Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest - June 2026

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danaroach avatardanaroach
{"ops":[{"insert":"Hello, and welcome to June's Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest.\n\nThis is a monthly contest (if you ignore May) with a different theme each month. The goal is to build a Commander-legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion, and 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 will receive a prize.\n\nJune's challenge is to 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 "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Scars of Mirrodin"},{"insert":". This should be an innovative, novel, and attention-getting take on a deck using an older commander as part of its strategy or theme.\n\nWhat’s the Contest All About?"},{"attributes":{"header":3},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nWorking within the parameters of the provided prompt, construct a deck list with your own creative and compelling spin. Three chosen finalists will be awarded "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://www.cardsphere.com/?utm_source=edhrec"},"insert":"store credit to use on Cardsphere"},{"insert":".\n\nFor June's deck building contest - Build a unique, different take on a Commander-legal deck using a commander first printed in 2010 or earlier.\n\nDecks will be judged on the creativity and originality of their brew. For example, "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://edhrec.com/commanders/zur-the-enchanter"},"insert":"Zur the Enchanter"},{"insert":" was indeed printed in 2006, but a Zur deck built around tutoring "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://edhrec.com/cards/necropotence"},"insert":"Necropotence"},{"insert":" to draw down to a "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://edhrec.com/cards/demonic-consultation"},"insert":"Demonic Consultation"},{"insert":" and "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://edhrec.com/cards/thassas-oracle"},"insert":"Thassa's Oracle"},{"insert":" combo probably isn't going to cut it.\n\nA complete list of all the commanders that would be legal for this contest "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/23128730/commanders_printed_in_2010_or_earlier?utm_source=edhrec"},"insert":"can found here"},{"insert":".\n\nFor more details about the prompt, check out "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://edhrec.com/articles/archidekt-deckbuilding-contest-june-2026"},"insert":"the full announcement article"},{"insert":" over on EDHREC!\n\nHow To Participate"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\n Brew an EDH/Commander legal deck on Archidekt that satisfies the prompt."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" Silver-bordered and acorn cards, while cool, are not allowed."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" Digital-only cards (such as those designed for the Alchemy format on Arena) are not allowed even if they manage to violate the laws of space and time and manage to be first printed prior to 2010."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" Strictly one deck submitted per user."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nTo submit a deck, select the orange button labeled \"Submit a deck to this contest\" and follow the form prompt. Submissions are accepted until "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"9:00 pm EDT"},{"insert":" (UTC -4, currently) on "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Wednesday, June 10 2026"},{"insert":".\n\nThere's also a new easy-to-remember landing page for anything contest related that can be found at "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/contest?utm_source=edhrec"},"insert":"archidekt.com/contest"},{"insert":" and you can comment on individual decks directly from the submission.\n\nOnly one submission per user! If you change your mind and want to submit a different deck before submissions close, you may do so by first deleting your submission. To edit your description, you can do so from the deck page itself. From the eligible submissions, we'll select three finalists with lists that we believe best embody the spirit of the prompt. Deck descriptions are not required but certainly may provide valuable context!\n\nOn "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Wednesday, June 17 2026,"},{"insert":" we’ll announce three finalists via the Archidekt Discord and a brief article on EDHREC highlighting each deck.\n\n"},{"attributes":{"link":"https://www.cardsphere.com/sets?utm_source=edhrec"},"insert":"Each finalist will be awarded credit on cardsphere.com"},{"insert":". The value of the credit is in US dollars and depends on the finalist's placement in deck upvotes at the end of the week-long polling period:\n 1st Place Prize - $250"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" 2nd Place Prize - $150"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" 3rd Place Prize - $100"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nFinalists will be contacted via email regarding their winnings within roughly 24 hours following the conclusion of voting on "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Wednesday, June 24 2026"},{"insert":".\n\nPlease note, you must have a Cardsphere account in order to receive your winnings. It's quick and free-- register "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://www.cardsphere.com/signup?referrer=archidekt_contest"},"insert":"here"},{"insert":" if you don't have an account already!\n\nHere are the "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/contestRules"},"insert":"official contest rules."},{"insert":". If you have any questions, feel free to ask here, or join the "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://discord.gg/rYDFFVCmGr"},"insert":"Archidekt public Discord server"},{"insert":". We look forward to seeing what you all come up with!\n"}]}
