Hello all and happiest of days! Today I wanted to take a look see to see what Commander means to you? Commander is the most popular casual format of our day, and then has been for a while. It's more popular than tons of constructed formats and truly matters tons to folks too.

I've been playing Magic since 1994 and have played in tons of Constructed things like Vintage to Standard to Legacy to Extended to Modern a bit. Usually when I am playing official stuff it's limited though. Draft, Sealed, Cube, AbeDraft, Type Four, my Commander Cube or Bad Card Cube and tons more! That's more my jam today barring casual stuff like Commander, Five Color, and tons more. I started playing multiplayer with my friends in High School and that was often my default of playing for long time.

At the time around a few years in, we started playing the most popular casual format of the day, Five Color, which I introduced tons too. I wrote tons of columns on it, and then I was on the ruling council for tons of years too. I loved it tons. I wish it was still heavily playing and loved today, and I wrote an article on its death here.

Anyways, I adore casual stuff, specifically multiplayer, and Commander by default is multiplayer, and great flavor too! Love it!

Then...what is Commander to you? Like every format that's been this popular for this long there with this many folks, there are a multitude of reasons why, right? What are yours? I'll briefly go over some that appear or appeal to me here and then use that to prim the pump for our conversation and key question and identity to us.

Multiplayer?

Let's kick this thing off right here at the top reason I play and champion it. Multiplayer is built right into its DNA and roots. And rules too! For me and many other casual aficionados that's all we need to get started.

And there are cards I adore for Commander that also are good for multiplayer too. Great examples that used to rule the roost but aren't broken by today's measure like Mind's Eye for card draw and sweepers like Rout which can be instantly if someone attacks us all out. Or for targeted removal like Hull Breach, Hex or Decimate that need more targets to work. Or dorks and other stuff that can only do stuff once per turn, like Welcoming Vampire to get more turns to work.

Many folks adore the political side of multiplayer too, and making nice with Group Hug stuff too like Temple Bell or Mana Flare. This is for making friends to help take out the big bad, which happens often in a format where we know people's Commander before they start. Multiplayer is where you hang out with friends and meet new ones and everyone should be welcome too.

Also, if you do some bad stuff, you can be punished by being attacked by waves of stuff that comes your way, so the game can be more balanced that way. But don't run Stasis or Winter Orb stuff to force them to come your way either right? Right! Be the better player!

Flavor?

Another thing that many Commander fans like is the inherent flavor of the format. You have one leader running the show that you are sorta role-playing as and trying to find the right mechanics and story for them is great, right?

I just yesterday built a Castle themed Commander brew with Kenrith as the leader with everything a Castle might have from Walls, defenses like Heavy Catapult, people to protect like Veteran Bodyguard, his family, Happily Ever After, Castle proper and some ways to give him the Monarchy too like the Court cycle, but every card must make sense for a Castle on Eldraine that's his.

Because of the color identity rules of Commander, that has a strong flavor too. You cannot splash some color your leader doesn't know to use either. How can you best build around each dork opens up tons of ways to build as each legendary leader made has their own unique deck and core concept too.

Highlander and Deck Building Rules?

40 life and 100 cards? Lots of players love the quirky and unique rules of Commander.

Only having one of each card barring your basic lands is great flavor and a way to ensure that you need to dig deep in your card pool but just one per. That also leads to many folks really trying to make that one card per deck really nice like foil or foreign or something similar. If you only need one, isn't it worth the minor cost addition for a fancy version, from full art to promo?

And then having 100 cards, bigger than a traditional 60 card deck size is also something that lots of folks adore too, since with Highlander giving better variance - you don't know what you'll draw often, the size really doubles down on that too. That greater size that big at 100 is really effective too and bringing in folks too. That's a great quirk too! It also makes decking less likely too.

Next many adore that 40 life too. This is a great way to slow down the game to make sure we can set up our mana, defenses, dorks and more before worrying too much about your life. Also, folks may split targets too in various ways like attacks and removal, so that's even more of a life cushion. And then there are tons of ways to use that life for things like card draw and mana too, like shock lands and Pain Lands.

Don't forget Commander Damage kill too. This format has a built-in alternate win-con too! Many folks love this too since we can end someone's journey in the game by just dealing 21 with a Commander. No matter how much life they may get or how gross their battlefield may be, they are still killable. And you can join together to take them down by using common stuff like Rogue's Passage that works on all dorks.

The Five Stages of Play?

After the format choose WoTC to take over leadership, they created the Game Changer list and then five levels of play too from level 1 super casual themed brews to nasty no-holds-barred level 5 or cEDH. You can talk ahead and make sure that everyone is on the same tier of deck building for folks.

Lots of people, like myself and many others, defaulted future brews at Tier 2. Tier 1 were total flavor and Tier 3 had 3 of the game changers but that's it. That's pretty strong decks there and tons of folks don't go higher.

Stay nice and kind, but play your game. Take it easy and don't break the bank.

What does Commander mean to you? Why do you play it and have been for a long time for some?