Complete Commander

the
COMPLETE
COMMANDE R
an unofficial guide
be n n i e sm i t h
Spark ignited, you’re ready to battle
commander
across the multiverse.
Now, choose the ultimate ally
who will always fight at your side...
The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide is the first of its kind. This shiny
eBook you’re about to explore is an informative, edgy, graphically stunning
Magic: The Gathering grimoire that’s a celebration of the game’s most popular
multiplayer format: Commander.
Designed for lovers of casual multiplayer game experiences, The Complete

Commander: An Unofficial Guide takes you from Commander concept and theory
to choosing your Commander, and includes a full deck-brewing walkthrough,
providing you with all the tools you need to build a solid 100-card deck that’s
both fun and flavorful. Features include Budget Starter Kits, Commander Staples,
and three sample Commander decks designed to jump start your deckbuilding
imagination. Trying to get someone into Magic? We’ve got you covered with
the Magic 101 section. A more advanced player? Then it’s the ideal reference for
starting new brews.
And the book wouldn’t be as epic as we desired without the extra swag: a foreword
from “the godfather of Commander” Sheldon Menery, an introduction by
DailyMTG.com’s Command Tower writer Adam Styborski, and an afterword
on the evolution of Commander design from Robby Rothe. Plus, we’ve included
new Magic: The Gathering fan fiction from the community’s best fantasy writers,
breathing life into some of your favorite characters in fun and unique ways. Last
but not least are the Spirit of Commander Vignettes—quite possibly written by
someone from your playgroup!
The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide began as an email between two

friends but quickly grew, much like the format itself, to a true community project
you have to read to believe. You’ve got epic stories to tell, and this book will guide
you to countless unforgettable adventures!
To future haymakers and tales worth the telling,

complete
Bennie Smith & MJ Scott
Edited and Produced by MJ Scott | Cover and Interior Design by James Arnold
The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide is not affiliated with, endorsed, or sponsored by
Wizards of the Coast. Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, the mana symbols, expansion
names and symbols, trade dress or “look and feel”, character names and their distinctive likenesses,
and the pentagon of colors are copyrights and trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast LLC in
2
the U.S.A. and other countries and used with permission. All Magic: The Gathering images are
tariel, reckoner of souls
owned by Wizards of the Coast LLC and used with permission.
table of contents
6 Dedication
7 Acknowledgements
8 Foreword
10 Spirit of Commander: 2 Gazillion Damage
11 On Community: An Introduction to The Complete Commander

14 Spirit of Commander: Jace’s Ultimate Format
15 Chapter 1: Why Play Commander?

16 Introduction
18 The Genius of Singleton Magic
18 The Joys of Multiplayer Magic
19 Embrace the Chaos!
20 Haymaker Magic
22 Spirit of Commander: Fireslingin’
24 Chapter 2: The Rules

25 Quick Overview
25 Comprehensive Rules
29 Why Isn’t the Banned List Bigger?
30 Mulligans
30 If You Play First
31 Sidebar: Banned List
32 Sidebar: Sideboards
33 Spirit of Commander: Mayael’s New Guy
34 Chapter 3: Choosing Your Commander

35 The First Step
35 Building Around Your Commander’s Abilities
36 The Politics of Choosing Your Commander
38 Types of Deck Strategies
39 Can’t Choose? Roll a d20!
42 Fiction: Time Stop
46 Spirit of Commander: The Flash
47 Chapter 4: Commander Deckbuilding 101
48 Fueling the Engine: Mana Requirements
49 Even Big Decks Need a Good Mana Curve
50 Sample Mana Curve
51 Sidebar: The Trouble with CMC=3
52 The Importance of Card Advantage in Multiplayer
52 Blatant Power Vs. Subtle Synergy
53 Researching Cards for Your Deck
54 Fiction: Command Tower
59 Spirit of Commander: Mortal Combat!
60 Chapter 5: Full deck brewing walkthrough

61 Who Leads the Walking Dead?
62 Sidebar: Tribal Staples
63 Casting a Wide Net
68 Sample Decklist
69 Killing Your Darlings
70 Fiction: The Vengeful Dead
73 Spirit of Commander: Mono-Red Sucks, Right?
74 Chapter 6: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

75 Casting Prossh
76 Making Sure He Connects
76 Sacrificing for Profit
78 Food for Thought
79 Sidebar: Budget-minded Starter Kit
80 Sample Decklist
81 Fiction: A Greater Good
86 Spirit of Commander: Angelic Sunday
87 Chapter 7: Tariel, Reckoner of Souls

