7 Awesome Deck Theme Ideas

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice | Illustration by Justin Hernandez & Alexis Hernandez

When people build a MTG deck, they want to express something – or win using the best cards available. But outside of highly competitive formats and more in the casual realm, there are players that enjoy building a deck to try something new, but not necessarily powerful or game-breaking, so they’ll follow a certain theme.

MTG has enough cards to give us infinite themes to build decks with, and as Mark Rosewater says: “Restriction breeds creativity”. Today I’m showing you seven ways to build a deck based on theme only, and based on these concepts I urge you to try and build your own theme decks.

Let’s dive in!

What Is a Theme Deck?

Storyteller Pixie | Illustration by Peter Polach

A theme deck is a deck in which every card is slotted for a thematic reason, not just for power level reasons. You’re not playing the best cards available or simply building the best aggro or control deck possible.

In theme decks, the criteria for including cards goes beyond synergy and winning a game, and it’s more of an artistic expression. For example, a green deck or a goblin deck has restrictions, so you’re limited to play only green cards or only goblin cards, but it’s not that big of a deal. After all, there are more than enough green cards to build a good deck.

But what about green cards depicting trees? Or goblin cards that have more than one goblin in the art? Or cards from the Jund shard in Shards of Alara?

Of course, you can still win a game, and you can play the best cards from your theme. But there’s a difference between playing the best human cards ever printed, and the best humans from Innistrad sets. And your commander can be something like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Avacyn, Angel of Hope to stay further in theme.

#7. Pioneer Siege Rhino Clones

Siege Rhino | Illustration by Volkan Baga

The idea here is to build around a certain card as much as you can, and here you’re exploiting affective memories of Siege Rhino as a dominant card in past competitive formats. Also, people remember that it’s not the first rhino that gets you, but the second or third. Either way, what if you could play more than four Siege Rhinos in a deck?

The aim of this deck is to play a Siege Rhino and then use clone effects as much as possible to overwhelm your opponents with them. The deck is inspired by this Modern decklist, and it’s mainly a Bant deck splashing black that wants to win via Siege Rhino and Clone effects like Quasiduplicate and Glasspool Mimic. Plus, there’s an Atraxa, Grand Unifier there as well to be plan B and to get you some cards.  

#6. Dudes Looking Right

Gideon Jura | Illustration by Aleksi Briclot

You can use art to guide a unified theme for a deck. (The versions in the decklist above might not reflect the version that actually fits this deck theme.)

This is a Dakkon Blackblade EDH deck where every card depicts a guy looking right.

There’s the commander, leading all guys right, then you have planeswalkers like Gideon Jura and Venser, the Sojourner, and lots of creatures facing right. The deck isn't all creatures though. Spells like Mind Control and Confiscate are fair game, too. Just keep in mind that cards like Counterspell and Arcane Denial are only valid in their old school art. In fact, the new Arcane Denial art fits another deck theme, the traditional Ladies Looking Left.

#5. Build Around Didgeridoo in Legacy

Didgeridoo | Illustration by Melissa A. Benson

Some typal decks take a little longer to be good than other traditional ones like elves and goblins. Part of the Reserved List, Didgeridoo was always considered a meme card because it cares about minotaurs, a creature type that had weak representatives like Hurloon Minotaur. Today, thanks to good sets like Theros Beyond Death and Zendikar Rising, we have very good minotaurs to build a deck.

Didgeridoo asks for expensive minotaurs to cheat into play, so the deck has Moraug, Fury of Akoum and Sethron, Hurloon General. It’s totally possible to have a typal minotaur EDH deck, but you’ll be restricted to one Didgeridoo. With over 100 different minotaurs in print you can use the full power of the card in formats like Legacy.

#4. Under the Sea Thassa EDH

Thassa, God of the Sea | Illustration by Jason Chan

“Under the sea… under the sea…
Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me..”

