Purpose

Commander is a format like no other. It’s not just about the deck
construction limitations and other additional game rules. It’s about
purpose. That purpose is to provide a different kind of environment than
other formats do. Whereas other formats are specifically created and
adapted around competition, Commander is intended to be a place for those
who would like to play outside a tournament environment; we’ve often called
it the anti-competitive format.

Back in its developmental state, and now I’m talking about the period from
early 2004 forward, after I had brought it to the Pro Tour and Judge
community, Commander (then called Elder Dragon Highlander or simply EDH),
didn’t really know what it wanted to be. I knew that I wanted it to be
something foundationally different, but even in the days after Gavin
Duggan, Duncan McGregor, and I formed the Rules Committee (RC), we
continued to think about both the competitive and non-competitive players
in equal measures, trying to balance out the format for both styles of
play. Even after Duncan left and we added Scott Larabee and Toby Elliott,
we kept thinking out of both sides of our brains, as it were. The movement
toward a more casual mindset had already begun when we added Kevin Desprez
to the committee to be our competitive representative. With strong ties to
the Judge community as well as simply being a first class Magic mind and
skilled competitive player, Kevin offered a perspective we knew that we
were letting become less significant in our decisions. It was very much a
check and balance situation. What happened is that the more we leaned on
Kevin to think about the competitive angle, the more we liked going the
opposite direction. There certainly wasn’t any real kind of catalytic
event; we simply realized at a certain point where we wanted to be.

All this isn’t meant to be a lesson in the history of the Commander RC, but
a bit of context for where we are today. Commander is easily the most
popular casual format in Magic, having stood the test of both time and a
challenge or two from other formats. If I were to point to a significant
event, it would be the name change to Commander (I seem to recall something
being problematic about the use of “highlander” in this context, possibly
from the owners of the film series’ intellectual property; I also confess
my memory on this is slightly fuzzy) and the release of for-the-format
product. We already knew about the format’s popularity; the release of the
product and its subsequent success cemented in our mind that there were
legions of fans of Magic out there who were just like us-they wanted a
change of pace from their normal tournament scene. Which leads us to where
we are today.

One of the other significant differences between Commander and other
formats-and beyond the shadow of a doubt our most controversial point-is
the purpose and function of the banned list. For competitive formats, a
banned list is a hard line. For us, things are intentionally a little
blurrier. We have to examine what a sanctioning body wants to do with a
banned list to understand why we diverge.

In competitive Magic, the function of a banned list is to create a balanced
tournament environment. Balanced tournament environments promote the game;
the better the balance (meaning not a single, dominant deck like we’ve seen
a few times in Magic history), the more people like to play in that
environment. The more people that like an environment, the more people
actually play in it-rising the tide for all boats, whether you’re a card
seller or a tournament organizer. There really is no other goal for a
competitive format’s banned list. Those tournament formats don’t care which
decks actually win or how they accomplish the goal (although one-sided,
long playing combo decks like Eggs aren’t all that great as a spectator
sport), just that there are many to viably choose from. It’s all very here and now (especially when you consider a format like
Standard which so frequently changes).

By contrast, Commander’s banned list is not created with a competitive
environment in mind. In fact, in some cases, we intentionally ignore the
competitive environment. It’s not that we don’t love competitive Magic-as
I’ve repeated multiple times, all four of us made our bones in the
professional environment-it’s that competitive Magic isn’t what we’re doing
here. We’re creating an atmosphere so that particular kinds of things
happen (as well as avoiding other particular kinds of things). Commander
has been at times described as battle cruiser Magic, which is just
fine with us. We want those big, epic plays to happen on a regular basis.
We want to help create the games you’ll always remember, not the ones you’d
like to forget. Those are the ends to which we craft the banned list.

Another idea which separates Commander from other environments is the fact
that balance of any kind is not part of our equation. Whether or not
specific cards support certain decks doesn’t really matter to us. Because
we don’t live to support a tournament format, all we care about is the fun
and creative aspect. We want this to be the format in which you can build
your
Battle of Arrakeen
or
The Raven
theme decks, or one with a
special social significance
. In Commander, you don’t have to worry about optimizing if you don’t want
to; you can just do your thing. But we can’t accomplish this just with card
lists.

Although it’s commonly called a casual format, within the RC we
generally refer to Commander as a social one. It’s not just the
multiplayer nature that makes it that way. We continually reinforce the
message that it’s important for people to think about the idea of everyone
who sits at the table having fun; we’re the beer and pretzels format. We
actively discourage (without outright banning) decks which take away other
players’ ability to participate in the game. Why don’t we just ban such
cards (we’re mostly talking about STAX decks here, but there are plenty of
other styles which cut the legs from under everyone else)? There are
multiple reasons.

First and foremost, we want to keep the banned list as short and simple as
possible. Managing a large banned list is difficult because it’s someone
onerous to provide messaging. Sure, Magic players are pretty bright on
average, but having to remember 100 cards is more awkward than 30. The RC
is aware of one of the reasons that the 5-color format died-it collapsed
under the weight of the banned list. It’s a lesson we’re not soon to
forget.

The second reason we don’t ban everything we find uncomfortable is that
we’re aware that there are play styles other than our own. While we promote
a particular kind of loose, devil-may-care play we don’t believe it’s the
only way to go about games of Commander. The primary message is that we’d
like to see everyone in a local group on the same page-so if that means
seeing who can combo out fastest or break the shackles of some soft lock,
that’s okay with us as long as everyone being in agreement on what style of
game they want. The follow-on question you’re probably asking right now is
then why ban anything at all. Why wouldn’t we let local groups decide for
themselves. Well, to some extent we do. We’re quite open about the idea
that if the official list isn’t working for you, then modify it to suit
your tastes. We hear stories all the time of groups who really want to play
with Recurring Nightmare or wish that Prophet of Krupix was still around.
On the other side of that, there are folks who have banned Armageddon,
Obliterate, and all other mass land destruction.