88 Casting Tariel
88 Death, Not Exile
89 Slow and Steady Wins the Race
89 Food for Thought
91 Sample Decklist
92 Fiction: Life’s Finale
98 Spirit of Commander: Gaea’s Worms for the Win
99 Chapter 8: Rafiq of the Many
100 “I Didn’t Sign Up for This Crap!”
101 Changelings
101 Food for Thought
103 Sample Full Decklist
104 Fiction: Quest for the Holy Relic
110 Spirit of Commander: Burn the Page
111 Chapter 9: Conclusion

112 Concluding Thoughts
113 Vision for the Future
114 Fiction: Door of Destinies
117 designing commander

124 Glossary
128 Appendix: Magic 101
128 Magic: The Gathering Gameplay Basics
129 Magic Game Concepts
129 Color
130 Magic Card Types
133 Game Zones
134 Playing a Game of Magic
136 Advanced Gameplay Rules
138 Get Out There and Play!
139 Appendix: Commander Staples

150 Credits
To my children Anna
Marie and Aaron, for
providing a constant
supply of love, joy and
inspiration.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BENNIE SMITH
First and foremost, I want to say thanks to all my readers over the years.
Your kind words and positive feedback provide me fuel for writing my heart out. You
gave me the idea for the initial “EDH Primer” series I wrote on Starcitygames.com
some years back, and your requests to revisit the primers and update them gave me the
vague notion to offer it up in a consolidated book form.
A close second is MJ Scott, who took my vague notion and a few ideas for a book and
set her incredible talents towards the task, forging all the pieces into a work of art to
be proud of. She’s credited as editor and producer for The Complete Commander: An
Unofficial Guide, but she’s been so much more—a manager, a networker, a motivator,
a coach… and most importantly, a great friend. She even found time to contribute
a fantastic piece of Commander fiction! Special props go out to her husband Elliot
Scott who pitched in quite a bit.
A heartfelt thanks goes out to James Arnold, who took all these words and made
them look beautiful. A relative newcomer to Commander, he’s nevertheless become a
true believer and fan of the format in record time, and his passion and love for Com-
mander comes through in his layout and design work… as well as his own piece of
Commander fiction!
I’m humbled by the contributions of giants in the Commander community who kind-
ly lent their words to the book: Sheldon Menery, Adam Styborski, and Robby Rothe.
You guys rock! As a writer I’m thrilled and inspired by the fantastic short Commander
fiction offered up by Andy Rogers, A.E. Marling, John Dale Beety, Natahlia Zaring
and Ant Tessitore. Gratitude to all those who wrote in with their epic Spirit of Com-
mander stories, and especially to Jeff “The Chef ” Chinn, Alex Nolan, Aaron Diers,
Keir, Allen Rassekh, Tomas BeVirt, Daniel Zaloga, Kaleb Ragan, Adam Coles, and Joe
Strickland, whose vignettes fit perfectly into the book.
A special thanks to Renee Hupp and Trevor Gulley for taking the What Is Magic sec-
tion off my extensive to-do list, making my job a little easier.
I’d like to recognize Joshua Frankel aka Inkwell Looter for his dynamite work bringing
the unique promotional Commander token card to life in his distinctly fun way, I was
thrilled he was willing to bring the idea to life.
I can’t help but think I wouldn’t be here today with this book if not for my friend
Pete Hoefling, owner and mad genius behind Star City Games. Not only has he done
so much for the game with his passion for providing the best experiences for Magic
players of all stripes, but he’s provided the rock that I’ve built my Magic writing career
on. He’s believed in me for so many years and made me feel like a vital part of the Star
City Games family. You couldn’t ask for a better environment for a writer to thrive in.
Finally, a loving thanks to my mother Marsha, who supported and encouraged all my
dreams no matter how crazy or strange they may have seemed.
FOREWORD
sheldon menery
Commander is an example
of what happens when a few highly motivated, highly dedicated people are successful
in infecting others with their own mania. It is a triumph of both spirit and expertise,
and reinforces the fact that sometimes a cool idea—and a few cool people—are all you
need. No one, not even someone like me (who is known to occasionally have visions
epic in scope) could have envisioned what the format has become.
Commander is the greatest example in Magic—maybe in the entirety of gaming—of

