Everyone is developing when the game begins. The goals in this quadrant are the preliminary steps in the deck's game plan. All the players are establishing a mana base and deploying setup pieces.

Color fixing and ramp are typical developing plays. Development could also include early draw sources, like Mystic RemoraMystic Remora, or early threats like a hasty creature.

Disrupting opponents' development is also valid. Don't hesitate to "boltbolt the birdbird", or hinder everyone else with rule-making effects. Thalia, Heretic CatharThalia, Heretic Cathar is a hero of the developing quadrant because she slows down opponents and presents a combat threat.

Eventually every deck needs to cast spells that are part of the deck's main strategy. Late development includes enablers and payoffs that break parity and lead to winning game states. The exact nature of these cards depend on the deck's main strategy.

For example, Krenko, Mob BossKrenko, Mob Boss could be a developing card to go wide with Goblins, or part of a combo.

Developing accounts for both resource accumulation and initiating a deck's game plan. Good developing cards move the game forward with low opportunity cost. Bad developing cards spend resources without providing a clear advantage.

Commander balances social gameplay with a competitive outcome. One player should win, and the path to victory can be paved with various advantages. In the winning quadrant, one player broke parity, and they will win if the game remains on that path.

Some decks clearly telegraph their winning board states, especially combat decks. A horde of Dragons led by Miirym, Sentinel WyrmMiirym, Sentinel Wyrm will quickly become an unstoppable force.

It's possible to be in the winning quadrant based on hidden information. Storm decks are a prime example, as they hold cards back to build up a critical mass of available spells and mana. The rest of the table is forced to anticipate the moment when the Storm player will fire.

Cards are good in the winning quadrant if they protect the win condition or add to it.

Sometimes the difference between winning and parity is the right tools to protect the plan. Lightning GreavesLightning Greaves, a CounterspellCounterspell, or Heroic InterventionHeroic Intervention might be all it takes to secure a win.

Additional payoffs are great winning cards. A Sacrifice deck can win games with Blood ArtistBlood Artist, and adding a Zulaport CutthroatZulaport Cutthroat to the board can seal the deal.

Adding another payoff to a winning board walks a line between winning and winning more. For example: Doubling SeasonDoubling Season is a powerful card in an Hare Apparent deck. Playing the Doubling Season could break parity and launch the deck into the winning quadrant. However, that same Doubling Season is "win more" if the Hare ApparentHare Apparent pile is already fruitful and multiplying.

A card crosses the line into win more when the player was winning anyway and the new card only increases the margin of victory. Win more cards aren't inherently bad, but they often aren't needed either.

Things are looking grim. An opponent clearly has the upper hand, but it isn't hopeless. The losing quadrant encompasses any situation where another player will win unless a force changes the game's trajectory. The losing quadrant is where players need gas to make a comeback.

A card is good in the losing quadrant if it saves a player from dying, disrupts the winning player, or shifts the balance of power.

Some losing cards merely cause a player to lose less, without giving the controller an advantage to come back with. Preventing combat damage is a lose less effect, because it doesn't provide the caster with any resources to win.

Lose less cards are situational; a Holy DayHoly Day might leave the winning player vulnerable, or it might just delay the inevitable.

A better losing card stops opponents from winning and gives the losing player something to work with. Platinum AngelPlatinum Angel is the case study in this quadrant. The words "You can't lose" and "your opponents can't win" are a reassuring safety net. Also, a four-power flyer is a potent combatant.

The best cards in the losing quadrant single-handedly shift the game to parity or winning. Pest InfestationPest Infestation removes problems and makes an army of creature tokens. It has the potential to reverse the fortunes of the entire table.

Game losses are inevitable. Occasionally, it's better to shuffle up and play again than drag out a hopeless game. And yet, few gameplay experiences are more thrilling than the come-from-behind win. Consider whether the available cards can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat before scooping to a dire game state.

If all the players are evenly matched, then the game is at parity. Everyone has similar access to mana and cards, and life totals are close. There's no good attacks without the risk of crack back. It's time to make a play, and you want cards that tip the scales without leaving you vulnerable.

Developing is technically a parity game state, but it gets its own quadrant because the goals are different. True parity exists when all the players have the resources to win, but no one has the advantage. The goal is to break parity and move on to winning.

Cards are good in the parity quadrant if they remove obstacles to winning, or achieve an advantage over the opponents.

The value of removal in a parity situation depends on two factors. The first is the exchange rate of cards removed for cards spent. The second is the player's ability to capitalize on the resulting board state.

