Catching up from the holidays has been harder than expected.
Not in the usual “wow I have emails” way. More like the reality of being solo IT/security for a gaming studio while juggling multiple automation projects and firefighting technical issues across time zones and balancing being a father and dude with lots of hobbies… I realized I’d been running on fumes for three weeks and everything kind of stacked up at once.
Then someone used the contact form to tell me the Commander personality quiz was broken.
Turns out the model I was using for result generation was outdated and stopped working entirely. But while digging in to fix it, I saw SO many things that could be improved. The four-archetype system felt incomplete. The scoring was too simplistic. The results page looked okay but not great.
So instead of just patching the model issue, I went to town.
If you took the quiz before, you got one of sixteen personality types based on four archetypes (Aggro, Midrange, Control, Combo) and four power brackets.
Now? One hundred and five.
The Seven Archetypes
The old four-archetype system was functional but incomplete. Commander has way more strategic diversity than that, and the scoring couldn’t properly distinguish between strategies that felt totally different. Stax and Control are both reactive, but they’re not the same thing at all.
So I expanded to seven archetypes:
Aggro - Fast combat damage through the red zone with low-curve threats.
Control - Reactive gameplay. You’re the player with the answer, the board wipe, dictating pace.
Combo - Synergy-driven win conditions. Infinite loops or value engines that effectively end games.
Midrange - Good-stuff value grinding. Efficient threats, card advantage, adaptability. This also covers Battlecruiser strategies.
Stax - Resource denial and prison effects. Taxing mana, locking permanents, grinding advantage while everyone else struggles.
Voltron - Single-creature focus, usually commander damage.
Aristocrats - Sacrifice synergies and death triggers. Draining life, generating value from creatures dying.
The scoring algorithm now weights responses across multiple dimensions instead of just counting answers in buckets. It’s not perfect, but it captures way more nuance.
The Political Dimension
Strategy alone doesn’t capture the full Commander experience. The format is inherently social, and I kept seeing quiz results that felt incomplete. Like someone who plays Control but loves making deals versus someone who plays Control as pure reactive optimization. Same archetype, totally different experience at the table.
So I added a political dimension with three styles:
Competitive - You’re here to win. Optimal plays, minimal table talk, spike mentality.
Political - You leverage social dynamics. Deals, negotiations, reading the room. This is where Group Hug and Group Slug live. Political + Control = Group Hug, Political + Stax = Group Slug.
Chaotic - You’re here for memorable moments. Unpredictable plays, fun over winning.
Your archetype tells you what you play. Your political style tells you how you play socially. Combined with the five official power brackets, you get a three-dimensional profile.
Seven archetypes × five brackets × three political styles = one hundred and five unique combinations.
The Results Look Better Too
The results page got rebuilt. Card-style borders on commander images, gradient text effects, animated badges for recommendations. Added explanatory text for every dimension so “Bracket 3” or “Political style” actually means something instead of just being a label.
Share feature now uses the Web Share API. On mobile you can share directly to whatever platform without downloading then uploading. Just tap and pick where you want it.
Also added keyboard navigation because clicking through forty questions gets tedious. Arrow keys to move, number keys (1-4) to answer.
Why This Matters (To Me, Anyway)
Getting back into building after weeks of work and life chaos has been genuinely therapeutic. There’s something satisfying about taking a functional system and making it better. Refining logic, polishing UI, fixing edge cases nobody else would notice.
It’s the same energy that makes deckbuilding work. You start with something functional, then iterate. Swap pieces. Test. Refine. Watch it get tighter.
I needed this.
What’s Next
The quiz is live now with the new scoring. If you took it before, your results will be different (and hopefully more accurate). If you haven’t: go discover your Commander personality.
I’m planning follow-up content for each archetype. Deck recommendations, playstyle guides, commander deep dives. The quiz gives you personalized results, but I want to give people actionable next steps. “You got Stax? Here’s how to build it without getting hated off the table.”
For now: the quiz works, looks good, and actually reflects Commander’s complexity.
What’s your Commander archetype? Take the quiz and let me know what you got. Curious to see how the new scoring distributes across the community.
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