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Results: 78
Order By: -createdAt
peach_beaver contest submission
Closeted Queen
Created by: peach_beaver
8 mins
{"ops":[{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Hydra's Growth"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" is my favorite card, because going exponential is exciting. In 2020, it helped me fall back in love with Magic, when, with three copies on one "},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Healer's Hawk"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" , I blew past the 32-bit power and toughness limit of 1,073,741,823, or 2³⁰ − 1. I think it got to like 10^20 before I lost to dozens of indestructible angels and an indestructible player. "},{"insert":"\n\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":"Closeted Queen is my homage to Hydra’s Growth, a card that has been incredibly difficult for me to make viable in EDH. Even when I use all five colors, and proxy every card!"},{"insert":"\n\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Sliver Queen"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" is the decoy commander; this deck is really about "},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Arwen, Weaver of Hope"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" . Tutor her out, protect her, and maybe stack her with "},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Level Up"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" and Hydra’s Growth. Mainly, get "},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Ouroboroid"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" and "},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":{"card-link":"Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon"}},{"attributes":{"color":"#000000"},"insert":" out to have a fun time going wide and tall. In goldfishing, I’ve been able to consistently deliver more than 120 damage by Turn 8, but I have yet to test it live. Love exponents!"},{"insert":"\n\n"}]}
No deck tags
Jet_Ford contest submission
The Ogre
Created by: Jet_Ford
16 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"In command of my army of ogres and oni is "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Yukora, the Prisoner"}},{"insert":". Covered in chains, he is an oni from kamigawa and was bound by a spell cast by ninety-nine monks.\n\nThat spell is broken.\n\nFor this deck, I picked from only cards that referenced ogres or oni. This results in a lot of odd cards being added, as ogres are not supported well. But the deck does function at low-power tables.\n\nPros:\n- There are very few "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Yukora, the Prisoner"}},{"insert":" decks out there.\n- You can pull off some neat tricks with this deck.\n- The deck is fair magic.\n- Most of the cards are cheap to acquire.\n- The deck cares about more than one creature type.\n\nCons:\n- Ogres are very niche as a creature type.\n- You will not be playing high-power magic.\n- A few cards I've chosen are a little pricey.\n\nRemember, it ain't ogre 'til it's ogre.\n"}]}
hmm12435 contest submission
The green knight (June 2026 Deckbuilding contest)
Created by: hmm12435
18 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck is an attempt at a janky knights tribal for Jacques Le Vert because that's the first thing that came to mind when looking at the card and it would be fun to do. The main win-con I guess is just flooding the board with knights and killing your opponents in combat!\n"}]}
Trusivraj contest submission
Mayael & the Mighty Monsters
Created by: Trusivraj
31 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"With Mayael at the helm, we plan to go BIG and go WIDE by exploiting her activated ability as often as possible with plenty of exciting protection, interaction and card draw for the entire table! (But mostly for you ;D) If the table is being a bit mean, not to worry, we have quite the recursion package to get most of your super friends back into the action!\n"}]}
No deck tags
DeerHunter contest submission
Patron of the Moon: Moonfolk Real Estate Scam
Created by: DeerHunter
41 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"\tThis deck is built for the June Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest using Patron of the Moon, a commander originally printed in Betrayers of Kamigawa in 2005. Instead of building a normal mono-blue control deck, this list turns old Kamigawa Moonfolk into a strange land-bouncing engine.\n\tThe deck’s goal is to repeatedly return lands to hand with Moonfolk abilities, Trade Routes, Meloku the Clouded Mirror, Uyo, Silent Prophet, and Storm Cauldron, then use Patron of the Moon to put those lands right back onto the battlefield. That creates repeated landfall and permanent-entering triggers.\n\tThe main win conditions are Hedron Crab, Ruin Crab, and Altar of the Brood milling opponents through repeated land drops. Roil Elemental turns the same landfall engine into creature theft, while Psychosis Crawler can finish games when the deck starts drawing heavily with Trade Routes, Blue Sun’s Zenith, Rhystic Study, and Mystic Remora.\n\tThe idea is to make Patron of the Moon feel like an actual moonfolk real estate scam: lands leave, lands return, everyone else slowly loses their library, and the old Kamigawa commander gets to do something weird, flavorful, and different.\n"}]}
No deck tags
YourLocalBeaver contest submission
Braids Group Hug
Created by: YourLocalBeaver
46 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"An attempt at group hug with Braids. Uh yeah that's about it 👍 \n"}]}
Hephaisto contest submission
Deliver me Clones, Minion!
