Commander, an introduction

= Commander, an Introduction

I sit on one end of a standard 8-foot table, one of six bodies huddled around a massive game of Highlander Commander. One of my favorite formats for casual play. The person sitting on the far side of the table has a Tefferi commander preventing me from casting anything except on my own turn. My brother has a Howling Mine and just put a Mana Flare on the table. The Tolsimir Wolfblood Deck on my immediate right just tried to cast Genisis Wave whith x=23, fortunately the blue player countered it, unfortunately there's now a 27/27 Draining whelk over there. I'm playing Thraximundar as a Commander. I have a blocker, Counterballance and Sensei's Diving Top bringing me a lot of hate, and a few cards in hand - Decree of Pain, Gutless Ghoul, Fork, Plauge Wind, and Land.

This is one of my favorite formats for several reasons.

(1) The decks are awesome. 100 cards makes for a huge deck. You can build with almost any card ever printed, barring a brief 20-some card banned list, and illegal sets like unglued (although some play groups will allow un-sets). However the restriction of building around the the colors (and sometimes abilities) of a legendary creature (your commander), and the restriction of not having anymore than one copy of any given card, except basic land, makes every deck and every game unique.

(2) The games are awesome. Interesting, difficult, bizarre and unusual cards and interactions are all possible in Commander. I find that the format keeps me on my toes and in good practice as both a player and a judge. It also enables me to share rules knowledge with my players. I mostly play multiplayer where there is an additional layer of diplomacy and picking on whomever is top dog. Although Commander can be complex, I find this aspect of it incredibly fun.

(3) The people are awesome. I am somewhat fortunate in that I have found a nest of players who all enjoy the Commander format. Some of them even enjoy it for the same reasons that I do, and this is a great blessing.

The Official website for the Commander Format can be found here:
http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php

Here's a lowdown of the major differences between Commander and the other Magic you may be more used to.

(1) Your deck must consist of exactly 100 cards (this includes your Commander).
(2) You select a single legendary creature, this creature is your Commander.
(3) When constructing your deck, you may only choose cards that are the colors in your Commander's mana cost and/or ability text.
(4) Except for basic land, you may only put one copy of any given unique card in your deck.
(5) You start the game with 40 life.
(6) When drawing your opening hand there may be an alternate mulligan rule in effect. Most groups use something called the Partial Paris mulligan.
(7) Your commander starts the game in the Command zone. You may cast your commander from the command zone any time you can normally cast a creature spell.
(8) If your commander would go to the graveyard, or exile zones, you can choose to send them to the command zone instead. If you do, the Commander costs 2 more to cast for each time it is returned to the command zone.
(9) Most likely there is a "Commander damage" rule in effect. If a player should accumulate 21 points of damage from a single commander during the course of a game, they loose the game.