MurderMurder exchanges one creature for one card. In the parity quadrant, that's a good trade to get rid of a blocker, eliminate an major attacking threat, or shut down a value engine.

Some effects or spells offer a better exchange rate. Spending six mana for Casualties of WarCasualties of War feels great when it can hit five targets.

A one-sided board wipe is the best removal for breaking parity. Ruinous UltimatumRuinous Ultimatum is the reigning champion of parity-breaking board wipes.

Removal only breaks parity if the resulting board state favors the effect's controller. The true value of that Ruinous Ultimatum depends on having a board state that can close the game once the opposition is out of the way.

Building a dominant board presence is a proven approach to breaking parity. In this regard, cards like Bonehoard DracosaurBonehoard Dracosaur are parity breaking all-stars.

This 5/5 flyer with first strike puts opponents on a clock, and it doesn't stop there. Its upkeep trigger provides additional resources in the form of cards, mana, and creatures. Cards like this force opponents to have an answer or lose.

Parity can be a moment of tension, when everyone is holding their breath for the dramatic shift. Parity can also be a boring stalemate.  No one wants that. Inject some drama into the game, make a play and play to win.

Quadrant theory originated as a card evaluation tool for drafting a deck from a limited pool of cards. Unlike draft, a Commander deck could include almost any card. However, a Commander deck's card pool is functionally limited in other ways.

Color identity is a rules-based limitation. Thanks to color identity, designing a Commander deck around a strategy or theme has a lot in common with drafting a prescribed archetype in a limited format.

Applying quadrant theory to Commander deckbuilding starts with assessing a potential commander's performance in each quadrant. Here are a few examples:

Teysa Karlov

Teysa KarlovTeysa Karlov doubles your death triggers and gives relevant keywords to token creatures. She's a great commander for an Aristocrats deck, a Tokens deck, or a hybrid of those two themes. She's strong in the winning quadrant with a sacrifice engine or token swarm on board.

Unfortunately, Teysa is almost useless if the deck is losing, but the extra triggers or keywords could be enough to break parity. Teysa is not a developing card; the rest of the game plan needs to develop for Teysa to be effective. Quadrant theory highlights Teysa's pros and cons in a context that will be useful for designing the rest of the deck.

Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Magda, Brazen OutlawMagda, Brazen Outlaw pumps Dwarves, makes Treasures, and cheats artifacts or Dragons into play from the library. Any one of those abilities is a fine basis for a deck, although the last ability is easily the most powerful.

Madga's low mana value and ability to produce a Treasure token help out in developing. In the losing and parity quadrants, Magda's effectiveness depends on the number of available Treasures. With at least five Treasures, the activated ability tutoring for an answer and putting it directly on the battlefield could overcome a losing situation or break parity.

In the winning quadrant, Magda crosses the line into win more. If the deck is already winning, then anything Magda does is extra.

Outdside of developing, Magda's effectiveness is totally reliant on the number of other Dwarves or Treasures you have. That's a low bar to clear, which contributes to Magda's popularity.

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre StraitAesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait is the eye-roll-inducing incarnation of Simic () design. Blue and green are the color pair of easy value, especially in the developing quadrant. In any other color pair, a six-mana commander would flatline in the developing quadrant. For a Simic deck, six mana is barely a speed bump.

Aesi shatters parity by making sure its controller will always have more resources. The power of Simic in developing and parity is also its weakness in the winning quadrant. Aesi rewards play patterns that build a winning board state, but doesn't provide a payoff to close the game.

Aesi is similarly weak in the losing quadrant. Card draw can solve problems, if you draw answers, but an Aesi deck is probably drawing more lands. It needs help from other cards to claw back from a losing position.

Altogether, Aesi is powerful, but not without gaps that need filling.

Card choices for the 99 of your Commander deck should capitalize on a commander's strengths and compensate for a its weaknesses. Quadrant theory helps players fill in their commander's gaps for a well-rounded deck.

Developing

If a commander card doesn't contribute to the developing quadrant, then the deck needs more developing cards. On the other hand, a strong developing commander frees up space for the rest of the deck to focus on other quadrants.

The last section highlighted Teysa Karlov as a weak card in the developing quadrant. A Teysa deck needs cards like Bastion of RemembranceBastion of Remembrance to develop the board before her effects matter.

By providing both a creature token and a death trigger, Bastion of Remembrance is strong in all quadrants for a Teysa Karlov deck. It's especially good at developing the board for Teysa, by combining setup (the Human token) and payoff (the Blood ArtistBlood Artist effect) into a three-mana investment.

