What is Team Commander ?

There are a lot of other singleton Magic the Gathering formats out there. All these formats derived from the originally Elder Dragon Highlander format (EDH), which was promoted by Sheldon Menery, a magic judge. The idea behind this fun format was that there is a general who controls an army unique to his colors – the first commander and the color identity were born. While the first commanders were the original 5 elder dragons from the Legends expension, they all had in common a high mana cost. The deck building restriction allowed to include just one copy of a certain card except basic lands, and this led to the the alternative name for this format „Highlander„, based on the fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert, which featured immortal warriors, fighting each other, until just one is left: „There can be only one.“ The higher lifepool, the 100 cards decksize, the one-of-a-card singleton and the color identity restriction also made it possible or even necessary to include unpopular cards, cards with a higher converted mana cost than usually played in other formats and „leftovers“, which you always had in your binder because they were „useless“ / „unplayable“ in other formats. Magic evolved, more expansions were added, and the game and card quality changed, causing a big impact on the format and its playability.

One of the early adaptions of the EDH format was the solely „Highlander“ (Magic) called format, which was very popular in Germany (in fact, it is still played). Its inventors believed that the replay value of the commander was too strong and could be too abusive, so the commander and the idea of color identity was left out, forging the format into a mere singelton format. The format also used the type 1.5 banned list for a long time, but when the format changed to a more competetive play orientation, the inventors of the format lowered the life total to 20 life and declared an own banned list. While there are still fans of this format, the gameplay totally departed from the original concept of a slower paced fun format with color identity restriction, higher mana curve and themes to be played. Critics would proclaim that Highlander degenerated into a „best-of“ deck format, with little space for genuine deck concepts or control based decks but the nowadays format is a mere inclusion of the best cards for a zoo-deck from all expensions. The missing commander aspect also withdrew a specific interesting tactical element. The banned list is just orientated on a one-versus-one play.

The original commander idea remained unique and its philosophy touched many players, so Wizards also noticed the potential behind this format and the huge, growing fan base, and added its own Commander series. Basically commander is just another name for EDH, clarifying that any legendary creature (and, with the addition of newer expansions even partner commanders and some Planeswalkers) can be used as a commander. The format was published as a 5 player free-for-all format originally by submitting 5 different commander decks a time. The game was also called „political magic“, as all players competed against each other, and, in a perfect game, would forge always shifting alliances to restrict the strongest player. The idea was well intended, but lacked in reality. The ban list is minimalistic, and actually not sufficient for a balanced play. The official forums clearly state that this ban list is just a framework and needs to be enhanced and discussed by house rules, as the format was intended to be a fun format, but most players just ignore these instructions. So the gameplay can swiftly get unbalanced, boring and unfair. For example, a player can be kicked out very early, and then has to wait for hours for the other players to end the game and to rejoin, which is very frustrating. Also, certain deck types (creature based weenie decks, burn decks or mill decks) often have just enough power to overwhelm a single opponent or two, and end up being unplayable in this format, which is a pity for the variance of available deck types. While the intention was that the restriction of powerful cards is not necessary (for example fast mana cards like Sol ring, which was explicitly printed in all commander decks!) as all players would unite against a player who is the main threat, in reality sometimes especially unexperienced players wouldn’t notice the need to play against a certain player, missing the situation, and therefore leading to frustration for other players („why did you attack me, now player A won because you did not do the right and logic thing in this situation“). Also, in a team versus team play there are even numbers on each team, meaning that there are equal powers on each side – preventing 3-4 players uniting against 1 superior player/card – so the slack ban list also doesn’t work well for a team based multiplayer game. Most people are confused by this issue and say these are the official multiplayer rules for Commander – so they need to be used, but oversee that these rules are only tailored for political magic free-for-all formats / give the baseline for teamplay! But additionally, the idea of slower play and rarely seen cards diminished when players tuned their decks according to the ban list, proclaiming that these rules and ban list are the one and only official lists for commander play (totally ignoring the philosophy and foot note (form the old site design): „The Banned List for Commander is designed not to balance competitive play“!). As in a political 4-5 person game there are 3-4 opposing players: decks are also built with the focus on eleminating as fast and as many opponents at the same time, leading to combo-decks. Soon a cEDH (competetive EDH) scene derived and categorized the commanders in tiers according to their power levels, with Tier 1 being the most competetive decks. These decks are able to win on turn 3 or 4 regularly and consistantly, while some are even able to win on the first turn. When playing against such decks, sometimes a player has just played one or two lands before he loses the game, leaving nothing else than frustration.