a communal work. While it may have started in the humble confines of an awesome
group of gamers in Anchorage, Alaska before moving to my equally-humble-and-awe-
some group in Virginia, its virulence can only be attributed to its fan base, to peo-
ple both motivated enough and skilled enough to preach the word. From proactive
thinkers like Gavin Duggan (who had the idea to form the Rules Committee to shep-
herd the format forward); to stalwart defenders of the rules set like Toby Elliott; to
zealous writers like Bennie Smith, Sean McKeown, and Uriah Oxford; the thing that
the format boils down to is always people—people who love something so much that
they can only envision a world where they share it with their friends.
There were a few lucky bounces along the way. Longtime friend, then-DCI Tour-
nament Manager (now Rules Committee member) Scott Larabee just happened to
be looking for me after a long Pro Tour day only to find me ready to introduce “this
wacky new format” to some of my judge community friends who hadn’t already got-
ten infected. He decided to sit in, got hooked immediately, and became primarily
responsible for introducing it around the office at Wizards of the Coast. Like every-
where else it got introduced, it spread. Soon, Director of R&D Aaron Forsythe was
one of the baptized, and we were off to the races.
The greatest share of the credit for the spread of our particular gospel belongs to the
dedicated members of the Judge Program. Already skilled ambassadors and commu-
nity representatives, the format simply tagged along on their Magic crusades. The list
of names is just too long to mention. Their attitude, zeal, and willingness to carry the
format with them wherever they went—the local FNM, the Grand Prix, even pros-
elytizing to whomever would listen in the Public Events area at the Pro Tour—was
instrumental in the meteoric rise of the format.
Two things that have made the format successful are that we haven’t tried to make it all
things to all people and we’ve intentionally kept it different from other formats. Our
strident unwillingness to bend to a competitive mindset—to not just let the format
become alt-Vintage—has kept it healthy. By providing a banned list that deals with
the worst offenders and a philosophy that lets local groups use that as a guiding prin-
ciple has been a recipe for success. Critics may charge that we’ve grown too large to
have a bottom-up view, but those critics are wrong. It’s exactly what has kept things
from getting stale. It’s exactly what’s kept the format accessible to new players. It’s
exactly what’s led to our popularity.
So in this Commander foreword, how will we take Commander forward? The simple
answer is by not messing with it too much. The format is a work of art, and art isn’t
something to be grabbed in a stranglehold and forced to submit. It’s something to be
carefully tended, nudged in the right direction. It’s a bonsai tree we will continue to
feed, water, and lovingly craft into something perpetually amazing.
2 Gazillion Damage
alex nolan - sydney, australia
I was in a big Commander game where everybody but 2 players had been eliminated:
a Mimeoplasm player who only had a Chainer, Dementia Master on the field; and a
Riku of Two Reflections player. The Riku player played Avenger of Zendikar—copying
him using Riku’s second ability—and produced approximately a gazillion tokens,
getting ready to kill the Mimeoplasm player. Before he could, the Mimeoplasm player
cast Entomb, got Massacre Wurm, then activated Chainer to put the Wurm on the
field, killing all the poor little plants and dealing approximately 2 gazillion damage to
the Riku player.
10 the spirit of commander

On Community: An Introduction
to The Complete Commander
adam styborski
magic is much more than just a

shared experience.
When I learned Magic it was from an Ice Age rulebook, an incomprehensible tome
printed on microscopic paper, from the friend who brought the cards to me. We felt
as though we had tons of cards between us—400 or so, including basic lands—but
with that modest card pool, our games looked like Sealed. I didn’t know what Limited
was, but I did know how fun it was to shut down a dinky, flying Uktabi Faerie with
the clearly superior Giant Mantis.
As my knowledge of Magic grew through more friends playing at school and the
monthly magazines filled with cards, prices, and tips, the way I played followed along.
I traded to build up my favorite color (at the time, blue) and get multiple copies of the
cards I wanted most. In a few more years I was drafting one of the most complicated
blocks ever released, Time Spiral, and playing at Friday Night Magic.
Even at the height of my competitiveness nothing compared to the feeling of playing

