The Format
The Name
The game we call "Commander" is a format of Magic The Gathering that grew out of a format called Elder Dragon Highlander. "EDH" was created by judges who used Nicol Bolas and other "Elder Dragons" to head up decks built in the singleton or "Highlander" format. Wizards of the Coast adopted the format, christening it "Commander" and bringing it to a far wider audience. I use Commander and EDH interchangeably on this site, though a purist might insist they are different.
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The Players
Commander is a multiplayer format and my posts on this site will generally be written about multiplayer EDH. I will even play 1 v 1 with my decks using multiplayer rules. Games can have any number of players, but I have found 4-6 player games to work best. There is a format called "French Commander" that is dedicated to the one on one competitive game, but I have yet to build a deck for, or play a game in that format.
The Decks
EDH decks have 100 cards and are "singleton" - meaning they may only have one of any card unless the card explicitly states otherwise. The deck must have a legendary creature that will reside in the "Command Zone" so your library will have 99 cards in it. In 2016 Wizards of the Coast published 5 preconstructed Commander decks that had new "partner" commanders. Two of these "partner" commanders can reside in the command zone together, so those decks are played with a 98 card library.
The Rules
Commander is played using basic Magic The Gathering rules, but the player's life total is 40 instead of 20. If you take 21 points of combat damage from any one Commander (even your own), you also lose the game. In most Magic formats you are out of the game if you get 10 poison counters. That has not officially been changed for EDH but many groups have house rules for infect. Our league goes with 15, and I suspect eventually the official commander rules will be modified to increase it from 10 to something higher. Full rules are at http://mtgcommander.net/.
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The Banlist
There is a list of cards that are not allowed to be used in Commander. You can view the list at http://mtgcommander.net/.
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House Rules
Many playgroups adopt house rules. The EDH league I run even diverges from the official rules by using 15 as our infect number to remove someone from the game. I highly encourage players to do their best to stay as close to the official rules as possible.
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I'll try to keep this updated, but let me know if I let anything on this page is inaccurate.
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