The 80% Rule

Commander players love optimization the way toddlers love finding the one drawer you forgot to childproof. If there is a corner to cut, a line to cross, or a “technically legal” interaction to jam into 99 cards, we will find it. And then we’ll act confused when the table mood drops faster than a life total after Sol Ring into “I swear this is a casual deck.”

The 80 Percent Rule is my favorite antidote: build your deck to about 80% of what you know you could do. Intentionally leave power on the table. Not because you’re weak. Not because you “don’t like winning.” Because Commander is a social format, and social formats punish perfection.

If you’ve ever had a game end with three people staring at their phones while one player goldfishes through triggers, you’ve already met the dark side of 100%.

Why Leaving Power On The Table Improves Games

Power isn’t evil. Power without friction is.

When a deck is tuned to 100%, it tends to do three things that make the table miserable:
It compresses the game into fewer meaningful decisions.
It reduces the number of players who get to matter.
It turns politics into “kill them now or lose.”

At 80%, your deck still does its thing. It still feels like you. It just does it with space for interaction, for mistakes, for weird lines, and for other people to have an actual night.

And yes, that means you’ll lose some games you “should” win. That’s the point. A Commander night where everyone had agency is worth more than a Commander night where you got to be the main character for 47 minutes.

The Hidden Cost Of 100% Deckbuilding

The cost isn’t money, although your wallet will absolutely take a punch if you treat every list like it’s headed for a feature match.

The real cost is texture.

100% decks start to look the same because the incentives are the same. You run the same acceleration. The same staple interaction. The same redundant pieces. The same top-end finishers. You can swap the commander and still feel like you’re playing the same meal in a different bowl.

If you’ve felt that “why does this deck feel hollow?” sensation, you’re not crazy. You optimized the personality out of it.

This is why I keep coming back to the idea in When To Stop Adding Staples And Start Adding Soul. Staples are great until your deck becomes a Staples Delivery System with a commander-shaped sticker on the box.

80% Is Not A Power Level Number

Please don’t turn this into another “my deck is a 7” situation. We have enough Commander math already, and none of it works.

80% is personal. It’s the gap between what you know is optimal and what you choose because it makes the game better.

For some people, 80% means cutting the fast mana.
For others, it means keeping the fast mana but removing the “oops I win” combo lines.
For others, it means leaving the combo, but adding clunky, flavorful pieces that slow it down and give the table windows.

The only wrong version is the one where you say “it’s 80%” and then jam every tutor you own, because you “need consistency.” Buddy. That’s not consistency. That’s a search engine.

Four Ways To Apply The 80% Rule

1) Cut One Tier Of Tutors

Tutors are the easiest lever because they smooth the deck into a predictable script.

If your deck runs every efficient tutor it can, your games will start to feel like reruns. Cut one tier. Keep the on-theme ones. Keep the fun ones. Trim the “this card just makes my deck do the same thing every time” package.

If you love tutoring, make it cost you something. Use slower tutors. Use tutors that reveal the card. Use tutors that can whiff. Or keep the good tutors and add more targets so the decision is real.

You want the table to wonder what happens next. Not to know, with certainty, what happens next.

2) Replace Redundancy With Variety

Redundancy is comforting. It also creates games where you’re never meaningfully disrupted.

If you’re running seven copies of the same effect, you’re telling the table: “interaction doesn’t matter.” Then you wonder why people stop interacting and just race you.

I went deep on this impulse in The False Security Of Redundancy In Commander, because redundancy feels like good deckbuilding. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s just emotional support cardboard.

Try this instead: keep the core redundancy that makes your deck function, but spend the remaining slots on different angles. Different threats. Different payoffs. Different types of answers. Your deck becomes harder to pilot perfectly, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

3) Choose A Slower Win Condition On Purpose

This is where the magic happens. Literally.

You don’t have to remove your win condition. Just pick the one that takes an extra turn cycle or requires an extra step.

Example: instead of the cleanest infinite combo, choose a loop that still wins but needs combat, needs a board, or needs a resource that can be attacked. Give the table a chance to see it coming and respond. When they do respond, you get to play a game instead of a solitaire performance.

There’s a reason people remember the game where you assembled a ridiculous board and got stopped at the last second. Nobody remembers the game where you tutored twice and ended it on turn five.