Created by: Hephaisto
50 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":{"card-link":"Gyruda, Doom of Depths"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Sedris, the Traitor King"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Chainer, Nightmare Adept"}},{"insert":" This is my Sedris // Gyruda Deck. It is a Bracket 2 Grixis Deck, that focuses Reanimation, Clones and the Initiative. Gyruda, Sedris trusty Minion, will provide some tempo in the form of self-mill, chard choices and card advantage. This means, ramping to 6 mana is cruicial for for the deck, while paying the 3 mana for Gyruda on the way. \nThe amount of clones is kept relatively low, to prohibit it entering an infinit loop of mills and clone, copying more and more Gyrudas. Its designed to find at least some interesting threats from the own deck or from someone else. \nGyruda really likes the red benefits of the list, Sedris himself provides more activations of Gyruda or recures other threats. Chainer works as a back up/secret Commander as well, doing pretty much everything the deck wants of its leader. \n"}]}
No deck tags
FayeDecks contest submission
Merieke Clones
Created by: FayeDecks
55 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"Steal your opponents creatures, allow the winds of fate to change in your favor. Clone creatures with powerful activated abilities. Tap/untap your board to keep doing what you do best.\n"}]}
mples contest submission
Bladewing artifacts wincon
Created by: mples
71 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"I wanted to make a deck that uses "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Revel in Riches"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Hellkite Tyrant"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Knuckles the Echidna"}},{"insert":" win conditions, so "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Bladewing the Risen"}},{"insert":" rakdos colours and allowing me to tutor for "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Hellkite Tyrant"}},{"insert":" with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Entomb"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Buried Alive"}},{"insert":" was perfect. The deck also includes other dragons with treasure creating abilities like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Goldspan Dragon"}},{"insert":" to make the winconditions easier to be met.\n"}]}
No deck tags
Dongleoid contest submission
Morph but New and they're Assassins.