with strange new cards in a chaotic multiplayer game where each of our decks embod-
ied exactly what we loved about Magic.
I believe that’s what drives the popularity of Commander: it’s a format tapping into
the primal nature of what Magic means to us. The Legendary creature we choose to
lead our deck, the colors that circumscribe and represent our strategies, the unique
cards we find to include and show off—there are innumerable ways Commander
becomes an intimate, personal experience. The restrictive rules that underpin deck
construction are an opportunity to express ourselves through our decks in a way no
one else will duplicate.
But Commander is more than just self-expression.
Unlike any other non-competitive way to play the game, it has rallied players around
the world. Unlike the casual formats that came before it, Commander “put a face”
onto the vast stretch of players that aren’t competitive but keep up with Magic. It’s
players like us that keep local game stores in business, that order strange and out of
print cards online, and constantly explore what we’re interested in most.
And unlike most casual formats, Commander requires exploration. It’s a daunting
task to consider over 14,000 unique cards you could be playing with. That’s where
The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide steps in. Understanding what makes
Commander tick, from the Social Contract to the intricacies of the rules, is invaluable
for newer players. The ramifications of choosing your deck’s colors or Commander,
and what certain colors truly mean for other players, is a leap into the metagame of
Commander. The time and skill it takes to build an entire deck, using 50, 60, or more
unique cards, is perhaps the most difficult step for Commander players. Bennie has
wisely chosen to cover this last.
As writer for the Command Tower column on DailyMTG.com, I’ve had one of the
biggest Commander myths dispelled: Commander players aren’t just the older, long-
term players of Magic, but predominantly those that have started in the past 1 or 2
years. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of players that can recall the days of Leg-
ends or Mirage or Invasion, but by and large the players seeking out information and
help are much newer than I’d have ever thought. The game has grown by leaps, and
the everyday player is someone that hasn’t seen Scars of Mirrodin, let alone the original
trip to Mirrodin.
The same features that make Commander a beacon for players like me also make this
format appealing for those new to Magic. Sets like Dragon’s Maze and Theros are filled
with flavorful Legendary creatures, empowering even the newest players to jump in to
the Commander format. Given the flavor and power of today’s Legendary creatures,
it’s no wonder the desire to use them to their fullest potential becomes an obsession
expressed in Commander.
The power of Commander also comes from its function of bringing older players to-
gether with the newest. When I was returning to Magic, Commander was called EDH
(Elder Dragon Highlander) and was all the rage at my local game store. I didn’t really
understand what the format was all about at first, but as soon as I tried a deck alongside
the veterans I understood what I was missing out on. Seeing everyone else’s decks told
me more about them than I’d glean in casual conversation. It hooked me instantly.
There’s a final thread that ties the community to Commander. It’s a thread that you
notice on message boards and artist signature queues at events.
The flavor of the game resonates among Commander players.
There’s more to building and playing Commander than the mechanical pieces of deck
construction and player interactions. There’s the idea that our decks are flavorfully
consistent: these decks deliver not just our own personal view but a take on what it
means to be the Commander we’ve chosen. The idea that a story could be expressed
through a card game was the driver for the Weatherlight Saga, and that era of Mag-
ic has influenced decks ever since. The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide
wouldn’t be complete without the stories we imagine described by the decks we build.
Commander relates to so many aspects of what Magic means for us it’s hard to tell
where the core game stops and Commander takes off. Growing from a local format
to one shared around the world by some of the game’s greatest judges, to a juggernaut
receiving annual updates through cards designed exclusively for it... is a journey that I
never saw coming. As we’ve latched on to the excitement and intimacy of Command-
er, it’s given voice to players who may never join Friday Night Magic. Commander is
now a common bond among players that aren’t competitive (at least in the traditional
sense!), and a generalized “casual” experience that’s both true to Magic and restrained
against truly broken things.
All of this, and more, awaits you in The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide.
you’ve been warned.

Jace’s Ultimate Format
aaron diers - fort wayne, indiana
I was playing my proliferate (Vorosh) deck, so I had out things like Inexorable Tide
and Contagion Engine. It was running pretty well, but nothing extraordinary had
happened yet—then I drew Jace, Architect of Thought. I was able to cast him and
proliferate him up to 9 loyalty counters without too much trouble, so it was time for
the -8. It was a 5 player game. I ultimated Jace and searched each of my opponents’
libraries. I grabbed: Kozilek, Butcher of Truth; Avenger of Zendikar; Akroma’s
Memorial; True Conviction; and Vigor. Thanks to the haste from the Memorial, I
was able to make a nice big attack. It wasn’t lethal for everyone, and in the next round
someone killed Kozilek. That was just fine though, because then I just proliferated
Jace back up high enough to -8 again the very next turn! I got Kozilek back, and a
bunch of other scary stuff, and then it was pretty much over. Only in this format do
we get to contemplate casting a Planeswalker, using his ultimate that turn, and then
using his ultimate again the next turn. And only in this format does that particular
Planeswalker’s ultimate really shine!

