Answers to common questions. If you don't find what you need, check the features guide or drop into Discord.
Commander AI is a conversational deck builder for Magic: The Gathering's Commander (EDH) format. You describe what you want — a commander, a strategy, a budget — and it builds, analyzes, and refines a 100-card deck through chat. Every recommendation is grounded in real card data from Scryfall, synergy stats from EDHREC, combos from Commander Spellbook, the MTG comprehensive rules, and thousands of hours of expert MTG strategy content — not AI guesses.
Yes — you'll need to sign in to chat, save decks, and use the build tools. You can sign up with email/password or with a supported OAuth provider. No credit card, no trial clock.
Go to the homepage or the chat page and type what you want — for example, "Build me a $75 Krenko goblin deck" or "I want an aristocrats deck that wins through drain effects." You can also click one of the intent tiles (Build / Analyze / Upgrade / Suggest swaps) to start in a guided form. The AI will help you pin down a thesis if your prompt is open-ended, then return a full 100-card list with a health check, bracket assessment, and a one-click purchase link.
Nothing. All features are free for every signed-in user — deck building, analysis, upgrades, combo search, cube tools, everything. There are no tiers, no usage limits, and no paywalls. The project is funded by Mana Pool affiliate commission on cards bought through the app and by voluntary supporters on Patreon and Ko-fi.
For Archidekt, paste the deck URL into chat — "Import my deck from archidekt.com/decks/…" — and the AI imports it directly. Moxfield URLs don't work because Cloudflare blocks the scrape; instead export from Moxfield (Actions → Export → MTGO format) and paste the text into chat. Any plain card list (one card per line, with or without quantities) will be parsed.
Brackets are the PlayEDH power-level system, 1 through 5. Bracket 1 is exhibition / precon-level, bracket 3 is the upgraded-but-casual sweet spot, bracket 4 is optimized, and bracket 5 is cEDH. The AI uses the official Game Changers list (53 cards) plus deck composition signals to estimate where your deck sits, and can target a specific bracket if you ask — "Upgrade my deck to bracket 3."
It shouldn't, and there are guardrails specifically to catch this — if a card slips past the AI's first pass, a filter checks every recommendation against your commander's color identity before you see it. If one still gets through, that's a bug — please report it in our Discord with the chat URL and the offending card.
Yes. Decks you build are automatically saved to your library, and you can ask "Show me my saved decks" in chat at any time. You can also share a deck with a public link, browse community decks on the browse page, and fork another player's deck to customize it.
Paste your oversized list and say "Help me cut my deck to 99 cards." The AI will recommend specific cuts with reasoning — usually weakest-synergy cards, redundant effects, or cards that don't support your thesis. You can also ask for the cut suggestions in the Deep-Dive Panel on a saved deck page.
Every deck the AI builds starts with a one-sentence thesis — the deck's actual win plan, like "ramp into a big Krenko, swing for lethal with goblin tokens" or "stall until turn 8, then combo with Thassa's Oracle." Each of the ~63 nonland slots is then filtered against that thesis, so you don't end up with random EDHREC-popular cards that don't fit the plan. If your prompt is ambiguous, the AI will ask before building rather than guess.
Yes — ask for a "competitive Dimir deck" or "budget cEDH in Mardu" and it'll build to bracket 5. You can also browse the cEDH metagame, see top commanders with win rates, pull standard competitive decklists, and check recent tournament results from TopDeck.gg.
Every card the AI mentions is looked up against the Scryfall database (33,000+ verified entries) at the moment you ask — it doesn't recall card text from training memory. Oracle text, mana cost, type line, and color identity all come straight from Scryfall, so the card information is current and matches what you'd see on a real card.
Yes — combo data comes from the Commander Spellbook public API. Ask "What combos does Thassa's Oracle enable?", "Find infinite mana combos in Simic," or "Am I close to any combos in my deck?" and you'll get a list with the cards needed, the steps, and the result.
The AI is trained on a curated corpus of expert Commander strategy content — thousands of hours of podcasts and YouTube discussions about deck construction, archetype theory, and card evaluation — embedded and queryable per deck. It's the "why" layer that sits on top of EDHREC's "what." When the AI explains why a card works in your deck, that reasoning often traces back to this corpus.
Prices come from Mana Pool in near real time when you build, analyze, or price a deck. They reflect actual seller inventory on the marketplace, so they may differ from TCGplayer or Card Kingdom market prices. You can also set condition preferences (NM only, budget, foil, etc.) on your Account page so pricing matches what you'd actually buy.
