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Braids, Cabal Minion has had a long and storied history inMagic: The Gathering.
Back in the day, some cards were banned from Commander, but only as your commander.
Braids was one of these cards, being banned as a commander in 2009.
In 2014, the banned as commander clause was eliminated, and Braids was fully banned.
In 2025, Braids was removed from the Commander banlist and added to the Game Changers list.
Build and play a Zurgo Stormrender Commander deck with these tips and tricks.
Braids, Cabal Minion is a very powerful commander capable of locking your opponents out of the game early.
Many permanents in the deck create tokens to sacrifice, or slow your opponents down through stax pieces.
As you may expect,you want to get Braids on the battlefield as quickly as possible.
Once there, your opponents are essentially locked out of the game if you get it out early enough.
You alsowant to be prepared for Braid’s effect yourself.
This allows you to build up a battlefield without ever needing to actually cast anything yourself.
This makes it easier to continue the Braids lock that you set up.
Rituals
A ritual is a card that creates more mana than it costs.
Generally, these add at least three mana.
Ritualsare the main way you’ll turbo out Braids.
Black decks can be slow, so rituals help to give them a mana generation push.
The deck has aton of creature token generatorsso that you’ll always have sacrifice fodder for Braids.
Mirkwood Batshelps to turn all that token generation and sacrificing into burn damage.
Mirkwood Bats hits every opponent, so you won’t have to single anyone out.
Notably,Black Market triggers whenever any creature dies, not just your own.
It doesn’t matter how a creature dies, so even dying in combat will net you charge counters.
Building a Bracket 1 Commander deck has never been easier than with these legendary Magic: The Gathering creatures.
ensure there’s at least something else to sacrifice the turn you bring Braids out.
Since you’ll need permanents to sacrifice,token generators are vital for the deck’s strategy.
Theprimary win condition is winning through burn and combat.
Your opponents will lose all their life from one of the two win conditions.
Thebiggest flaw of the deck is that it’s a Braids deck.
The other downside is thatBraids is much weaker in the late game.
If you fail to get an early-game lock on your opponents, Braids' effect is much less impactful.
Black possesses a sizable roster of viable commanders in the Commander format - but who is the best?
