Commander, often referred to as EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander), is a uniquely popular and enduring multiplayer format for Magic: The Gathering. It’s celebrated for its high degree of customization, social interaction, and the sheer fun of playing larger, more dynamic games. Unlike the more competitive 60-card formats, Commander embraces a more casual, yet strategically deep, approach to the game, fostering creativity and emergent gameplay. At its core, Commander is about building a deck around a legendary creature or planeswalker, known as your “Commander,” which acts as the focal point of your strategy and can be cast repeatedly throughout the game.
The Core Concepts of Commander
Commander’s distinct ruleset and philosophy set it apart from other Magic formats. Understanding these fundamental elements is crucial to grasping what makes Commander so appealing and enduring.
The Commander
The linchpin of any Commander deck is the Commander itself. This card must be a legendary creature or a planeswalker with the ability to be your Commander. It’s placed in a special zone called the “Command Zone” at the start of the game and can be cast from there, just like a creature or planeswalker in hand. The significant aspect of the Commander is that it can be cast multiple times throughout the game. However, each time a Commander is cast, it incurs an additional cost of two colorless mana. This “Commander tax” discourages spamming your Commander and encourages strategic timing of its deployment. The colors of your Commander dictate the “color identity” of your entire deck, meaning you can only include cards in your deck whose mana symbols and rules text fall within the color identity of your Commander. For example, if your Commander is green and white, your deck can only contain cards with green and/or white mana symbols, as well as colorless cards.
Deck Construction
Commander decks have a unique structure that encourages variety and replayability.
Singleton Format
The most defining rule of Commander deck construction, aside from the Commander itself, is that it must be a singleton format. This means that with the exception of basic lands, each card in a Commander deck can only appear once. This rule significantly impacts deck building, forcing players to make difficult choices about which cards to include and increasing the unpredictability of draws. It also means that drawing a specific powerful card is less likely, but when you do, it often has a significant impact.
Deck Size
A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards, including the Commander. This fixed size, combined with the singleton rule, ensures a consistent game length and a substantial card pool for strategic depth. The larger deck size compared to other formats allows for a broader range of cards and strategies to be viable.
Commander’s Color Identity
As mentioned, the Commander’s color identity is paramount. All cards in the deck, except for basic lands, must adhere to this identity. This rule ensures that your Commander truly defines your deck’s strategy and color base. It encourages focused deck building and creates distinct archetypes based on the chosen Commander’s colors.
Multiplayer Focus
Commander is fundamentally designed as a multiplayer format, typically played with three to five players. This social aspect is a cornerstone of the Commander experience. Games are often more about shared storytelling, temporary alliances, and memorable moments than about purely competitive optimization. The larger player count leads to more dynamic board states, diverse threats, and opportunities for political maneuvering.
Life Totals
To accommodate the longer games and multiplayer nature, players start with a higher life total than in other formats. The standard starting life total is 40. This allows for more back-and-forth gameplay and provides room for players to recover from setbacks or build up to powerful turns.
Why Commander is So Popular
Commander’s ascendancy in the Magic: The Gathering landscape is not accidental. Several key factors contribute to its widespread appeal and the vibrant community it has fostered.
Customization and Creativity
The singleton format and the focus on a unique Commander allow for unparalleled customization. Players can tailor their decks to their personal playstyle, favorite mechanics, or even specific themes. This freedom fosters immense creativity in deck building, leading to a vast array of unique and interesting strategies that are rarely seen in more restricted formats. Whether you want to build a deck around a specific tribe, a particular combo, or a unique lore-based narrative, Commander offers the canvas.
Social Interaction and Diplomacy
The multiplayer nature of Commander inherently encourages social interaction. Players often find themselves negotiating alliances, making deals, and engaging in lighthearted political maneuvering. This social dynamic is a significant draw for many players who enjoy the camaraderie and shared experience that Commander provides. It’s a format where talking at the table is as much a part of the game as playing cards.
