How to Play Commander
The Commander format is all about picking your hero and building a deck around them. In this casual, multiplayer format, you choose a legendary creature to serve as your commander and build the rest of your deck around their color identity.
The Basics
Your Deck
- 1 commander card
- Exectly 99 other cards
- An optional sideboard of 15 cards
- Only one copy of each card, except for basic lands
- All cards must be in the color identity of your commander
The Game
- 2-6 players
- Free-for-all multiplayer format
- Start with 40 life
- All commanders start in their command zone
- Take turns in clockwise order
- Last player standing wins
Terms to know
Color identity
A card's color identity can come from any part of that card, including its casting cost and any mana symbols in its text. Every card in your Commander deck must only use mana symbols that also appear on your commander. Colorless cards are allowed as well.
Tasigur, The Golden Fang has only black in its mana cost, yet it has blue and green mana in its text box. Tasigur is blue, black and green.
Simic Signet uses no color in its mana cost, yet it has blue and green in its card text. Simic Signet is blue and green.
Garruk Relentless is green on its casting face, yet black and green on its flip face. Garruk is black and green
Command Zone
This is where your commander resides during the game when they are not in play. At the start of the game, each player puts their commander face up into the command zone. A commander can be cast from the command zone for its normal costs, plus an additional two mana for each previous time it's been cast from the command zone this game. If your commander would be put into your library, hand, graveyard or exile from anywhere, you may return it to your command zone instead.
Commander damage
A player that's been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game. The commander is tracked across zone changes for this purpose (for example, if one player takes control of another player's commander, any damage that commander already dealt is still counted).
Play Free-for-all Multiplayer
If you're playing a game of Commander with three or more people, you play against each other in a free-for-all multiplayer format.
Each player starts with 40 life, places their commander face-up in their command zone, and draws a hand of seven cards. Players are seated randomly in a circle and turns progress one player at a time in clockwise order around the table.
During gameplay, a player may choose to attack any other player, regardless of their position on the table, and can also choose to attack multiple different players during their attack phase. Permanents, spells, and abilities can also target any player around the table (as long as they don't explicitly say they must be used on "you").
Your goal is to crush every other player, using strategy, skill, and the cards at your disposal. The last player left standing in each game wins!
Ban List
The following cards are not allowed in your deck or as your general
- Mox Pearl
- Mox Ruby
- Mox Sapphire
- Painter's Servant
- Panoptic Mirror
- Primeval Titan
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Recurring Nightmare
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
- Shahrazad
- Sundering Titan
- Sway of the Stars
- Sylvan Primordial
- Time Vault
- Time Walk
- Tinker
- Tolarian Academy
- Trade Secrets
- Upheaval
- Worldfire
- Yawgmoth's Bargain
- 25 cards with the Card Type “Conspiracy.” Click here for list.
- 9 cards that reference "playing for ante." Click here for list.
- Ancestral Recall
- Balance
- Biorhythm
- Black Lotus
- Braids, Cabal Minion
- Chaos Orb
- Coalition Victory
- Channel
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
- Falling Star
- Fastbond
- Gifts Ungiven
- Griselbrand
- Karakas
- Leovold, Emissary of Trest
- Library of Alexandria
- Limited Resources
- Mox Emerald
- Mox Jet