[dc]I[/dc] met up with a friend to grab lunch and play Magic: The Gathering the other day and Stephanie handled the news in her usual way.

text message

My wiiiife.

Oh snap. Did someone ring the dinner bell? Because I just got served.

My friend and I played a couple of rounds of the Magic variant called Commander (previously known as Elder Dragon Highlander). This was my first time playing Magic this way, but I liked the format (it is usually meant for three or more players, but we still had fun).

How Magic Commander Works

  • Each player picks a legendary creature as their commander, either mono or multi color.
  • Your deck is exactly 100 cards, 99 not counting your commander.
  • You can only use cards which share the colors of your commander (ex: if your commander’s casting cost has red and green, you can use red and/or green cards) and artifacts.
  • Only one copy of any card, except basic land.
  • The commander starts in the ‘command zone’ and can be cast from there whenever you want. If your commander dies, it goes back to the command zone and can be cast again, but for an extra 2 colorless each time it dies.

I like variant and limited formats, so Commander is right up my alley. Currently I’m running a Black/Blue/Red deck with Lord of Tresserhorn as my Commander. It’s fun (zombies!).

Stephanie likes this format too, because it gives her even more ammunition for jokes at my expense.