Planechase Anthology ships all four theme decks in a single box, so most buyers eventually own every deck anyway. But if you're deciding which one to build and play first, or piecing the set together from singles, the four decks reward genuinely different play styles.
Chaos Reigns, Night of the Ninja, Primordial Hunger, and Savage Auras each lean on a different mechanic and a different color pair, and picking the one that matches how you actually like to play makes the first few games far more satisfying.
None of the four is objectively the strongest; each was built around its own distinct strategy rather than competing on raw power against the other three.
This guide matches each deck to the kind of player it suits best, so you can decide where to start.
Chaos Reigns is the five-color Cascade deck, headlined by the mythic Maelstrom Wanderer, and it plays with the highest variance of the four by a wide margin.
If you want the most unpredictable, high-swing games in the box, and don't mind a less consistent manabase, this is the deck to build and play first.
Night of the Ninja is the blue-black Ninjutsu deck, built around small evasive creatures that upgrade into bigger Ninjas mid-combat, including the notable first printing of Baleful Strix.
Players who enjoy patient, opportunistic tempo strategies, waiting for the right moment to strike rather than committing everything early, will get the most out of this deck first.
Primordial Hunger is the red-green Devour deck, where small, disposable creatures feed bigger payoffs that grow with every sacrifice.
If you enjoy a deck that starts unassuming and builds toward one clearly telegraphed, satisfying payoff turn, this is the most straightforward of the four to pick up and understand.
Savage Auras is the green-white Totem Armor deck, stacking Auras onto a small number of creatures to make them progressively harder to remove.
Players who prefer a slower, more resilient game, investing resources over several turns rather than one big swing, will find this the most rewarding deck to start with.
If you already play a lot of green-white Commander decks, Savage Auras will feel the most immediately familiar; blue-black players will find Night of the Ninja closer to home.
Picking a deck that overlaps with colors you already enjoy playing is a reasonable tiebreaker if none of the four strategies stands out to you on its own.
If none of the four strategies clearly stands out, Night of the Ninja is generally the easiest to pick up and understand in a first game, thanks to its straightforward attack-and-swap plan.
Since the box includes all four decks regardless, there is little real risk in simply starting with whichever one looks most interesting on paper and adjusting from there.
Since Planechase Anthology ships all four decks in one box regardless of which you play first, there is little reason to buy singles piecemeal unless you are specifically missing cards from a used copy.
Most collectors end up playing all four in rotation over time, since a Planechase multiplayer table with varied decks tends to produce more interesting games than four copies of the same strategy.
Play the deck as-built for a few games before making any changes, since the preconstructed builds are genuinely well-tuned for their intended strategy out of the box.
Once you understand the deck's plan firsthand, targeted upgrades become much easier to identify than guessing from a decklist alone. Keep any standout pickup in a toploader as you test it.
Chaos Reigns, the five-color Cascade deck.
Night of the Ninja, the blue-black Ninjutsu deck.
Primordial Hunger, the red-green Devour deck.
Savage Auras, the green-white Totem Armor deck.
Any of the four decks is a genuinely good first pick since Planechase Anthology's box includes all of them anyway; play style should be the deciding factor, not power level. Sleeve whichever one you start with in premium card sleeves from the first game.
Once you've played all four, you'll likely find yourself rotating between them depending on the table and the mood of the night.
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