why play commander?
1
• Introduction
• THE GENIUS OF SINGLETON MAGIC
• THE JOYS OF MULTIPLAYER MAGIC
• EMBRACE THE CHAOS!
• HAYMAKER MAGIC
the player to my right ended
his turn and i surveyed the
battlefield.
I had a Multani, Maro-Sorcerer on the board which was the biggest threat, and I could
sense that all of my opponents were maneuvering to end me before Multani could take
each of them out one by one. I noticed the blue mage had no mana untapped, so I
didn’t have to worry about counterspells. I put Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast in
my deck specifically to handle a couple counterspells, but having my blue opponent
mana-less was even better insurance.
It was time to make a move.
I ask, “How many cards does everyone have?” We all count our hands and figure
out Multani is a 30/30. I sacrifice him to Greater Good, drawing 30 cards and then
having to discard 3. Relief at having Multani gone ripples around the board, along
with a little confusion as to why I got rid of my most powerful threat. There was only
the tiniest amount of concern about the fact that I now had a gigantic hand of cards,
since I was only playing a green and red deck. It was fairly early in the game, everyone
had healthy life totals. What could I possibly do?
I play Multani’s little brother Maro. He’s as big as Multani was due to the number of
cards I’m holding, and I go ahead and sacrifice him too, to double my hand size, and
finally draw it.
Firestorm!
I’ve got enough cards in hand to discard and be able to Firestorm everyone to death.
The only problem is that I need 50 more targets for Firestorm to make it large enough
to kill all my opponents. I scan through my gigantic hand and finally find the card I
need. I cast Spontaneous Generation and make a 1/1 saproling for each card in my
hand. My opponents nod grimly—that’s a lot of token creatures, and even though
they’re small the swarm could prove even more lethal than Multani. Still, they aren’t
overly concerned until I cast Firestorm and pitch nearly my entire hand, targeting
each of them, all their creatures, and enough saprolings so that I can kill them all.
“Force of Will the Firestorm,” says the blue mage, casting it for no mana and pitching
a blue card from his hand to do it.
I smile. Lucky for me one of the few cards left in my hand is Pyroblast.
I counter the Force of Will, preventing the blue mage from shutting down my storm
of fire and destruction. Everyone is stunned.
Victory is mine!
16 why play commander?

This was over 10 years ago. I’m still friends with a lot of those players, and even
now they’ll bring up that play from time to time. It was before Commander was a
format, but our multiplayer games often had the same epic feel that many games of
Commander have now.
I’ve been playing Magic a really long time–since early 1994–but I can still remember
the excitement of those early days when I first started playing. I had a large group
of gamer friends and we spent a lot of our free time playing Dungeons & Dragons,
Axis & Allies, and traditional card games like Hearts or Spades. For us, gaming was a
social event, and the more players the better. Magic was originally conceived to be a
portable and fast game you could play between 2 friends, and the whole tournament
scene that has sprung up around Magic reflects that initial idea of a duel. 2 person
games are pretty straightforward that way—you’re trying to defeat your opponent,
he or she is trying to defeat you, and eventually you’re left with a winner and a loser.
However, my friends and I jumped into Magic as a multiplayer game from the very The original 5
beginning. We were interested in something fun that we could all play together
Elder Dragons; each
around the game table. The games were longer, our decks were larger, and the cards
that were good in a multiplayer game were much different than the hyper-efficient color combination
and fast cards that appealed to fans of tournament Magic. We had a lot of epic games would become one of
that we still talk about now, though many of these friends haven’t picked up a Magic the Shards of Alara
deck in years. There’s something special about the collaborative stories you can tell many years later.
when a bunch of gamers get together and play a game as flavorful and cool as Magic. blue, black, red;
the shard of Grixis.
Over the years a lot of my friends drifted away from the game, and while I never lost the
love of multiplayer Magic, I did develop a fondness for competitive Magic and played
in quite a few tournaments. In 1999 I won the Virginia State Championship with
a unique mono-green deck that leveraged the explosive mana of Rofellos, Llanowar
Emissary and Gaea’s Cradle plus the mana-denial of Rishadan Port and Plow Under to
dominate games. This started a pretty impressive run of Top 8 performances at States
with unique deck creations over the years, including the very first competitive deck
to focus heavily on the dredge mechanic before anyone realized how powerful it was.
It was at such a tournament where I met Sheldon Menery, a high-level judge who was
living just a few hours away and would work many of the tournaments I attended. I
found that he was also an enthusiast for multiplayer Magic, in particular a variant he
and some others had developed called Elder Dragon Highlander. The “Elder Dragon”
part of the name came from a cycle of Legendary Magic creatures. And Highlander
Magic was a well-known casual variant where you could only use a single copy of any
particular card in your deck, with the name being a riff on the “There can only be one”
catchphrase from the Highlander movies.
Sheldon’s group had built on the Highlander concept, taken inspiration from the
Elder Dragons, and cooked it into a very interesting set of rules that I immediately
found intriguing, especially the part where you have a Legendary creature as your
Commander (back then called your General) always available to you when you have
the mana to cast it. When you balance out the supreme consistency of that card
against the randomness that comes from playing a 100-card singleton deck, you open
up all sorts of possibilities.

