You’ve probably heard me say it already, but it bears repeating: if you think 2019 was a good year for Commander, hang onto your hats in 2020. There are so many exciting things coming up that it might be hard to keep track of them all. I’ll talk today about both the amazing products that are coming out next year as well as some of the things that both the Commander Rules Committee (RC) as a group and I personally have planned for the new year. My motto for 2020 is “Dream Big.”
Cool Products and Stuff
Back in October, Gavin Verhey wrote a preview piece of what will be coming out next year. I was on the inside when that article came out, and I’ve seen some of the stuff he talks about. While I won’t give away any secrets or drop any hints, I have opinions on what Gavin had to say.
He completely undersold the community’s appetite for Commander despite calling it “huge.” It’s legion. When he wrote that piece, Gavin hadn’t yet seen the numbers from CommandFest Seattle and Chicago, still a week in the future, or CommandFest DC, six weeks later. Those events have reinforced how hungry our community is to gather together and feast on the format. Just a few weeks before Christmas, when travel can be pretty difficult and annoying, a reported 1500 people showed up in DC. My impression there was the same as it was the first morning in Seattle. There was a time when I didn’t think there’d be that many Commander players in the world, let alone in a single room.
Part of the community’s appetite is the vibe the format brings. The pressure to perform is nonexistent. We’re all there to enjoy ourselves, do some busted stuff, maybe win, maybe lose, and then do it again. Sure, there are folks for whom winning individual games is more important, but on the whole it’s about the communal experience. So long as they don’t run into folks actively trying to make them have a bad time (which is, in sort of an oblique way, what happens in competitive events), people walk away from Commander events remembering that they enjoyed themselves regardless of game outcomes. This fuels the desire to return again.
Gavin mentions coming around to the idea that Commander is a gateway into Magic and other formats. We’ve understood this for a long time. Again, community is a huge part of the Commander experience. Good communities excel at growing themselves, and one of the most powerful and enduring methods of acquisition is opening the door for people that you know but haven’t yet shared the experience. We’re immensely happy that the folks inside the building have embraced this idea, which is a significant part of the amazing stuff they’re putting together for our favorite format in 2020.
The first set we’ll see new Commander-specific cards from is Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths in April. Not much of a spoiler alert: there will be cards in Theros Beyond Death that are really good in Commander; they just won’t be specifically made for the format like those from Ikoria. The coolest part of the release here is that the new cards are part of the set, but at the same time not. They’ll only be available in the preconstructed decks, which they’re back to doing five of instead of four. I had the chance to play a few of these decks in their design form, and they were loads of fun. As for the set itself, it’s not called Lair of Behemoths for nothing.
Then, in Zendikar Rising, the nature of the precons changes. Fighting off a little of the product overload, there will be just two new Commander decks with a smaller number of new cards in them, what Gavin called “on-ramps” into the format. These replace the Planeswalker decks in the product release schedule (not that PW decks are going away; they’ll be back in Core Set 2021). They’ll be a great way to help enfranchise newer players (or let veterans pick up some staples for their decks). While it may seem a small thing, to me this signals a tectonic shift. It represents WotC’s recognition of the health and popularity of Commander and their commitment to supporting the format going forward. You can imagine that this makes me deliriously happy. This would already seem like enough support, but our friends in Renton aren’t quite done.
Commander Collection: Green (or in my head, Commander Collection: Bling) comes out later in the year. Eight cards, all green, all amazing cards for Commander, available in foil and nonfoil versions. I really can’t say anything about what the collection contains, so I’ll point you back to Gavin’s article that teases two of the pieces of art. Speculation has obviously abounded since he talked about it. The only thing that I’m sure I’m relatively safe in saying is that it will be amazeballs. You’d think that might be it, but we’re saving the best for last.
If you thought any of the above reinforced the commitment to the format, then Commander Legends will send you right off the edge. It’s a Commander- (and other Eternal format-) legal booster set that’s in twenty-card draftable packs and contains over 70 new legendary creatures. 70! There’s no way I’m going to have enough time to build decks around even a quarter of them (but I’m certainly going to give it some effort). Fortunately, lots of you will find particular commanders to latch onto, and we’ll see the community explode with new decks and new ideas, the thought of which already has my pulse pounding. The set promises to return to favorite planes for inspiration as well as visiting some new ones. The scope and breadth of what will be available is mind-boggling. If that’s not enough for you, there will also be two new Commander Legends decks, with three cards each that aren’t available in the boosters. No time to draft? Just grab and go.
It’s in no way hyperbolic to suggest that 2020 will be the best year ever for Commander. From the raw amount of support in design and development of new product to even more large-scale events like CommandFest targeted at the core demographic, whether you’re a heavily invested fan of the format or just someone who we haven’t yet grabbed with our deliriously infective fun, you will be plenty busy next year. I’ve seen the future, and it contains 100-card decks.