Created by: Dongleoid
74 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"Crazy Idea. Also Ixidor was not in the list of possible commanders but onslaught is from 2002? So that is pre 2010? Anyways, I've always wanted to upgrade that guy around the flipping up being more for protection and it mostly beefing up the 2/2s with equipment. \n\nI LOVE cards with bad ETBs in this deck because they will not be entering face up! For example Saprazzan Bailiff does not have that weird ETB but can be a free blocker or bad attacker that when flipped up returns all of my weird equipment and enchantments from my graveyard. The same is true for Wormfang Manta. I feel like I could dive into this theme a little more, but then I would just be building my beamtown bullies deck again. So I was mostly looking into recursion for my artifacts so I can manifest more cards and deal damage to my opponents for the win.\n\nI fill my graveyard with Manifest Dread or mill in order to bring them back as well!\n\nHad to resubmit because I updated the deck list and categories!!\n\n"}]}
Alendyl contest submission
Necrobloom - Deck to play in LGS
Created by: Alendyl
78 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"Main goal of this list is to be able to play in my LGS. I love playing powerful decks but my other lists were a bit overpowered compared to the base level of the decks people are playing at FNMs. Because of that I decided to build a deck in my beloved Abzan color combination tailored for my local meta.\n\nI gave myself 3 clear restrictions: \nNo infinite combo"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"No Game Changers"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Low on removal."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nI noticed that many players at my LGS run fairly inconsistent decks that can sometimes get completely shut down by a single removal spell. To make sure everyone gets to play their game, I intentionally kept the removal count low and focused instead on protection and a strong proactive game plan.\n"}]}
No deck tags
DragonDeckLord contest submission
Specter's Purge
Created by: DragonDeckLord
89 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"I've wanted to brew a discard deck for a while and found Crosis to be a perfect commander from 2010. I love a deck that can be aggressive with attackers while still having other cards working in the background. Using Crosis and an army of specters you want to attack your opponents, make them discard, and punish them even more for it. The deck is built around getting attackers through, capitalizing on discard triggers, whittling away at opponents life, and then having big payoffs in the late game from the earlier discards. This deck keeps the pressure on the entire game by removing threats before they even hit the field, constantly denying your opponents resources, and having a range of specters to keep the aggro going. I've been slowly gathering cards to make a discard deck and have finally found the pieces I need here.\n"}]}
Bosshunter contest submission
Korlash ultimate combo
Created by: Bosshunter
104 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck is built around to Korlash’s grandeur ability. If built correctly, the entire combo will have infinite swamp based landfalls triggers as well as other infinite triggers. All at instant speed and all points of the combo is able to stop at any point. The biggest weakness of this combo is the lack of consistency, as well as the total amount of resources required to have it built being particularly weak during its set up phase. Once the combo was running, though there’s not much that can be done to stop it for no spells or cast, and even if abilities are countered most of the steps can just be redone with minimal loss.\n\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Korlash, Heir to Blackblade"}},{"insert":" \n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Amulet of Vigor"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mirror of the Forebears"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Retreat to Hagra"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Zuran Orb"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Phyrexian Reclamation"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tomb Trawler"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Bubbling Muck"}},{"insert":" "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Extraplanar Lens"}},{"insert":" \n\n\n"}]}
No deck tags
laserlizard contest submission
Creature Cycling
Created by: laserlizard
105 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"When all is said and done, sometimes the best thing to do is maximize the profit of your creatures. "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Savra, Queen of the Golgari"}},{"insert":" in particular makes using sacrificing a lot more interesting. Using tokens just expedites the process of clearing an entire board one little guy at a time. Furthermore when you take into account cards like"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Doubling Season"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Black Market"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Eldrazi Monument"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Squirrel Nest"}},{"insert":" each creature sacrificed on any field becomes a bonus for your use.\n\nAll you really need to do is get some Squirrels for sacrificing, make sure you can get many copies with the classic doubling Season. Build those suckers up each round. Perhaps sac some rats, use life to make the graveyards full, and put the rest of the table into extinction.\n\nUsing each squirrel sacrifice to slowly build a reserve of life so you can eventually use peoples graveyards against them.\n"}]}
Gruz contest submission
5c Soup Doing BRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Created by: Gruz
105 mins
{"ops":[{"insert":"Your task is to survive. Than after you ramping like crazy you have: funny dudes, big dudes, your big AH commander and either you kill our opponents with this commander that would be getting bigger by buffs that doesn't target, or swarm your enemies with GAMBA CASCADE AND MORE GAMBA CARDS. THIS IS FOR YOU TIMMY PLAYERS\n\n0 game changers (I know I know Crop rotation is a game changer but it doesn't do the prevented things in this deck that it's normally doing), 0 fast mana, 0 infinity\n\nONLY GAMBA AND FUNNY DUDES. You don't play this deck for tha win you are playing it to show dominance over your opponents and laugh into their faces if you kill them before theirs combo turn. Or just to be a punching bag 50/50\n\n"}]}
No deck tags
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