The official site describes this problem well with „The format can be broken; we believe games are more fun if you don’t.“ and advises „We encourage groups to use the rules and the ban list as a baseline to optimize their own experience. This is not license for an individual toforce their vision onto a play group, but encouragement for players to discuss their goals and how the rules might be adjusted to suit those goals.“ But the cEDH decks nowadays outnumber normal decks by far, as the ban list is official and especially by playing with changing players for example on magic events, in local game stores and so on, players just want to play and not debate about house rules – some groups even show up with 6 pages full of rules and up to 3 or 4 different homemade powerlevels (!), which is just silly and shooes away players. So there is a need for a neutral, balanced and published ban list and rulings with accessability for every interested person – like the banned list presented here ! We aren’t official – we aren’t presenting rules which everyone will like, but we try at least present a rule-construct, which tries to project what we think is a fun and fair atmosphere and philosophy on a team play format for Commander.

There are also 5 more famous singleton formats we like to mention:

The Emperor game was designed for 3 players against 3 players. While magic can be fun in large groups, a „free for all“ game takes long waiting periods until it’s your turn again, so a team format was invented. The two players sitting on the flanks were the knights defending their emperor, the emperor in the middle couldn’t be attacked directly nor could he attack (limited range rules), but he was able to move his creatures to one of his knights, changing control of the creatures. This format is an ancient one, and its playability diminished when Planeswalkers were introduced, as the emperor was unattackable until a knight goes down, leaving him a lot of turns protected. In former times this was no drawback, nowadays he can simply level up his planeswalkers till ultimate and win the game. We do not recommend this format anymore.

The Canadian Highlander is another approach of a banned list: the strongest cards have power points, and each deck may contain cards with a maximum of 10 points, but even the most expansive and powerful cards are permitted (at high point costs, though, but they are allowed). Therefore the powerlevel is even worse than cEDH, and the format is clearly just suited for a competetive 1on1 play, often resulting in turn 1 or 2 wins. We also don’t think this is the intention of a social, interactive, balanced and fair EDH format. Actually this format is also obsolete, as cEDH is bad enough. Who needs more formats enabling and encouraging turn 1 wins ?

The French Commander or Duel Commander format was an attempt to correct some of the flaws/rule gaps of the Commander rules and banlist. It started as a 1on1 format with a modified ban list, which could also be used for twoheaded giant (2HG) games, but was clearly designed and intended for 1on1. The decks got more aggressive and tuned,  so the rules were changed: the life pool was lowered form 30 to 20 life, there was suddenly no commander damage anymore – this tactical element totally ceased to exist. Critics would say the format somewhat degenerated the same way as Highlander did in a „best of cards“ format, skipping interesting tactics, unique combinations and gameplay and interactions and all what made EDH stand out for. The philosophy of rarely seen cards: gone. As the commander does have fewer impact, you can also chose a commander you will never ever play just to use its color identity and build a 5 color best of deck. But at least the minds behind the Duelcommander format did recognize the problem of fast mana cards like Sol Ring and banned them. 1on1 is just a totally different format and Duelcommander is propably the best way to play 1on1 Commander, though this kind of Commander is a totally different thing from what once was the original EDH.

Some of the former inventors of the Duel Commander format saw what the changes were leading to and tried to turn back time, founding the Leviathan format – which is simply put an older, going back in time version of the duel commander rules before they massively changed. While this intention is noble, the ban list is still based on 1on1 and the format focuses on competetive play – we aren’t sure if the format is still being played as the last update on their ban List was about a year ago.

The best attempt to build a fair, balanced and fun format were the first official WotC lists for Online-Commander. These lists even tracked the problems/gaps of this format, categorizing these cards into (too) Fast mana leading to uninteractive and uninteresting gameplay, cards unenjoyable to play against, multiplayer-pointed bans and combo enablers of single card combos. Though the format is limited on the cards available on MTGO, the creators at least realized the problems and tried to fix them. They also held up the philosophy of EDH in early versions, but then also focused more on Duelcommander sadly, totally neglecting the Team play aspect.

To sum it up: All these formats sadly disregard 2HG (Twoheaded Giant) or 3HG games, though 2HG and Teamplay has a long history in MtG and is still one of the most played and favoured formats. Recent printings of a full Battlebond expansion dedicated to 2HG shows this, too. We think we might close this rule and Banlist gap for Team Commander games now. We used the former Online Commander lists and concepts as a basis for our format. We also thankfully relied on much of the content from the official commander rules and Philosophy, and then went on with the most respected gentlemen’s agreement on cards do-nots and our long experience to create the best lists ever for you : the players.