Stardew Valley Themed MTG Commander Deck Guide

Stardew Valley | ConcernedApe

Every Stardew Valley player has had this thought at some point: This game would make a great Magic deck! The farm, the mines, the fish, Junimos, the weird shadow guy in the sewer who turns out to be a great tenant once you get to know him. The game's basically already sorted into Commander deck categories. Animals over here, removal-shaped monsters over there, a mana base that's really just a map of the town.

So that's the exercise. Instead of a deck built to show off the new Stardew Valley Secret Lair cards, this one starts from the world itself and works backward, picking Magic cards that actually match something in the game, then letting the Secret Lair pieces slot in wherever they happen to fit. Which, conveniently, is almost everywhere, since Wizards clearly built that drop around this exact game to begin with.

The Deck

Swords to Plowshares | Illustration by ConcernedApe

This Commander deck sits at Bracket 3, Upgraded. There’s real interaction, a couple of strong engines, enough consistency to beat an unfocused deck, but nothing that looks like a combo kill and nothing trying to lock anyone out of playing the game.

Two cards on the current Game Changers list show up here: Consecrated Sphinx and Crop Rotation. That's under the three-card cap for Bracket 3, so there's room to push it further without changing brackets if you want, but as built it should play fine against most decently tuned 99s. If your table skews closer to Bracket 2, cutting the Sphinx is probably the fastest way to bring it down a notch without losing much of what makes the deck work.

The Commander: The Welcoming Committee

The Welcoming Committee runs the show, and it's Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis with new art and a new name; nothing else changed. Draw a card at your end step, then everyone at the table may play an extra land from hand; anyone who doesn't draws a card instead. Honestly, that's not far off from what happens when you move into an abandoned farm, and the whole town shows up in week one with casseroles and unsolicited advice.

Colors land on white, blue, red, and green. No black. That works out well here, since the deck leans into growth and animals and water and travel instead of anything dark. Stardew doesn't really have a black corner of its own outside of Joja Corporation, and even that’s handled through white removal in this build.

The Farm and the Fields

Turning empty dirt into something productive is the whole game, more or less, and that's what this chunk of the deck does. Rampant Growth and Tempt with Discovery are just new plots of land, and Realm Seekers is the creature out there breaking ground on them.

Crop Rotation does double duty as both the most on-the-nose card in the whole 99 and one of the deck's two Game Changers. Rites of Flourishing hands that same growth to the whole table, which tracks fine, since nobody in Pelican Town is out here hoarding parsnip seeds from their neighbors.

The Mana Base

The lands are doing as much flavor work as anything else in the 99, and honestly they didn't need much help to get there. Four colors with no black keeps the fixing simple—this isn't a 5-color pile that leans on a dozen fetches and shocks, but mostly a clean shell built around a handful of taplands and utility lands that double as map pins for the town.

Stardew Valley is the actual farm, the deck's namesake and its most literal card. Valley Farmstead (Yavimaya) is what that same plot looked like on Day 1, before you'd cleared a single rock or stump.

Pelican Town covers the town proper, Command Tower backs up the wizard's tower out past the edge of the map, and Community Center (Fountainport) rounds things out as the building the whole game quietly revolves around.

Beyond those, it's a straightforward mix of basics and common fixing lands—nothing exotic, since the deck would rather spend its slots on creatures and spells that actually look like something from the game than on generic mana rocks with no story to tell.

The Barn and the Junimos

Gilded Goose might be my favorite pick in the whole 99, mostly because anyone who's actually kept geese knows they're never where you left them and always somehow in the road. The rest of the barnyard is filled in around it: Prize Pig, Bill the Pony, and an Ox Drover for the poor soul who's had to steer livestock around a half-tilled field. Junimo Farmhands show up once you start clearing Community Center bundles, and Ms. Bumbleflower is out there running the bee house.

Down in the Mines

The mines are where things actually get dangerous, and that's where the removal suite and the mana rocks live. Big Slime (Mitotic Ooze) and Corrosive Ooze are early-floor gelatinous nonsense, and Royal Serpent (Atsushi, the Blazing Sky) stands in fine for the nastier stuff further down that you really don't want to meet without a good weapon.