4) Build A Constraint That Actually Bites

The best 80% decks have a real constraint. Not “I’m only running cards I like,” because everyone says that right before casting the same five staples.

Pick something concrete:
No cards under two mana, except ramp.
No infinite combos.
Only one board wipe.
Only removal that fits the theme.
Only card draw that is attached to creatures.

Constraints force creativity. They also force pacing. Your deck ends up with a distinct rhythm, and rhythm is what makes Commander feel like a story instead of a spreadsheet.

80% Decks Create Better Politics

Politics in Commander are only interesting when the threat is ambiguous.

At 100%, the threat is usually obvious. The player with the most efficient engine, the most tutoring, the most protected combo line, and the most compressed win condition becomes the villain by default. It’s not personal. It’s math.

At 80%, the table can argue. The table can negotiate. The table can make bad deals and laugh about it later. That’s the good stuff.

If you want to understand how much table perception shapes outcomes, read Commander Deck Identity Drift. When your list drifts into generic power, your table treats you like generic power. You become the “we should probably kill you” player. Congratulations. Your optimization worked.

But Won’t I Just Lose More?

Yes. And you will also win in ways that feel better.

You’ll win because you navigated a messy board, not because your opening hand contained the same two accelerants and the same tutor line.
You’ll win because you made a read on the table, not because your deck was statistically inevitable.
You’ll win because you had to adapt.

Also, you’ll still win plenty. The dirty secret is that most Commander tables aren’t losing because their decks are underpowered. They’re losing because they overextend, mis-evaluate threats, or ignore the social reality of being perceived as the problem.

Power isn’t the only axis. It’s just the loudest one.

The 80% Rule Makes Your Wins More Satisfying

A 100% deck often wins on rails. You can feel it. Your opponents can feel it. Even when they lose, it doesn’t feel like they lost to you. It feels like they lost to inevitability.

An 80% deck wins with personality.

When you cut the last 20% of efficiency, you create space for your deck to tell a story. It might stumble. It might improvise. It might do something dumb and glorious. It might win with a card no one expected to matter.

That’s why people remember the game where Insurrection ended a three-hour stalemate. That’s why people still talk about the time someone topdecked Blasphemous Act and suddenly the “safe” player wasn’t safe anymore.

The human moments come from uncertainty. Efficiency kills uncertainty.

How To Know If Your Deck Is At 100%

Here are the tells, and yes, I’m calling you out lovingly:

You can describe your deck’s game plan in one sentence, and it happens almost every game.
Your deck “never really bricks.”
You regularly present a win that can only be stopped by a narrow answer.
You run a tutor package that looks like a shopping list.
You added redundancy because “I hate when people remove my stuff.”
You say “it’s not that strong” right before you demonstrate that it is, in fact, that strong.

If you checked more than two of those boxes, you’re probably closer to 100% than you think.

What To Cut First

If you want a simple starting point, don’t overthink it. Cut the cards that make your deck feel inevitable.

Fast mana is a common culprit. So are the cleanest tutors. So are the most efficient protection spells. So are the “I win instantly” packages that skip the table’s ability to respond.

You don’t have to cut all of them. Just pick one category and create friction.

Try removing one of these kinds of cards and see what happens:
Your best tutor.
Your best protection spell.
Your most compressed win line.
Your most boring staple that doesn’t fit the deck’s vibe.

Replace it with something that creates play. Something your opponents can see, react to, and interact with.

Event Night Commander

If you want to go full “event night” with this philosophy, treat your deck like it’s part of the entertainment, not a performance review.

Bring a deck that has reveals. Bring a deck that can pivot. Bring a deck that might do something absurd.

Bring the deck you’d want to play against.

A Commander table is a tiny, temporary society. You can show up as the person who optimized the fun out of it, or you can show up as the person who made the night worth remembering.

The twist is that the second person still wins games. They just win the right games.

Your Next Deck Should Be A Story, Not A Flowchart

The 80 Percent Rule isn’t a moral stance. It’s a practical one.

Leaving power on the table buys you better pacing, better politics, and better memories. It makes the table feel alive. It keeps games from turning into a race to the first non-game.

So the next time you’re tweaking a list, don’t ask “what’s the best card here?”
Ask “what’s the card that makes the game better?”

Then cut one more optimized piece than you’re comfortable with.

You’ll survive. Your deck will still work. And your group might actually invite you back next week without that polite, haunted smile.