EDHREC Reveals March Deckbuilding Contest Finalists, Opens Community Voting

March's Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest broke new ground before a single finalist was even named: for the first time ever, submissions crossed the 1,000-deck threshold, landing at 1,076, which was almost a 10% increase over February. That February total had itself been the previous best. The milestone set the stage for one of the most competitive rounds of the contest since it launched.

The contest runs monthly with a different theme each month. The goal is to build a Commander-legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion, and at the end of each month, three finalists are selected for the community to vote on. Whoever gets the most votes is crowned the winner, though all three finalists receive a prize.

For March, the prompt was specific: build a unique, different take on a Commander-legal deck using one of EDHREC's top 25 commanders over the last two years. Decks were judged on creativity and originality of their brew, with the bar set high enough that a straightforward Ur-Dragon deck running the best Dragons would probably not make the cut. The eligible commander pool spans the top of EDHREC's most-played charts, including names like The Ur-Dragon, Edgar Markov, and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice near the top of the list.

From the more than a thousand decks entered, three finalists were selected and presented in no particular order. The finalist confirmed in the EDHREC article, written by Dana Roach, is "Fire Nation Cipher (Contest Submission Version)" by DeuceTheWild. The deck is built around Fire Lord Azula and the cipher mechanic. Roach noted a personal soft spot for cipher before acknowledging that Azula's "while Fire Lord Azula is attacking" clause extends past the point where damage is dealt, a detail he had initially missed. That means casting a cipher spell like Call of the Nightwing, encoding it onto Azula, and attacking lets you cast it two additional times, and with double strike that number climbs to five total castings in a single turn, all but the first costing no added mana. The deck also leans into the Fire Lord Azula theme, populating the list with characters from her team from the Avatar show and cards featuring Azula in the art.

Voting is open now: visit each finalist's deck page, read through the list, and upvote your favorite on Archidekt. Whoever has the most upvotes by Wednesday, March 25, 2026 will be the winner and receive $250 credit to Cardsphere. Second and third place receive $150 and $100 Cardsphere credits, respectively. Finalists will be contacted via email regarding their winnings within roughly 24 hours following the conclusion of voting. A Cardsphere account is required to receive the prize.

The level of participation and enthusiasm for this contest from Archidekt brewers has been genuinely exciting to see, according to EDHREC's announcement, and topping 1,000 for the first time makes that hard to argue with. With voting closing on March 25, whoever has the most creative cipher tech, Avatar lore accuracy, or just the most compelling build around one of Commander's most-played commanders has until Wednesday to make their case.