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The Case for Removing the 100-Card Minimum in Commander

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Hello Commander aficionados!

I'd like to make the case for a potential rule change in Commander. Now that Commander has new leadership, I feel it is a good time for a suggestion I believe would increase the flexibility and creativity the format is known for!

  • Change the deck's composition from a Minimum and Maximum of 100 cards to just a minimum of cards instead.

With this change, you could have any number above 100; break out that Battle of Wits!

Let's look at the benefits of such a change.

Creativity and Identity

Like I mentioned above, I believe that the creativity and flexibility of this format would increase considerably, by removing this cap. Everyone calls this the most importantly creative, flexible and identity-based format for the game. I can build around thousands of Commanders, and each build will represent the different identity of each player! Right?

For example, recently, I built my first a -1/-1 Counter Commander brew, and I chose to build around something a little less popular, so I chose Xavier Sal, Infested Captain. Then, I just built a Turbo Fog deck in Bant with Ms. Bumbleflower here. Shoot, I've even taken the 60-card Sliving Death deck around Slivers and their self-saccing and then Living Death to bring them back as well!

All of these projects and identities would be better if you removed the artificial deck size! Take Turbo Fog as a great example! You could run all of the mass card draw and all of the Fogs, rather than some of each.

Remember that the bigger a deck gets the worse it becomes, so this wouldn't hurt the format or games, but it would provide new brewing opportunities! Wouldn't it be great in a 5C Sliver deck to run one of them all? But there are 119 Slivers, so that cannot normally happen. But if you removed the deck cap, you could!

Rules Unification and Rules Ease

Another great reason to remove this rule of a max deck size is to simplify the rules and make entry into the format easier! Every other format out there has a minimum size rule, but no maximum! They aren't capping its creativity. Commander is the exception in this regard, and since it's not played for tournaments competitively, why do that?

But, you might say, "Abe, I hear you, and rules format unity and ease of rules tradition might be great, but this a key rules aspect and flavor aspect of the format! Wouldn't removing the cap remove that flavor and format distinction?"

I hear you! I would make the following point: the deck size rule is but one small aspect of the format's flavor. All of the rest would be unaffected!

Deck size? Still at least a 100! Cards allowed? It has it's own Banned and Restricted list! Color Identity? Command Zone? Highlander? 40 Life? Only legendary dorks allowed as Commanders? Commander Damage? All still there! The deck size cap is not really a key part of the format. Your favorite format is still your favorite format without it, and I'd argue that the 100 card minimum is what makes that work, not the precise size.

Also, by removing the cap, you'd make the format more random and unpredictable, which is what a Highlander deck is trying to do in the first place! A 125 card Commander deck has the potential to be more unpredictable and chaotic.

Removing the Rule Barrer

One of the things that the Commander format has been doing forever is encouraging group rules and pre-game conversations to make sure everyone has the same expectations. They say these rules are the starting point, not the end point, and if you are all having fun, then where's the harm in it?

Here's the thing, I can tell as someone who used to be on the Five Color Ruling Council, most people aren't going to adapt rules to their table and multiplayer group! They are going to just stick with the rules or play another format.

According to the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, people tend to be divided into four various types with different levels, and many are in or near the middle. Some of these, like Extravert vs Introvert don't have the same number of people. The Sensors are around 70% of answers to 30% of Intuitors on the next category. Sensors tend to prefer rules, traditions, seeing a flower as pretty and smells nice rather than what it represents to them and more. Many are near the middle in these four dichotomies. But the point stands, you can say in your rules that something is up for debate if the greater good gets in the way, but they won't usually do it. That's just who we are as a society. If a cop pulls you over for speeding a few miles an hour when late at night when no one was on the road, you couldn't say to him, "Sorry, I didn't think that rule was necessary since no one was on the road" you'd just pay. Because it was against the rules, and we need to follow them!

At the card shop, I've advocated for folks adding cards that were complaining they were getting bored and it was feeling like a solved format to them. They would look at me weird and say "that's not the rules" and move on, often from the format. So, let's make the rules the best we can and remove that cap and move on!

Cards Allowed

Yorion, Sky Nomad
Battle of Wits

I'll leave you with is this fun pair of cards in Blue you could run! You would essentially unban these cards!

The companion needs a 120-card deck in Commander - sounds like fun right? Right! And if he dominates too much (doubtful but possible) then ban it and move on.

Another card you could run is Battle of Wits, which turns a 200+ card library into a win in your upkeep, but finding it in that many Highlander cards is rough, and keeping it for a turn Is also rough too. Like Test of Endurance! This is much harder to pull off without the redundancy of 4 cards each in Highlander, so the odds of pulling it off are unlikely to ever be too strong. Trust me, it's not easy!

I feel like this would be a fun two cards to basically unban! And remember, this adding of deck size makes the deck worse, but allows them to build their deck within the rules and then with the max of creativit. It also stops folks from giving up on the format and eases entry into Commander. It wouldn't impact you or your decks at all by banning anything, so... why not? Let's embrace removing that cap!

Thanks for reading,

Abe Sargent

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