The reason that there’s a banned list twofold. One, it helps define the
boundaries of the format, to give it an identifiable shape. More
importantly, it’s because that not everyone has a local group or there are
times when even those who do have one travel outside their local
environments. The official banned list then has the effect (circling back
to a point, if you will) of putting everyone on the same page. When you go
to an SCG Tour event or a Grand Prix and you want to get into a pickup
game, all the players involved know what to expect. There’s still some room
for negotiation (“hey, I’d rather not play against Grand Arbiter Augustin
IV”), but in this case, the official list rules. The GAAIV player has the
right to stick to their guns (and you have the right to walk away), but at
least there’s an already agreed-upon starting point.

I spoke earlier about other formats’ banned lists being about hard lines,
about the here and now. One of the other reasons the banned list is
sculpted like it is involves the cards on the list being exemplars for
other cards you might want to avoid. For a long time, the wording on the
banned list was “these cards and other cards like them,” and that message
still resonates. We don’t want to tell you that you can’t play with certain
cards, but we’d sure like for you to think about some of them first.
Because the reasons for our banned list are different than tournament
formats, we can use to the list to do more than just tell you what’s not
legal to play; we can help craft an entire ethos. Our list is not just
about that here and now, it’s about our tomorrows as well. By carefully
nudging it in the direction we want it to go, we can lay the foundation for
future players feeling the same kind of resonance with the format that we
do. It’s why we’re the only format with a

philosophy document

. Since we’re not in the business of, well, being in business, we have a
kind of freedom to explore the format radically differently than any other.

Of course, there are still Commander tournaments. Again, we’re not against
competition. We just think there needs to be a break from it available. If
tournaments are good for tournament organizers or local game store owners,
we wish them all the success. We’ll simply continue to reinforce the
message that we’re not crafting our list with tournaments in mind, so caveat emptor. I strongly suspect, and I would imagine that one or
more of you could verify, that tournament Commander is far from balanced.
It’s not that balancing it wouldn’t be a worthwhile effort, it’s that
attempting to do so would upset the other thing that we’re trying to do.

Speaking of things that we do, I’ll remind you that silver-bordered cards
will go back to being illegal on 15 January. We’ve heard stories of many
wild and wonderful things happening with them off the leash; here’s hoping
your experience was similar. For those of you who were on the fence about
whether or not they were something you wanted to look into the for the long
term, we hope that this period told you what you need to know.

The purpose of the Commander banned list, its raison d’être if you
will, is simply different than that of all other formats. We therefore
can’t apply the same kinds of motivations or practices to it that we would
with the others, especially when we’re trying to create something that’s
not just a variant on what already exists. Whether or not you
philosophically agree with what we’re doing, we hope that at the very least
you can agree with our logic.

This week’s Deck Without Comment is

Halloween with Karador

.

Halloween With Karador

Sheldon Menery

Test deck on 02-11-2015

Commander

Creatures (45)

Lands (36)

Spells (17)

Check out our comprehensive Deck List Database for lists of all my decks:

SIGNATURE DECKS

Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers

;

Kresh Into the Red Zone

;

Halloween with Karador

;

Dreaming of Intet

;

You Did This to Yourself

.

THE CHROMATIC PROJECT

Mono-Color

Heliod, God of Enchantments

;

Thassa, God of Merfolk

;

Erebos and the Halls Of The Dead

;

Forge of Purphoros

;

Nylea of the Woodland Realm

;

Karn

Evil No. 9.

Guilds

Lavinia Blinks

;

Obzedat, Ghost Killer

;

Aurelia Goes to War

;

Trostani and Her Angels

;

Lazav, Shapeshifting Mastermind

;

Zegana and a Dice Bag

;

Rakdos Reimagined

;

Glissa, Glissa

;

Ruric Thar and His Beastly Fight Club

;

Gisa and Geralf Together Forever

.

Shards and Wedges

Adun’s Toolbox

;

Angry, Angry Dinos

;

Animar’s Swarm

;

Borrowing Stuff at Cutlass Point

;

Ikra and Kydele

;

Karrthus, Who Rains Fire From The Sky

;

Demons of Kaalia

;

Merieke’s Esper Dragons

;

Nath of the Value Leaf

;

Rith’s Tokens

;

The Mill-Meoplasm

;

The Altar of Thraximundar

;

The Threat of Yasova

;

Zombies of Tresserhorn

.

Four Color

Yidris: Money for Nothing, Cards for Free

;

Saskia Unyielding

;

Breya Reshaped

.

Five-Color

Children of a Greater God

Partners

Tana and Kydele

;

Kynaios and Tiro

;

Ikra and Kydele

.

THE DO-OVER PROJECT

Animar Do-Over

;

Glissa Do-Over

;

Karador Do-Over

;

Karador Version 3

;

Karrthus Do-Over

;

Kresh Do-Over

;

Steam-Powered Merieke

Do-Over;

Lord of Tresserhorn Do-Over

;

Mimeoplasm Do-Over

;

Phelddagrif Do-Over

;

Rith Do-Over

;

Ruhan Do-Over

.

If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a
campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook
group “Sheldon Menery’s
Monday Night Gamers.”