and often is the name of the game for this deck. Many dwarves are cheap, and Magda does not even need dwarves if you don't want to run them; all they need is Treasures.

The ability to get any dragon or artifact right onto the field from the deck for what can be considered five mana and at instant speed might sound good, but it is so much better when first seen in action.

Surprise tutoring out something like Ancient Copper Dragon, Terror of the Peaks, or Portal to Phyrexia can be game-winning most of the time.

How do you choose a Commander to lead a Treasure-based deck? It is often about the color combination you want to play with and what Treasures can offer you other than just making mana inside those combinations.

and are heavily featured in Treasure commanders. Let's dig deeper to find out why.

Rakdos Treasures

has the best win condition in Treasure strategy in Revel in Riches. This card can win you the game with the Treasures you already have on the field or the ones that you just made after destroying everyone else board of creatures with something like Damnation.

Sacrificing your creatures for value, often referred to as Aristocrats, is another way black can utilize Treasures.

Sacrificing the Treasures themselves can also have additional synergies outside of making mana.

Anytime you see a Treasure deck with the color black, expect to see one or more of these cards.

Meanwhile, is considered the second best when dealing with artifacts in Commander. It also has many creatures that synergize with sacrificing Treasures.

Sacrificing Treasures for value outside of the mana that they generate is what red does best. Red tutoring creatures or artifacts from the deck to the battlefield, getting card advantage, or getting another variation of mana advantage by doubling mana plays into the color-wide play patterns of red.

Unlike black, red gets card advantage through "Impulse Draw," or exiling cards from the top of the deck that can be played till the end of the turn or the end of the next turn.

This works for how red uses Treasures where, unlike black, red wants a burst of massive amounts of mana to cast often large spells like Fiery Emancipation, Crackle with Power, or Fireball.

Green Mana and Treasures

is Not a color that often synergizes with artifacts, so why is it crucial to a Treasure strategy? Tokens. Green is the best color for taking advantage of making tokens.

Doubling Season is the best card in green when discussing tokens; in a sense, there is more than one copy of Doubling Season open to you in green. Parallel Lives and Primal Vigor give their benefits to everyone at the table, but having a redundant effect that is as strong as a doubling effect for your tokens is worth it when you can take more advantage than anyone else.

Green decks want to go big and need a lot of mana to accomplish this. While they often do it with their ability to play lands or use a mana dork like Birds of Paradise, there is no reason they cannot do it with Treasures, either. The design of the Treasures holds this color back compared to the other four.

Mono-green decks will struggle when focused on Treasures because the game designers purposely limited the number of green cards that make Treasures.

What green is excellent for is a great accent color to a deck. The card Chatterfang, Squirrel General is a great example. Being in green gives you access to token synergies and a creature type in a squirrel that loves tokens themselves. The black pip in the ability allows you to play with powerful cards, taking advantage of an Aristocrat theme and trading both your creatures and creature tokens into removal.

Choosing Your Commander

When picking a commander to lead a Treasure deck, there is going to be one that will fit most strategies in the game. The best commanders will be ones who can utilize all aspects of Treasure tokens.

From creating the token to sacrificing the mana generation, whatever Commander can use, the entire part of this small artifact will be the most bang for your buck.

The other best thing you could do when picking a Commander is find one with the most versatility when making or unexpectedly using those tokens.

The cards mentioned above touch on the typical ways to utilize a mana-generating token. But cards like Edward Kenway and Vihaan, Goldwaker touch on the later points. With Edward, we see a versatile way to make tokens by focusing on Assassins, Pirates, or Vehicles.

Or even all three. With Vihaan, we can see a different way to use the Treasures made: turning them into 3/3 creatures to beat your opponents down.

My suggestion to someone new to Magic or the strategy would be to start small. Go with a commander like Magda, Brazen Outlaw or Chatterfang, Squirrel General.

Key Cards to Include in a Treasure Deck

The term "staple" gets used in Magic to describe a card or cards that should always be played no matter what color(s) or strategy you are playing. The important throughline for these is that they can be played in any deck. The most typical examples of these for commanders are cards like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, which are colorless artifacts, and Command Tower is a land with no color identity. So, what are some "staples" for Treasures across the color wheel?

This is the best card in any Treasure deck, regardless of color. If there was ever a card that truly lived up to the term "staple," it is Academy Manufactor.

Making every Treasure token come with a Clue and Food token, or every Clue come with a Food and Treasure, or every Food...you get it. This card takes any deck that wants a lot of artifacts and kicks it into overdrive.

If you're building a Commander deck and want to play around with Treasures, the first thing that should go into your deck, even before you pick your Commander, is Academy Manufactor.

Smothering Tithe is in a quarter of all decks possible for it to be, according to EDHrec. The card is so effective at making Treasures that it will still play Smothering Tithe even when a deck is not focused on Treasures as the core strategy.

Regardless, it is the best white Treasure card. The option of paying two mana to stop this effect every time a card is drawn is one your opponents will rarely do. Rhystic Study is one of the best cards in the format due to people refusing to pay one mana, so while you do not draw a card, the Treasure production only stops when people remove this card from the field.