Sebastian, The Little Mermaid (lyrics by Howard Ashman, Disney, 1989)

This EDH deck has an Under the Sea theme that's adapted from here. Almost all cards are literally underwater in the art, or there’s plenty of water around. Naturally, it’s a mono-blue deck harnessing the power of Islands and blue mana.

The commander is Thassa, God of the Sea, and unfortunately you’re not doing it justice since your creatures are… pretty bad. Still, they all count for Thassa’s devotion, and there’s a little merfolk subtheme going on.

#3. General Ferrous Rokiric’s Ravnician Boros Legion

General Ferrous Rokiric | Illustration by Matt Stewart

General Ferrous Rokiric is a Commander that wants you to play multicolored spells. Naturally, if it’s your general, you’ll only be able to play gold and hybrid cards. Let’s add another restriction: It’ll only be able to command fellow denizens from Ravnica. Every card in the deck is aligned to Boros and has the Boros watermark whenever possible.

Of course, it’s going to be thematic but not optimized. You can give a spin and try this theme in the other nine Ravnica guilds, too. About the deck, the idea is to have your commander online and cast gold cards to make 4/4 tokens. Some of the cards care about tokens and attacking with numbers, as the Boros cards usually do. There are cards with battalion in the deck that give you incentives to attack with at least three creatures.

Heroic Reinforcements is an example of a nice inclusion that wasn't originally printed in a Ravnica set. It triggers Rokiric and gives that token plus all your other creatures +1/+1 and haste.

#2. The Blackest Black Devotion Ever

Umbra Stalker | Illustration by Daarken

This deck idea came to me when trying to build an EDH deck around black devotion. I wanted my deck to look like an army of Phyrexian Obliterators on the battlefield. The criteria for making this deck is that I wanted my cards to be almost all permanents with at least two symbols.

After getting some ideas online, I realized that the best commander would be Evelyn, the Covetous. Why? Because with a Grixis commander, I could have access to and cards, while not missing much on and . Also, Evelyn adds 3 mana worth of devotion by itself, and some of the creatures in this deck also happen to be vampires for an added benefit.

Some considerations: Lich is out for rarity and price reasons. Umbra Stalker is awesome in this deck. Evelyn’s colors allow me to run Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God because it’s awesome and it adds three devotion as well. There are many cards that care about swamps, like Mutilate and Defile, and almost all the cards that give benefits based on black devotion. I’d like more copies of Gray Merchant of Asphodel but that’s life.

#1. Atraxa Proliferate Charge Counters

Lux Artillery | Illustration by Jason Kang

When thinking about deck ideas, artifacts and manipulation of charge counters came to mind, and I bumped into this deck.

It’s an Atraxa, Praetors' Voice proliferate themed EDH deck, with some toxic creatures and many cards that carry charge counters. This is a control deck that’s mainly , and you’ll slowly deploy your artifacts that care about charge counters.

Cards like Lux Artillery and Darksteel Reactor win you the game if you have enough charge counters, and your commander helps you to proliferate them. Not to mention cards like Inexorable Tide, Thrummingbird, and Contagion Clasp that can proliferate even more.

There are artifacts that generate mana based on charge counters, like Everflowing Chalice, and cards like Magistrate's Scepter, Titan Forge, or Lux Cannon that convert the counters into big advantages. This is a Johnny deck at heart, and you’ll be surprised at the number of interactions and small synergies that can be obtained between the cards.

Wrap Up

Thespian's Stage | Illustration by John Avon

Well, here are my seven deck theme ideas. These decks are in no way competitive, but they at least express something. Once you start to explore out-of-the-box deck ideas, the sky's the limit. I brought ideas based on typal, devotion, art patterns, and the like. There are graveyard-centric decks, set-based decks, old-bordered decks, and win conditions that are hard to achieve.

Did you enjoy my deck theme suggestions? Let me know on the Draftsim Discord what other crazy deck ideas you’ve developed along the years, and what’s your favorite commander to employ a thematic-focused strategy.

Thanks for reading guys, and let’s keep thinking outside the box.