Winning

Winning is the least important quadrant for deckbuilding choices. Good cards in other quadrants are usually good in the winning quadrant too. Many commanders function as enablers for a strategy, and need payoffs in the 99 to fill gaps in the winning quadrant.

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre StraitAesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait demonstrates even powerful commanders may need help in the winning quadrant. Making extra land drops and drawing extra cards can put a deck ahead on resource counts without actually providing a win condition.

Landfall triggers like Scute SwarmScute Swarm and Scythecat CubScythecat Cub give Aesi an outlet to win through combat after accruing more mana and cards than any deck actually needs to win.

Losing

Regardless of how good a commander is in the losing quadrant, every Commander deck needs an intentional approach to losing situations. It can be fun to build a glass cannon deck that shatters at the first sign of resistance. It's okay if the deck's strategy for the losing quadrant is scoop and try again.

Most decks deserve a chance to come back from a disadvantaged position. Building a deck with this in mind takes one or both of these forms: interaction and backup plans.

The main vulnerability for Magda, Brazen OutlawMagda, Brazen Outlaw is permanents that turn off Magda's activated ability. Some creatures, artifacts, and enchantments shut Magda down by prohibiting the activation, disallowing sacrifice, or preventing objects from entering the battlefield unless they were cast. Angel of JubilationAngel of Jubilation is a Madga player's worst nightmare.

Removal spells like Wild Magic SurgeWild Magic Surge solve problems that would otherwise cause Magda to lose.

Having a backup plan is great, as long as it doesn't steal card slots from a deck's main strategy. Luckily for Magda, there's Hellkite TyrantHellkite Tyrant, a Dragon with an artifact-based win condition. No sacrifices or activations required.

Parity

Commander players strive for balanced games. It's the reason we have pregame conversations, and the driving force behind the Bracket System. One side effect of a balanced game is a higher occurrence of parity situations. This increases the importance of parity-breaking cards in deck design.

If a commander struggles to break parity on its own, then the 99 needs to help.

Teysa Karlov's ability to give tokens two additional keywords is a parity breaker if there are already tokens in play. The rest of the deck has to compensate for the fact that this version of Teysa does not make creature tokens herself. Fortunately, there's another iteration of Teysa that does.

Teysa, Orzhov ScionTeysa, Orzhov Scion makes flying Spirits. Adding lifelink and vigilance to those tokens leads to big life swings with lower risk of opponents attacking back.

It's preview season again...still? The new hotness might be a heater in an older deck. That preconstructed deck is fine out of the box, but the itch to upgrade it is real. Whatever the reason, quadrant theory can help upgrade existing decks.

Let's upgrade a precon using quadrant theory to evaluate the cards. The Token Triumph Starter Commander deck came with Emmara, Soul of the AccordEmmara, Soul of the Accord as the face commander.

Emmara is a bear (a 2/2 for two mana) with upside. She makes creature token every time she taps. As a low-cost token producer, Emmara shines in developing, but starts to struggle at parity as opponents put up blockers. Breaking parity with Emmara often requires other methods to tap her. A 2/2 with no keywords doesn't do much more than chump block when the deck is losing.

If the deck is winning, then Emmara helps keep opponents on a short clock.

This deck is a masterclass in entry-level product design. It's layered with strategic card choices that can either guide a new player or engage a veteran player. It's strong enough to compete with more expensive decks. At the same time, it contains a lot of slower, weaker cards begging for an upgrade.

Applying quadrant theory to the rest of the list exposes one card in particular that needs to go. This artifact costs four mana to do nothing, and another four mana to provide any amount of benefit.

Slate of AncestrySlate of Ancestry is the Commander equivalent of draft chaff: cards that get tossed aside because Limited players don't want them. Quadrant theory doesn't apply to draft chaff. As a deckbuilding tool, quadrant theory assumes a card is good, and examines how good it could be in common scenarios.

Taking out Slate of Ancestry makes room for something better. The replacement should address one of the quadrants where the commander or the rest of the deck struggles.

Token Triumph is short on creatures with flying or reach, and the commander needs help at parity. Plenty of cards could address both those problems, but here a couple that fit neatly into the theme of the deck:

Seraph of the MassesSeraph of the Masses and Triplicate SpiritsTriplicate Spirits both address the flying shortage, and they both have convoke, which can tap Emmara to make a Soldier. Which one of these cards deserves the slot vacated by Slate of Ancestry? Quadrant theory simplifies that decision.

