StarCityGames Commander VS Season 45 Finale Features Four Fan-Submitted Decklists

Jonathan Suarez's Necrobloom list doesn't let permanents stay dead for long. Eternal Witness recurs any card; Karmic Guide and Phyrexian Delver put creatures back directly onto the battlefield; the whole engine just keeps running. That list is only the first of four fan-submitted decks in Commander VS #482, the Season 45 finale, in which StarCityGames handed the deckbuilding reins entirely to the community and published every card the submissions brought to the table.

Fan submission finales are a deliberate tradition in the Commander VS format, and the Season 45 closer earns its place as one: four selected builds spanning graveyard recursion, artifact synergies, creature-focused combat, and library manipulation give the episode real strategic range. Two confirmed fan submitters, Nico D. and Michael B., are among the four whose brews made the final table. The full card-by-card decklists are published alongside the episode, importable directly into any deck-building platform for immediate price checks, modification, or straight-up copying.

The Necrobloom: Abzan Recursion at Full Throttle

The most mechanically layered submission in the episode is built around The Necrobloom, an Abzan commander from Murders at Karlov Manor that turns every land drop into an ETB trigger opportunity while enabling persistent graveyard loops. Suarez piloted the list, and the creature suite reads like a greatest-hits of recursive value: Eternal Witness hauls any card back from the graveyard, Karmic Guide and Phyrexian Delver return creatures directly to the battlefield, and Woodfall Primus keeps coming back through persist while destroying a noncreature permanent each time it enters. Corpse Connoisseur and Gloomshrieker add self-mill and recursion redundancy, while Priest of Fell Rites and Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward build toward ETB loop potential with blink support from Felidar Guardian.

The landfall dimension of the deck compounds that value further. Lotus Cobra converts every land drop into free mana, Scute Swarm turns subsequent land plays into an exponentially growing token army, and The Gitrog Monster draws cards whenever a land goes to the graveyard, creating a feedback loop between land plays and card advantage. Avenger of Zendikar closes the late game by producing a Plant army that grows with each land resolved afterward. Archon of Cruelty and Angel of Suffering push the strategy into controlling territory: recursion loops don't just refuel the hand, they drain opponents simultaneously. With Sister Hospitaller, Dawnglade Regent, and Archfiend of Ifnir rounding out the creature package, this submission functions as a complete, ready-to-play build that only gets stronger with targeted upgrades.

The Artifact Synergy Submission

One of the four fan-selected lists built its game plan around artifact synergies, one of Commander's most durable and modular archetypes. Artifact-centric strategies excel at creating layered board states where no single piece looks threatening until multiple components start combining: mana rocks accelerate the overall plan, artifact payoffs reward density, and the built-in recursion options specific to artifacts make the archetype resilient against removal-heavy tables. The submitted list reflects the community's ongoing interest in engine-based strategies that prioritize consistency and synergy density over individual card power, a design philosophy that holds up well in the kind of mixed-power games Commander VS typically showcases.

The Creature-Heavy Build

The third submission moves in the opposite direction, emphasizing high-value creatures and combat-focused synergies over intricate artifact chains. Creature-heavy Commander lists carry a natural advantage in the format: they generate battlefield presence quickly, apply immediate pressure on control-oriented opponents, and tend to resolve into clear, decisive game states faster than engine-based strategies. The submitted build reflects a recurring pattern in fan submission episodes: players who gravitate toward large legends and high-impact bodies produce decks that are immediately legible at the table, even to opponents encountering the specific list for the first time. That readability is part of the appeal, and it makes these creature-centric submissions consistently entertaining to watch under camera pressure.

The Fourth Submission: Gaea's Blessing and High-Impact Legends

The fourth brew incorporates Gaea's Blessing as a meaningful piece of its game plan, and that card choice alone tells you a lot about the deck's strategic identity. Gaea's Blessing shuffles three target cards from any graveyard back into their owner's library while replacing itself with a fresh draw, a deceptively flexible effect in Commander. It protects against mill strategies, cycles specific key cards back into the library on demand, and when paired with self-mill or discard outlets, creates a soft loop that keeps critical pieces in rotation indefinitely. Its presence in this submission signals a deck built around inevitability and longevity rather than early explosive turns, one that plans to outlast opponents rather than outpace them. Paired with high-impact legends referenced across the broader episode, the fourth list functions as a grind-focused strategy that punishes tables that wait too long to apply pressure.

What Season 45 Fan Submissions Actually Reveal

Closing a Commander VS season with fan submissions functions as an informal survey of what the community is actually building, and these four decks tell an interesting story about current brewing priorities. Each submission cleared an internal selection process before reaching the table, meaning this lineup represents four brews the Commander VS crew found compelling enough to anchor a season finale. The spread across graveyard value, artifact engines, creature combat, and library recursion reflects the format's genuine diversity at the moment: no single archetype owns the fan submission pool.

For anyone who wants to replicate any of these builds, the published decklists provide a direct starting point. Each list includes recognizable staple infrastructure, Sol Ring, ramp pieces, recursion engines, layered beneath the submission's thematic identity. That foundation makes the 100-card lists functional immediately out of the box, while the niche synergy choices each submitter built in serve as natural upgrade targets for players who want to push any of these builds further. The Season 45 finale does what the best fan submission episodes always do: it puts community creativity at the center of the table and runs real games through it.