Accessibility and Inclusivity
While Commander can accommodate highly complex and competitive strategies, its core philosophy often leans towards inclusivity. The higher starting life total and the singleton format can make it more forgiving for newer players or those who prefer less cutthroat gameplay. Many local game stores and playgroups adopt a “mindset of the group” approach, where players aim to build decks that are fun for everyone involved, rather than purely optimizing for a win.
Replayability
The sheer number of legendary creatures available, combined with the near-infinite deck-building possibilities due to the singleton rule, makes Commander incredibly replayable. Players can build multiple decks, each with a distinct Commander and strategy, ensuring that no two games feel exactly the same. Even with the same deck, the interactions with different opponents and their Commanders will always lead to unique game states.
The “Fun Factor”
Ultimately, Commander is renowned for its fun factor. The larger games, the potential for epic swings in momentum, the ability to play powerful and synergistic cards, and the social engagement all contribute to a highly enjoyable and memorable gameplay experience. It’s a format where you’re more likely to see a “sea monster” attack than a perfectly optimized, linear combo, fostering a sense of wonder and excitement.
Commander Staples and Strategies
While Commander is known for its casual appeal, there are certainly established strategies and card types that form the backbone of many successful Commander decks. Understanding these “staples” and common strategies can significantly improve your deck-building and gameplay.
Ramp
Given the higher mana curve of many Commander decks and the desire to cast powerful spells earlier, “ramp” is a critical strategy. Ramp involves accelerating your mana production, typically through artifact mana dorks (like Sol Ring, Arcane Signet), land ramp spells (like Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach), or other mana-generating effects. Having access to more mana allows you to cast your Commander more often, deploy more threats, and cast more impactful spells.
Card Draw
With 100-card decks and the potential for long games, drawing extra cards is essential to keep your hand full and find the answers or threats you need. Cards that draw multiple cards (like Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, or even synergistic draw engines tied to creature types) are highly sought after.
Removal and Board Wipes
In multiplayer games, the board can quickly become crowded with threats. Having ways to deal with opposing creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and other permanents is crucial. “Removal” spells target individual permanents, while “board wipes” (like Wrath of God, Damnation, Cyclonic Rift) reset the board by destroying all or most permanents. Balancing these is key to managing the game state.
Synergy and Tribal Strategies
Many Commander decks are built around specific synergies. This can include tribal strategies that benefit from having multiple creatures of the same type (like Elves, Goblins, Zombies), or decks that focus on a particular mechanic like graveyard recursion, artifact synergies, or spell-slinging. Building around a strong synergy ensures that your cards work well together, leading to more powerful and cohesive plays.
Combo Potential
While not every Commander deck aims for a definitive combo win, the format allows for the inclusion of powerful, multi-card combinations that can end the game quickly. These combos often involve infinite mana or infinite creature effects, and their presence adds a competitive edge to the format for those who choose to pursue them.
The Commander Format Evolution
Since its inception, Commander has undergone significant evolution, driven by player feedback and Wizards of the Coast’s dedication to the format.
Official Support
Wizards of the Coast now officially supports Commander, with dedicated product releases like Commander Decks and the recent inclusion of Commander-focused sets. This official embrace has solidified the format’s place within the Magic ecosystem and has led to a greater availability of Commander-centric cards and experiences.
Ban List and Format Philosophy
The Commander ban list is maintained by the Commander Rules Committee, a group of influential figures in the Magic community. The ban list is designed to address cards that are overwhelmingly powerful or detrimental to the multiplayer experience, aiming to maintain a healthy and fun environment for all players. This committee’s approach emphasizes social play and ensuring the format remains enjoyable and diverse.
Community and Growth
The Commander community is vast and passionate. Online forums, content creators, and local game stores all contribute to the format’s vibrant ecosystem. This continuous growth and engagement ensure that Commander remains a dynamic and exciting way to play Magic: The Gathering for years to come.