Diamond Pick-Axe is a literal item from the game. Treasure Vault, Gleaming Splendor, and Big Score cover the geodes and gem nodes you're down there digging for in the first place. Mutable Explorer is spelunking a floor further than you probably should, and Abrade is what happens when you'd rather blast through a wall than walk around it.

Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Thought Vessel round out the rocks. Not much of a flavor story there, they're just artifacts you dig up, but they're doing the unglamorous work of making the rest of the deck function.

Fishing the Coast and the Rivers

Stardew‘s fishing minigame gets its own little corner here. Tidal Barracuda and The Unagi of Kyoshi Island are both fish, more or less. An eel counts; don't fight me on it.

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters and Tatyova, Benthic Druid lean into the merfolk side of things, which lines up nicely with the fact that the game's biggest fishing quest is literally about finding a mermaid. Mermaid's Pendant, the Secret Lair reskin of Wedding Ring, ties right into that storyline, and Aetherize is the one that got away swimming right back to bite you.

Pelican Town and Its Residents

This is where the legendary creatures get to be actual townsfolk. Krobus is Krobus, doesn't need explaining if you've played the game.

Jorael, Mwonvuli RecluseKwain, Iteinerant Meddles

Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse covers the wizard who lives apart from everyone else in his tower. Kwain, Itinerant Meddler is the traveling merchant with a cart full of stuff nobody asked for but everybody ends up buying, and Discerning Financier is doing a decent Pierre's General Store impression. The Council of Four is the town deciding whether to save the Community Center or sell out to Joja, and Willie Lumpkin, Postman handles the mail.

Consecrated Sphinx gets to be whatever the wizard's tower is actually hoarding up there, since something is clearly going on in that place. I'll be honest, Rashmi and Ragavan and Dragonback Assault don't have a clean match here. They're mostly just good cards that happened to be open in these colors, so if you wanted the flavor angle airtight, those two are the first cuts.

Sleep, Seasons, and Sweeping the Board

Every day in the game ends the same way: You go to sleep, and the world resets. Time Wipe is basically that mechanic, a board wipe that gives everyone a fresh start the next morning. Season of the Burrow is winter rolling in and clearing the fields, and Return to Nature is the farm before you ever set foot on it.

Swords to Plowshares barely needs a justification in a farming deck, and Path to Exile handles whoever Joja sends to cause trouble. Stroke of Midnight covers Spirit's Eve, and On the Trail and Annie Joins Up are both about following leads and picking up new friends around town.

Gifts, Truces, and Friendship Hearts

Gift-giving is basically the entire social system of the game, so it makes sense the political package leans on it hard. Pierre's Truce (Dawn's Truce) is named after him; no subtlety needed there. Tenuous Truce and Promise of Loyalty track that slow climb from stranger to friend every villager relationship goes through, one thoughtful gift at a time. Minds Aglow and Folio of Fancies are the town newsletter and the gossip keeping everyone in the loop, and Negate, Arcane Denial, Three Steps Ahead, and Repudiate//Replicate are what happens when Joja tries to mess with any of it.

Tools From Pierre's Shop

Galaxy Sword and Swiftfoot Boots are both actual purchasable items in the game, so these two barely needed a stretch at all. Grab the sword for the mines, grab the boots for getting around town faster, same as you'd do in-game.

Commanding Conclusion

Sol Ring | Illustration by ConcernedApe

The nice part of building it this way instead of starting from the Secret Lair cards is that almost nothing here just feels like filler. Most cards are either doing real work for the deck or standing in for something specific from the game, and a lot of the time they're managing both.

If you've got a Stardew fan in your group who's never touched Magic before, this is the kind of deck that might actually get them to sit down for a game, since half the cards are basically flashcards for stuff they already know.

Which cards would you slot into your own Stardew Valley deck? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, The Daily Upkeep.

Until next time, happy brewing!