For starters, these cards both cost too much mana to be useful in developing. The deck is healthy in that quadrant anyway, so the rest of the evaluation will focus on the other three quadrants.

Seraph of the Masses is a strong payoff for the deck's go-wide strategy. This Angel is a solid finisher if the deck is winning. It's also a potent parity breaker against other go-wide decks.

Unfortunately, the Seraph is bad value for mana if the deck has fewer than seven creatures in play. In other words, it's weak in the losing quadrant.

Triplicate Spirits will break parity against other decks that don't have flyers. Otherwise, this is a fair defensive play against decks that swing more aggressively in the air. Putting up three blockers for one card is helpful in the losing quadrant, even if the mana cost is steep.

If the deck is winning, then three flying Spirits are a welcome addition to the team.

Earlier we noted Emmara needs help at parity. Seraph of the Masses is a bomb in the parity and winning quadrants. However, Triplicate Spirits is good at parity, and better in the losing quadrant. Both cards are good, but advantage in the losing quadrant makes the Triplicate Spirit more valuable when the game is on the line.

Most players intuitively know they shouldn't cut a land for a spell. Every Commander player has considered it; most have probably done it against better judgment. What about changing a sorcery for a creature? A three-drop for a four-drop?

Not every change to a deck is strictly better. An awareness of quadrant theory helps navigate the nuance of tuning an existing deck.

Quadrant theory during deckbuilding looks at how an individual card should perform in a range of circumstances. Quadrant theory during gameplay does the evaluation in reverse. You know which quadrant you're in, and you want to find the right cards for the game state.

Any effect that allows you to sculpt your hand is an opportunity to apply quadrant theory in real time. Mechanics like scry and surveil are a lot like drafting. You have new information, and you need to make a choice about taking or passing a card.

Scry and surveil are abilities that allow the player to manipulate the top of their library. With Scry, as seen on OptOpt, the choice is whether to put cards on top or bottom of the library. Surveil, as seen on ConsiderConsider, allows the player to choose between leaving cards on top of the library, or placing them in the graveyard.

ImpulseImpulse effects are a lot like scrying, picking a card you need and filtering away things you don't need.  Looting is Magic slang for drawing then discarding cards. It gets its name from Merfolk LooterMerfolk Looter, has graveyard synergy like surveil, plus interaction with draw and discard triggers.

Regardless of the exact card selection mechanics in your deck, quadrant theory can help you decide what to keep and what to pass.

Many players misplay these effects in one way or another. Maybe it's reluctance to put something in the graveyard. Perhaps that card on top is a bomb, but now isn't the time for it. Applying quadrant theory to card selection during gameplay helps players make strategically favorable choices.

Developing

In developing, mana curve matters and land drops are king. Imagine playing Elven FarsightElven Farsight on turn one, and one of the three cards is a creature. The tempting play is to put that creature card on top to draw the card. Does that creature help in the developing quadrant? Do the other cards in hand fulfil the deck's developing needs?

Evaluate each card honestly, with quadrant theory in mind, to make the optimum play.

Card selection in the developing quadrant should focus on sequencing the plays that set up the game plan.

Winning

If a deck is winning, then card selection blurs the lines between smart plays and win more plays. Resolving card selection effects takes time. To a losing player, it might look like the winning player is wasting time, or worse, playing with their food. If it's possible to close the game with the available resources, then do it.

If there's any doubt, either because a hand is lackluster, or because an opponent might have answers, then card selection is a valuable tool for securing a win.

Remember, good cards in the winning quadrant protect the win condition or add to it. Any card selection opportunity should prioritize winning faster, to make more time for the next game.

Losing

Everyone has to dig for answers sometimes. The losing quadrant values card selection for the chance to triage the game, or at least put a tourniquet on it.

If the answer to the present threat exists in the deck, then anything else needs to get out of the way. Any card except the answer is chaff. Scry chaff to the bottom, or loot it to the graveyard.

Parity

A fully developed, evenly matched game state is the most difficult time to resolve a card selection effect. The right card to tip the scales might not be obvious. This is the quadrant for carefully considering each card before passing on it.

This guide would not be possible without limited player Brian Wong, and the content creators who documented his ideas. Brian Wong presented his thoughts on card evaluation on the Limited Resources podcast in 2013.

Follow the links to deep dive into the origin and explanation of quadrant theory:

Limited Resources 184 - Card Evaluation with Brian Wong

Limited Resources 248 - Quadrant Theory Revisited

Quadrant Theory, article by Marshall Sutcliffe, published by WotC

If you don't have time for long form content, then check out these helpful shorts from the Command Zone: