What Is Commander?

Guides · beginner

Commander (also called EDH, for "Elder Dragon Highlander") is Magic's most popular casual format. It's where most tables, kitchen-table groups, and Friday-night gatherings play.

The shape of a Commander game

• 3-5 players sit down together. (Two-player Commander exists, but is less common.)
• Each player has a 100-card deck built around a legendary creature (the commander).
• Each player starts at 40 life.
• Game ends when only one player has any life (or one player concedes / decks out / takes lethal commander damage).

What makes Commander different

• Singleton: Only one of each card (except basic lands). Variety, not redundancy, is the spice.
• High starting life: 40 life means slower, more strategic games than other formats.
• The command zone: Your commander starts in a special zone -- not your library. You can cast it whenever you have the mana, and it always comes back to the command zone if it dies.
• Color identity: Your deck can only contain cards whose colors fit inside your commander's. This makes commanders central to the deck's identity.
• Multiplayer politics: With three or more players, deal-making, alliances, and threat assessment are huge parts of the game.

The commander itself

Your commander is the centerpiece of the deck. Most decks build directly around what the commander does. Atraxa decks are about counters; Edgar Markov decks are about vampire tokens; Krenko decks are about goblins.

You can cast your commander any time you'd cast a creature spell, paying its mana cost. After it's cast, it goes to the battlefield like any creature. If it dies (or is exiled, milled, etc.), you can choose to send it to the command zone instead. The next time you re-cast it, it costs {2} more per previous cast.

Why people love it

• You build around legendary creatures you find cool.
• Games are long, swingy, and full of stories.
• You see weird, old, obscure cards because the singleton rule makes 99-card variety the goal.
• Tables vary wildly in power, so there's a place for both turbo combo and "every card is a dragon" theme decks.

Where to start

• Pick a precon (pre-built deck). They cost $30-$50 retail and are tuned to play against other precons (Bracket 2).
• Read your commander 10 times. Until you know what it does cold, the deck doesn't make sense.
• Play the deck a few times before changing anything.
• Then start swapping cards out for cards you like better.

Going deeper

• See Commander Format for the rules.
• See Commander Philosophy for the social side.
• See the existing dashboard for proxy decks the user has built.