You Don’t Mess with the Ruhan

I recently put together a Commander deck featuring Ruhan of the Fomori. I take a lot of time to build decks, so I tend to be somewhat invested in them. One of the first times I sat down to play, one of my opponents, upon seeing Ruhan as my general, announced, "Oh, the Ruhan deck."

I’ve heard this phrasing several times. "The Kaervek deck." "The Zur deck." "The Captain Sisay deck." "The Ghave deck." So many people seem to believe that there is only one deck for each commander. Commander is a variant that is designed to encourage variety; decks must be larger than the standard sixty-card deck. You can only use one copy of each card (excluding basic lands) in your deck instead of four. Commander decks should—almost by definition—offer more variation than most other formats, yet hearing about "the Ruhan deck" is commonplace.

I decided I wanted to know if this really is true. Is there really only a single version of a deck for each legend in Magic? I decided to ask several people to make a Commander deck using the same leader. I could compare the resulting decks to see if there really was a single deck for each one.

I looked at various legends in Magic to determine one that I thought would limit the options for a Commander deck. Since I doubted there was only one deck, I wanted to make it as difficult as possible for the deck-builders involved to build different decks, so picking a one-dimensional commander is probably the best way to do that. In the end, I chose Ruhan of the Fomori. He is fairly one-dimensional in that he is pretty much a Hulk-smash, table-flipping, attack-attack-attack kind of commander. Admittedly, he is a three-colored commander, so there are more options that way, but I figured he would still work.

Oh, and my Ruhan deck has been getting pounded repeatedly, and I was looking for some help.

Before I go into my biased interpretation of my unscientific results, I want to introduce the writers in question and give you a better understanding of how each writer approached my request for help.

Bennie Smith from StarCitygames was the first to post. It happened that Bennie had recently built a Ruhan deck and wanted to share it with the community. Jack LaCroix, co-host of podcasts Monday Night Magic and Horde of Notions and writer for manadeprived.com and his blog the Bitter Better Man was the next to step up. Rather than suggest his own version of the deck, he suggested significant changes to improve the deck.

Several GatheringMagic writers also took up the call. Brandon Isleib came through with Can Ruhandle It? He made efforts to keep to my original build—replacing some cards with others—rather than creating his own deck. Robby Rothe, with Riders of Ruhan, was next up. Robby took my description of my Ruhan deck (a Voltron-style build) and opted to stay within that style. Finally, Daryl Bockett followed up with Ruhanning on your Parade, a ground-up build for Ruhan.

I then had five decklists and my original decklist. What to do with all this raw data?

1. Remove all the lands from the decklists. While there are specialty lands in each deck, I figured that the mana base for each deck would be tailored to fit the deck in question. If someone chose to alter the color percentages from what I originally had, it will produce a different base. Also, Jack and Brandon basically used my list of lands with almost no changes, so I felt that including the lands would skew the results.
2. I put the remainder of the decklists into separate columns in a spreadsheet with the deck-builder’s initials in the column next to it. I pasted all of the decks into one column with everyone’s initials next to their card choices, and then sorted the cards. This grouped identical picks together, making it easier to spot same selections in different decks.
3. I highlighted the similar picks in various colors to show which cards appeared most often. When the card appeared in two decks, I marked it in green, when it appeared in three decks, I marked it in yellow, and when it appeared in four or more decks, I marked it in red. I should note that I did not include my deck when adding the highlights. Since some of the decks were based on my deck, it seemed incorrect to say both writers chose that card since it may simply be a case when the writer had no issue with my choice. If two writers both left a card I selected for my deck in their decks, I highlighted the card. If they both wanted it in, that should be enough to suggest it should be in.

In an effort to make this easier to understand, I broke it down into a table that points us in the right direction:

None.

Not Sol Ring or Swords to Plowshares. Not Path to Exile or Nim Deathmantle or even Godo, Bandit Warlord.

These five writers, using a one-dimensional commander, each came up with very different decklists. Most of these writers were even using my deck as a basis to provide a more focused, streamlined deck, and they still produced widely varied results! Given this, if you are one of the people referring to "the Ruhan deck," you might want to think twice. The deck is probably very different than what you expect.

Bruce Richard

P.S. So, what did I do to improve my own Ruhan list?

"Don’t Mess with the Ruhan!"

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Commander (1) 1 Ruhan of the Fomori Creatures (26) 1 Anger 1 Avatar of Slaughter 1 Bloodmark Mentor 1 Dominus of Fealty 1 Fog Bank 1 Jotun Grunt 1 Mother of Runes 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours 1 Stinkdrinker Daredevil 1 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Stonehewer Giant 1 Taj-Nar Swordsmith 1 Valor 1 Vedalken Plotter 1 Wall of Denial 1 Wonder 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Scuttlemutt 1 Adamaro, First to Desire 1 Brion Stoutarm 1 Godo, Bandit Warlord 1 Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer 1 Hanna, Ship S Navigator 1 Keiga, the Tide Star 1 Nin, the Pain Artist Spells (39) 1 Absorb 1 Blazing Shoal 1 Celestial Purge 1 Chaos Warp 1 Fight to the Death 1 Long-Term Plans 1 Mnemonic Nexus 1 Oblation 1 Path to Exile 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Acquire 1 Austere Command 1 Illuminate 1 Molten Rain 1 Pillage 1 Wild Swing 1 World at War 1 Aggravated Assault 1 Arrest 1 Gratuitous Violence 1 Laccolith Rig 1 Oblivion Ring 1 Argentum Armor 1 Azorius Signet 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Bladed Pinions 1 Boros Signet 1 Izzet Signet 1 Kusari-Gama 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Loxodon Warhammer 1 Nim Deathmantle 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Sol Ring 1 Sunforger 1 Swiftfoot Boots 1 Trailblazer's Boots 1 Whispersilk Cloak 1 Tenza, Godo's Maul Lands (36) 3 Island 4 Mountain 6 Plains 1 Arid Mesa 1 Azorius Chancery 1 Boros Garrison 1 Celestial Colonnade 1 Clifftop Retreat 1 Command Tower 1 Drifting Meadow 1 Izzet Boilerworks 1 Mystic Gate 1 Remote Isle 1 Rupture Spire 1 Shimmering Grotto 1 Smoldering Crater 1 Soaring Seacliff 1 Spinerock Knoll 1 Strip Mine 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion 1 Tundra 1 Vivid Crag 1 Vivid Creek 1 Volcanic Island 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep