“I upgraded my deck with staples… and it got worse.”
If you’ve ever said that out loud, welcome to the club. It’s a weird feeling. You didn’t add jank. You added proven cards. Cards people argue about on podcasts. Cards that show up in “Top 10” lists with the energy of a tax document.
And then the deck starts to stumble.
You draw powerful stuff that doesn’t connect. You’re always a turn behind. Or you spend the whole game doing “value things” that look impressive and accomplish nothing besides making the board state take longer to explain.
This is the staples vs synergy problem in a nutshell:
- Staples are individually strong and broadly useful.
- Synergy is your deck acting like a plan, not a pile.
You need both. But if you don’t understand the tradeoff, “upgrades” can quietly make your deck worse.
What counts as a staple (and why staples feel so safe)
A staple is a card that’s popular because it’s efficient, flexible, and powerful in a vacuum. Staples often land in a few categories:
- ramp
- card draw
- removal
- board wipes
- protection
- generic value engines
They’re safe because they rarely rot in your hand. Even if the rest of your deck is doing cartwheels, the staple still does its job.
The problem is that safety has a cost: every staple you add takes a slot from something that actually supports your deck’s thesis.
If enough of your “flex slots” become generic power cards, you drift into goodstuff territory: a deck built around standalone strength rather than connections between cards. That style can be totally valid. It’s also how a lot of synergy decks quietly die.
Synergy isn’t “combo.” It’s coherence.
When players say “synergy,” they often mean “two cards go infinite.” That’s part of it, but the real day-to-day value of synergy is simpler:
Synergy means your cards point in the same direction.
Your deck has a thesis, and most of your cards either:
- advance that thesis, or
- protect it so it can happen
If your thesis is “reanimate big things,” then your ramp, draw, and interaction should ideally help you fill the graveyard, buy time, and land the payoff. If your thesis is “artifacts matter,” then your staples should preferably be artifacts, care about artifacts, or reward you for doing the artifact thing.
A deck can be full of powerful cards and still feel awful if those cards are all trying to win different games.
When “good cards” make your deck worse
Here are the most common ways staples sabotage a synergy deck.
1) You lower your engine density
Synergy decks usually need a critical mass of “engine pieces”:
- enablers (the stuff that turns on your plan)
- payoffs (the stuff that actually wins)
- glue (the cards that keep the engine running)
When you cut a few theme cards for staples, your deck may get stronger on paper… while becoming less likely to assemble its actual plan.
This is why the deck feels “clunkier.” You didn’t lose power. You lost density.
You’ll still draw strong cards. You’ll just draw them in combinations that don’t do anything together.
2) You create a curve traffic jam
Staples love to live at the same mana values. Especially the “great in Commander” value pieces that cost 4–6 mana.
If you add a handful of those and don’t cut accordingly, your deck starts doing this:
- turns 1–3: “set up” (read: do nothing that impacts the table)
- turns 4–6: pick one strong thing per turn
- late game: wish you could double-spell, but you never built for it
Then you try to fix it by adding more ramp, which helps sometimes, but doesn’t solve the core issue: too many cards competing for the same turns.
A smooth deck isn’t just “has ramp.” It’s “has a plan for what turns look like.”
3) You accidentally add anti-synergy
Some staples are powerful, but they don’t match what your deck is trying to do.
A simple example: top-of-library manipulation is great… unless your deck already draws so many cards that spending mana and time “setting up the top three” is basically a hobby. Powerful card, wrong home.
This happens a lot with generic interaction too. If your deck has a theme (tokens, sacrifice, graveyard, enchantments), you’ll often find removal options that still do removal things while also feeding your plan.
If your interaction never advances your thesis, your deck becomes worse at doing the thing it’s built to do.
4) You become great at “not losing” and mediocre at winning
Staples often add answers and generic value. That’s nice. But if you cut too many win-condition pieces or payoffs to fit them, your deck can become a professional survivor.
You’ll have lots of turns where you:
- draw cards
- remove threats
- wipe boards
- rebuild
…and still struggle to actually end the game.
Synergy decks usually close by snowballing one advantage. When you dilute the payoff package, you stop snowballing. You just… exist.
5) You accidentally change your table perception
This one is social, but it matters. If your deck starts looking like a greatest-hits compilation of staples, people will treat you like the threat earlier. That changes how games play out, even if your deck’s actual win condition didn’t change.
Also, if you’re using data-driven deckbuilding tools, it’s easy to over-trust popular includes. Sites like EDHREC have historically used “synergy” metrics specifically to help differentiate between cards that are unique to a commander’s plan and cards that are just everywhere. More recently, they’ve shifted that idea into “lift,” which tries to capture association in a more formal way.
Either way, the goal is the same: don’t confuse “commonly played” with “best for your deck.”
The fix: pick staples that do double duty
You don’t need to go full hipster and ban staples from your life. You just need standards.
Here’s a filter that works in real deckbuilding:
If this card resolves, does it move me closer to my deck’s win, or does it just create a “nice turn”?
Then keep staples that fall into these buckets:
- Staples that protect the thesis
Cheap protection, flexible interaction, and hate pieces that keep your engine alive. - Staples that increase consistency
Draw and selection that actually help you find the specific pieces you need. - Staples that patch a real weakness
You’re soft to artifacts? Fine. You need graveyard hate? Fine. But be honest about what you’re covering. - Staples that match your deck’s texture
Creature-heavy decks like creature-based draw. Artifact decks like artifact ramp. Enchantment decks like enchantment engines. This is how you keep “generic” cards from being generic.
The goal is not “no staples.” The goal is “staples that belong.”
A quick staples vs synergy audit you can do tonight
Pick 10 cards in your list that you’d describe as “just good.”
For each one, write one sentence:
- “This card is here because ______.”
If the blank is filled with:
- “it’s a staple”
- “it’s in all my decks”
- “it’s powerful”
- “EDHREC says so”
…that’s not a reason. That’s momentum.
Now do the opposite:
Pick your 10 most important synergy cards (engines and payoffs). Ask:
- “Do i have enough of these to see one early and one midgame?”
- “If i don’t draw these, what is my deck actually doing?”
You’ll usually spot the problem fast:
- too many generic value cards
- not enough engine/payoff density
- curve clumping
- interaction that doesn’t fit your plan
Conclusion
Staples aren’t the enemy. Random staples are.
If your deck got worse after “upgrades,” odds are you didn’t lose power. You lost coherence. You traded engine density for generic strength, and now your draws don’t line up.
Keep your deck’s thesis sacred. Use staples to support that thesis, not replace it. Your deck will feel smoother, faster, and (annoyingly) more powerful… because it’s finally doing one thing on purpose.