Yes — ask "Find cards similar to Cyclonic Rift" or "What's a budget alternative to Smothering Tithe?" The similarity search combines vector embeddings with oracle-text patterns, so it surfaces functional equivalents (other one-sided board wipes, other treasure-on-opponent-cast effects) rather than just "other blue instants."
Mana Pool is an online MTG card marketplace and the primary purchase partner for Commander AI. When the AI suggests cards or builds a deck, the "Buy" links route to a pre-loaded cart on Mana Pool so you can check out without manually re-typing the list.
When you click a Buy link, the cart is tagged with our affiliate code and Mana Pool pays us a small commission on whatever you purchase within their attribution window — at no extra cost to you. That commission is what pays the API and hosting bills that keep everything free. You're under no obligation to buy through the link; the recommendations are the same either way.
Prices are fetched live from Mana Pool when you ask for them and reflect current seller inventory. They can shift between the time you see a deck price and the time you check out, especially for low-supply singles.
The in-app Buy flow currently routes to Mana Pool only. You can still copy any deck list and paste it into Archidekt, Moxfield, TCGplayer, or Card Kingdom to price-shop manually. Additional partners may be added in the future.
Yes. Every feature, including full deck builds, analysis, upgrades, cube tools, and combo search, is free for every signed-in user. No subscription, no per-build quota, no "you've used 3 of 5 free builds this month." This is a hard rule for the project, not a launch promotion.
Three ways: (1) buy cards through the in-app Buy links so the affiliate commission funds operations, (2) pledge monthly on Patreon at $1, $5, $10, or $20 — perks include a Discord role, a supporter badge on your public decks, and your name on the supporters page, or (3) leave a one-time tip on Ko-fi. The support page has all three.
We tried — zero conversions across 116 signups in the first month. Per-call costs are low enough that the Mana Pool affiliate plus Patreon support covers the bills without gating anyone out of features. Magic-community precedent (Cube Cobra, Moxfield, Archidekt) also runs on the same Patreon-plus-affiliate model.
Anthropic API bills (Claude is the model behind the chat), Railway hosting, Supabase (database and auth), and the hours it takes one person to keep shipping. There are no employees, no investors, and no marketing budget — it's a solo side project built between feedings and bedtimes.
A full deck build legitimately takes 3–7 minutes for hard prompts because the AI is reasoning through hundreds of card choices, pricing the deck, and running structural reviews. You'll see progress updates as it works. If it's been silent for more than 10 minutes with no progress messages, refresh the page — your conversation is saved and you can resume the prompt. If hangs are consistent, please report it in our Discord with the chat URL.
There are multiple guardrails — color identity checks, Scryfall existence verification, and card-text grounding before the AI speaks — but no system is perfect. If a card was misnamed, had wrong oracle text, or shouldn't have been legal in your colors, please post it in our Discord with the chat URL and the specific card so the regression can be reproduced.
Common causes: (1) Moxfield URLs are blocked by Cloudflare — export to MTGO text format and paste the list instead;
(2) the list has set codes or unusual formatting the parser can't read — try one card per line, optionally with a leading
quantity (1 Lightning Bolt); (3) the deck has cards from non-paper sets that don't exist in Scryfall. If a
specific deck won't import, paste the list in our Discord and we'll take a look.
Drop into our Discord and post the report there — it's the fastest way to reach the maintainer and works for both reproducible bugs and fuzzy "this felt wrong" reports with screenshots. The single most helpful thing to include is the chat URL; it lets the maintainer pull the full trace.
Chat history is tied to your account, so make sure you're signed in with the same provider you used originally (email vs Google vs Discord vs Twitch are distinct accounts even if the email matches). Past conversations show up in the sidebar of the chat page. If you're signed in correctly and a specific conversation is missing, please report it with the approximate date so it can be looked up.
Your email address, OAuth credentials, the decks and card lists you create or import, and the messages you exchange with the AI. Basic usage data (pages visited, features used) is collected for service improvement. Full details are on the privacy policy.
Yes — go to the Account page and use the "Delete Account" button. This permanently removes your saved decks, chat history, and profile. Personal data is removed within 30 days; anonymized usage data may be retained for service improvement.
No — new decks default to private. You can change visibility per deck to unlisted (anyone with the link can view) or public (listed in community browse) from the deck page.
No. We don't sell personal data to any third party. Your deck data and chat messages are sent to Anthropic (for AI analysis), Supabase (storage), Mana Pool (pricing), Railway (hosting), and Cloudflare (CDN) — only as needed to operate the service. We use only essential cookies for authentication; no advertising or tracking cookies.