Commander RC 2020
New products and more events aren’t the only thing that I consider exciting about the new year vis-à-vis Commander. The Commander RC has a few things we’re doing that we think will interest you as well. One or two of them are things I’ll be doing solo (well, not quite solo, since I’ll have plenty of other help), but as a representative of the format and with the support of my colleagues.
Turns Out GeoCities Is Dead
The first, and likely most impactful to the broadest audience, is the official website reboot. It should be available right after the New Year, and I think you’ll be happy with the results. Modernizing the site has been something we’ve wanted to do for several years now, and we’re just getting around to having the time and resources to put into it.
It won’t just be new, it’ll be expanded. We’d like it to be a kind of launching ground to all things Commander. We’ll obviously have a spot for all the official administrative stuff. There will be a clearly marked spot for the Philosophy Document, updates to the Banned List, and other announcements that you need to know about. Speaking of updates, I’ll remind you that we’ll still being doing updates quarterly, on the Monday after the Prerelease. We don’t require the same kind of agility and time-sensitivity that other formats do, so it makes sense to us to maintain our usual schedule. If that change in the future, we’ll be happy to adapt.
One of the new features I’m looking forward to is that each RC and Commander Advisory Group (CAG) member will have their own page, a rolling blog, if you will. Although most everyone already has some social media outlet of one kind or another, the individual pages on the website will give them a committee/group-specific blog in which to express their thoughts about Commander-oriented stuff, whether that’s their opinion on the latest hot-button issue or some side project they’d like to highlight. We might also be able to include a calendar, so you can check out what events folks will be attending. It will also serve to give you one-stop shopping for RC and CAG opinions on things. I expect some fireworks; not everyone completely agrees on everything (save for the fact that Commander is the best format ever), which can lead to compelling conversation.
Another new feature will be an FAQ. Gavin and Toby have been working diligently on it for a while now, and it should bring together all the common questions that people have, and maybe some of the uncommon and rare ones. I’m not completely sure at the moment what form it will take, but an ancillary feature of the FAQ will be rulings on specific cards and card combinations that might only come up in Commander. I expect this feature to be somewhat basic when we launch and then more robust down the road. We don’t need to replicate things that are done elsewhere, like on Gatherer or Scryfall, but there are still some holes to fill for Commander-specific stuff.
Centralized Resources
There are lots of folks creating content for Commander right now. Most of them are pretty good. We’d like to have a landing space so that it’s easy for you to find all of them. A blog roll isn’t that difficult to produce or maintain, and it’ll save you from having to do too many searches or hunt around for your next favorite podcast or YouTube channel. We’ll also bring together some tools. Most of you, who are already heavily enfranchised, know about stuff like EDHRec or Archidekt. We’ll do what we can to also point newer or more casual fans in those directions.
Increased Physical Presence
One of the things I’m working on is a plan to get more RC and CAG members to more events in order to interface directly with people in the community. While organizers such as our own SCG, ChannelFireball, Pastimes, and others have a small budget to bring in Commander personalities, we’d like to get more of us to more events.
This isn’t just a goat rope to stroke our own egos or get free trips to events; it’s a real effort to remove as much distance from the RC and CAG as possible. One of the long-standing criticisms of the RC is that we’re stuck in an ivory tower somewhere, and people don’t really know who we are. We intend to destroy that impression. Online interaction is fine, but nothing beats face-to-face conversation. The round table Olivia, Stybs, and I did at CommandFestDC was invaluable. We want and need more of those. Obviously, such things cost money. Through creative resource generation and management, it can happen. Personally, since I’m now physically and health-wise more capable of travel, an event every six weeks or so isn’t out of the question. If through this effort we can get every RC and CAG member (that’s eleven people) to at least one additional event in 2020, I will count it as a win.
Supporting New Voices
This one is a personal project that I’m getting RC and CAG support on. I’ve already talked about it a little here and on social media. There are people, especially from traditionally marginalized groups, who might like to be Commander content creators but have faced significant barriers. I want to help get those barriers out of the way.
Sometimes, it can just be a little bit of advice. Sometimes, it can be a signal boost. At others, it can be resource support, whether direct or indirect. Quite honestly, sometimes it can be leveraging some of the privilege I enjoy in order to minimalize resistance to what those new voices would like to do. However it plays out, I believe it’s the responsibility of those of us who have succeeded in some fashion to help others succeed as well. One of the easy pieces in this puzzle is to provide space for unpublished creators. It’ll take a bit of effort and certainly some editorial oversight, but I’d like to provide a spot on the website for folks who have never otherwise created content, whether that’s text, video, or audio. The New Voices space will offer opportunity to folks who haven’t yet had the chance to succeed at shot at doing something great. How could I say no to that?
2020 is going to be the best year ever for Commander, from the new product we see to better ways of enjoying the marvelous community we’ve created together. Part of the greatness of next year will also be laying the groundwork so that future years can say the same.
I’ll say it again: Dream Big.