Mechanized Production is a card misunderstood by many. This card might not make as many copies of a Treasure as a green token doubler, and it might not win as cards in other colors. But what it has going for it is flexibility. It can be attached to your Treasure token, turning it into a big win condition. Blue has always synergized with artifact cards, and this card can come out of left field and steal games when your opponents aren't ready. Much like a pirate stealing Treasure.

Revel in Riches is the best way to turn what should be an even board state into a massive advantage. The ability to turn any wrath like Toxic Deluge, whether cast by you or another player, into mana means losing your creatures a non-factor. The downside to this card is it often has to sit out for an entire turn cycle after you have enough Treasures to have it win the game. It's negligible but noteworthy for the best black Treasure card.

Both master and apprentice do something that has been mentioned often so far: take extra advantage of sacrificing Treasures. Marionette Master can do more damage per Treasure, and Marionette Apprentice has the benefit of triggering off creatures you control. An essential part of choosing cards for a deck is finding redundant versions of some of your most important effects. These two cards are a shining example of that philosophy.

Xorn does something unusual for red: it can give you additional tokens every time you make one. An ability that should not be understated. One of the best colors for Treasure decks is red, and even if it only makes up part of the color combination of your deck, having an effect like Xorn might draw you to a commander that can play red over one that can't. I am not a mathematician, but I can tell you that Xorn and Academy Manufactor will make one person at a commander table very happy.

While Tireless Provisioner might not look like a card you would find in a Treasure deck, it should be featured in everyone with green in the color identity. The provisioner allows every land to essentially make two manas during the first turn it is played. Something like an Evolving Wilds now feels not so bad when land comes in tapped. And if you have a card like Verdant Catacombs, one land suddenly nets you three mana.

How To Build a Treasure Deck

When building with Treasures, as funny as it might sound, you want to make sure you have enough cards to make Treasures. It's easy for commanders to focus on the sound cards for a color that might not fit a specific strategy.

For example, if you're playing a red deck, Faithless Looting can often be included for many reasons. But after playtesting or looking over your list with other people, you might realize that a card like Seize the Spoils is better for your deck.

Looting will draw you more cards over the game's life, but running a slightly "worse" card-like seize might make the difference due to its Treasure-making ability.

Know that you will be identified as the threat at the table. I cannot understate how powerful Treasure-oriented decks can become. Even when not the primary strategy of a deck, you will be hard-pressed to find a deck that does not run multiple cards that can make Treasures.

Cards like Smothering Tithe, Academy Manufactor, and Revel in Riches have won as many players games as they have simultaneously lost three other players in that same game.

You might become the target of the table, so if you are not a fan of playing the political angle offered by a multiplayer format such as Commander, or you do not like having to build a deck that can defend itself as the archenemy staying away from this strategy or from the best it has to offer might be what you have to do.

Treasures will put you on the offensive. To borrow a phrase from sports, the best offense is a good defense. Build with this in mind.

Treasure Defense Force

Sometimes, you have tokens but are not ready to use them. At the same time, your opponents want to make sure you never get to use them.

Turning your opponents' cards into blanks against you is needed when you are the target at the table. Whether it is you, your Treasures, or both that are under attack, the above cards will help keep everything protected.

Ways to Win with Treasures

The easiest way to win the game with Treasures is to cast spells that cost a lot of mana early in the game. Casting large, impactful cards that can lead to winning the game at a point where players are not equipped to deal with it is the most obvious way to win.

If cards like these come down ahead of the curve, they can quickly take over and win a game.

Every time, you can find an alternate way to use a Treasure, either outside of the mana production or in addition, you can find a new way to win the game.

Attacking with Treasures after turning them into creatures with cards like Cyberdrive Awakener or using the sacrifice to drain your opponent's life from them with Disciple of the Vault allows you to attack from multiple angles.

Potentially, one of the easiest ways to use Treasure to win the game is to focus on the fact that they are an artifact. Artifacts have been around since the game's inception and are some of the most powerful cards, looking at you Black Lotus.

Using that angle leads to finding cards like Time Sieve for infinite turns, Clock of Omensfor tapping and untapping shenanigans, and Urza, Lord High Artificer for anything you want to do.

Treasures, like artifacts themselves, are powerful and dangerous when left unchecked.

Let's Get Building!

The Treasure strategy is here to stay in Commander and can be among the strongest in the format.

Thanks to its inclusion in all the colors, it offers endless exploration. However, it does not allow unchecked play. While it's good that Treasures are artifacts, that's also their biggest downside.

Cards like Vandalblast and Farewell can take you from a winning game's state to a losing one in the blink of an eye. But that is what makes Magic awesome.

You don't have to invest heavily in Treasures for the strategy to be successful, but you can be exposed to what they can do to improve it.

After you start to see all the connecting threads break out, the Korvold, Fae-Cursed King or Prosper, Tome-Bound and have at it. My favorite cards for Treasure decks are Brass's Bounty and Hit the Mother Lode.

They are not the strongest, but most certainly cards that lead to significant moments in a game.

Anyway, that's a wrap on our dip into Treasure in Commander. My name has been and will still be Nick, and you can find my stuff on EDHREC, where there is plenty of great content from many fabulous folks.

Nicholas Lucchesi

Player and lover of all Magic the Gathering formats. Forged in the fires of Oath of the Gatewatch expeditions. Always down to jam games with anyone and everyone. When not playing Magic I am doing something else equally, if not more nerdy.