Arcades, the Strategist is a Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon (mana cost {1}{G}{W}{U}; Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon; 3/5; rarity: myth...
Arcades, the Strategist is a Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon (mana cost {1}{G}{W}{U}; Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon; 3/5; rarity: mythic; most recent printing listed by Scryfall: Core Set 2019). Its colour identity is green, blue, white, and its Commander legality on Scryfall is listed as legal. This guide explains what the card actually does, how a deck built around it wins, and which decisions matter most when you build your own version.
What Arcades, the Strategist does
The card's exact text is where every honest build starts:
Flying, vigilance
Whenever a creature you control with defender enters, draw a card.
Each creature you control with defender assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power and can attack as though it didn't have defender.
Read that text literally. Every line of it is a building instruction: the abilities tell you which supporting cards multiply the commander, which weaknesses opponents will attack, and which turns of the game the deck is designed to own. Brewers get into trouble when they build the deck they wish the commander were; build the one this text describes.
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How the deck wins
The wins rarely come from a single spectacular play. They come from the deck doing its ordinary thing one turn earlier than the table expects, then doing it again while opponents are still setting up. Build for that ordinary game first: enough lands to make your drops, enough ramp to reach your commander on schedule, and enough card flow that a removal spell pointed at your best permanent slows you down instead of ending you.
If this topic is on your bench, keep going with Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins — it covers the neighbouring decisions from a different angle, and the two pieces together give you a fuller picture than either one alone.
Keep reading
Keep reading: Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins and The Ur-Dragon Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins.
Building and tuning tips
Tune in small steps. Change two or three cards at a time, play several games, and write down what actually happened rather than what you hoped would happen. Deck building rewards that patience — a list adjusted on evidence converges on its best version, while a list rebuilt after every loss never stays still long enough to be judged.
Keep the mana honest, too. A commander in green, blue, white colours needs a mana base built for those colours in the proportions the deck actually casts — a lesson that applies to every list you will ever build, and one the MTGBrew Learn guides return to often.
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