The Rule of Eight: Building a Consistent Commander Deck

One of the biggest challenges new Commander players face is figuring out how many of each type of card to include. With 99 card slots to fill, it is easy to end up with a pile of cool cards that do not actually work together. You draw a hand with no ramp, flood on removal, or never find your win conditions.

The Rule of Eight is a deckbuilding heuristic that solves this problem. It is not a hard rule - it is a starting framework that gives you a balanced, functional deck you can tune over time.

How It Works

The idea is simple: divide your non-land cards into categories and include roughly 8 cards in each category. With about 36-38 lands, that gives you roughly 62-64 non-land slots, which fits about 8 categories of 8 cards each.

Here is a standard breakdown:

1. Ramp (8 cards)

Ramp cards help you produce more mana than you would naturally get from land drops. In Commander, the player who ramps fastest usually has the biggest advantage.

Examples: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Mind Stone, Fellwar Stone, Commander's Sphere, Rampant Growth

Why 8: You want to see at least one ramp spell in your opening hand or first few draws. With 8 ramp cards in 99, you have roughly a 50% chance of seeing one in your opening seven.

2. Card Draw (8 cards)

Card draw keeps your hand full and ensures you always have options. Running out of cards is the fastest way to lose in Commander.

Examples: Harmonize, Phyrexian Arena, Rhystic Study, Night's Whisper, Beast Whisperer, Read the Bones, Fact or Fiction, Esper Sentinel

Why 8: Card draw compounds on itself. The more cards you draw, the more answers and threats you find. Eight sources ensures you are rarely topdecking.

3. Targeted Removal (8 cards)

Targeted removal handles specific threats from your opponents. You need ways to deal with dangerous creatures, problematic enchantments, and game-winning artifacts.

Examples: Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within, Chaos Warp, Generous Gift, Nature's Claim, Counterspell, Go for the Throat, Anguished Unmaking

Why 8: In a four-player game, you face three opponents each playing their own threats. You need enough removal to handle the worst of what comes your way without spending all your cards on answers.

4. Board Wipes (3-4 cards)

Board wipes reset the game when things get out of control. They are essential for recovering from losing board states.

Examples: Wrath of God, Damnation, Cyclonic Rift, Blasphemous Act, Farewell, Toxic Deluge

Why 3-4 (not 8): Board wipes are powerful but situational. Drawing too many means you are clearing your own board as often as your opponents'. Three to four is the sweet spot.

5. Single-Target Protection (4-5 cards)

Cards that protect your commander or key pieces from removal. Your opponents will target your most important permanents.

Examples: Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Heroic Intervention, Tyvar's Stand, Malakir Rebirth, Deflecting Swat

Why 4-5: You do not need to protect everything, just your commander and your most critical permanents. Too much protection and not enough threats means you are defending nothing.

6. Win Conditions (8 cards)

Cards that actually close out the game. Commander games can go long, and you need a way to finish things.

Examples depend on your strategy: Could be combo pieces, big creatures, overrun effects, or alternate win conditions. The key is having enough that you reliably find one.

Why 8: You need redundancy here. If one win condition gets removed, you need a backup plan. And a backup to the backup.

7. Synergy / Theme Pieces (remaining slots)

Cards that work specifically with your commander or deck theme. If you are building Zombie tribal, this is where your Zombies go. If you are building an enchantress deck, this is where your enchantments go.

This category gets the most slots because it is the core of what makes your deck unique.

8. Utility / Flex Slots (4-8 cards)

Miscellaneous useful cards that do not fit neatly into other categories. Graveyard hate, extra recursion, political tools, or meta-specific answers.

The Math Behind Consistency

Why does 8 cards in 99 work? Let's look at the probability.

With 8 copies of a functional category in a 99-card deck, you have approximately:

• 46% chance of seeing at least one in your opening 7 cards
• 55% chance of seeing one by turn 2 (9 cards seen)
• 62% chance of seeing one by turn 4 (11 cards seen)

That means you will see at least one card from each category in the majority of games by the time it matters. You will not always have the exact card you want, but you will usually have something from each category when you need it.

If you increase to 10 cards in a category, those numbers jump to about 54%, 63%, and 71%. Decrease to 6, and they drop to 36%, 44%, and 51%.

When to Break the Rules

The Rule of Eight is a starting point, not a law. Here is when to deviate.

Your commander provides a category: If your commander draws cards (like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait), you can cut some dedicated card draw and add more synergy pieces.

Your strategy is lopsided: Aggro decks might want 10+ ramp sources and fewer board wipes. Control decks might want more removal and fewer win conditions. The framework should adapt to your gameplan.

Your mana curve is low: If most of your spells cost 2-3 mana, you might get away with fewer ramp sources. If your curve tops out at 7-8 mana, you want more.

Your meta demands it: If your playgroup plays a lot of graveyard strategies, you might dedicate 4-5 slots to graveyard hate instead of the usual 1-2.

Putting It Into Practice

Here is a sample slot allocation for a Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver Zombie tribal deck:

• Lands: 37
• Ramp: 8 (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Dimir Signet, Talisman of Dominance, Wayfarer's Bauble, Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere, Dark Ritual)
• Card draw: 6 (Wilhelt himself draws cards, so we trim here)
• Removal: 8 (Counterspell, Feed the Swarm, Reality Shift, Go for the Throat, Pongify, Negate, Ravenous Chupacabra, Fleshbag Marauder)
• Board wipes: 3 (Damnation, Living Death, Toxic Deluge)
• Protection: 4 (Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Lazotep Plating, Malakir Rebirth)
• Win conditions: 6 (Coat of Arms, Rooftop Storm, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Gravecrawler combo pieces)
• Zombie synergy: 27 (the Zombie army itself)

Total: 99 cards + Wilhelt in the command zone = 100.

Start Here, Tune Later

The beauty of the Rule of Eight is that it gives you a functional deck on day one. You will not have the perfectly optimized ratios, but you will have a deck that ramps, draws cards, answers threats, and wins games.

After playing 5-10 games, you will naturally notice what you are drawing too much or too little of. Tune from there. Every Commander deck is a work in progress.

For more on balancing your deck's mana costs, check out our guide on Commander mana curves. And if you want help filling each category with the right cards, Manacove can suggest cards tailored to your commander and budget.