I immediately went home and started building decks, and then telling everyone
I could about the format. I found that many friends who had also dabbled in
multiplayer Magic were as intrigued as me, but I also found that some who had only
played tournament Magic before were curious as well. There’s something special
about Commander Magic that draws people in and has led to such an explosion of
popularity that eventually Wizards of the Coast took notice and have now produced
products specifically for this grassroots format.
THE GENIUS OF SINGLETON MAGIC

Some of you might be wondering what the fuss is all about. Why restrict yourself to
a single copy of a card when you might own a full playset of 4? Well, unless you have
really deep pockets and own 4 copies of every card you might ever want to play, you’re
going to run into problems where your deck feels incomplete because you’re missing a
few more copies of a critical card, which translates into more money out or more time White, Blue, Green:
spent trading to acquire those cards. And with Magic constantly putting out new sets the shard of Bant.
this problem is neverending! Just imagine you’ve bought some booster packs from a
brand new set that just came out, and you crack an awesome mythic rare that is just
perfect for your deck. In most Magic formats—especially tournament Magic—you’ve
now got to figure out a way to acquire at least a few more copies of that card before
you can realistically play it in your deck. But in Commander, any cool rare or mythic
rare you crack in a given pack is all that you need for your Commander deck. Sleeve
it up, pop it in your deck and you’re ready to go!
To me, this aspect of Commander is extremely appealing. Before I was turned on to the
format, those random singleton rares in my collection were mostly annoyances. Now
though… each is a potential superstar just looking for the right deck in which to shine.
THE JOYS OF MULTIPLAYER MAGIC

If “1 vs 1” describes your background in gaming (such as tournament Magic), you
may be wondering why multiplayer games are appealing. Foremost, having more
than 1 opponent brings about a depth of play that is unmatched in dueling games.
Even though you technically have a “winner” at the end of a game of Commander,
throughout the course of the game you will often find it helpful to team up with some
of your opponents to stop another opponent from winning the game. The shifting of
these temporary alliances is referred to as “politics” and mastering their ebb and flow
will often mean more to your ultimate victory than the power level of any particular
card or combo.
Also, multiplayer Magic often brings the luxury of time. In a competitive Magic duel,
games often end within 15 or 20 minutes, and can sometimes be decided in the first
few turns. This severely constrains the types of cards you can realistically expect to
play and have success with. Only the most efficient and impactful cards have a chance
to thrive in competitive Magic.

Multiplayer Magic games usually last quite a bit longer. Each player has multiple
opponents he or she needs to defeat, and developing your board or attacking someone
too quickly can sometimes get everyone worried enough to gang up on you and take
you out. This means that everyone spends the early game gradually building up their
board and crafting a game plan based on the cards they’ve drawn and what they see
their opponents doing, and this translates into time—time to play cards that are more
interesting, more weird, more flavorful, and more expensive than you would normally
play in a duel.
There have been more than 10,000 individual Magic cards printed since Alpha. Want to
play with a lot more of them? If the answer is yes, then Commander is the format for you.
EMBRACE THE CHAOS!

Black, Blue, White:
When players first come to Commander and its 100-card singleton format many of
them freak out a little at the sheer randomness of it. How do I build a Living Death the shard of Esper.
deck if I may never draw the lone copy of it in the 100 cards? The natural inclination
then is to stuff as many tutor effects and library manipulators so that you can go find
your key card early enough in every game to execute your winning plan. Commander
players who lean too heavily on some killer combo to win build these sorts of decks.
There can be some negative ramifications for hewing too close to this style of
deckbuilding. Casting tutors such as Green Sun’s Zenith or Demonic Tutor can take
up a lot of time sifting through a 100 card deck, and meanwhile everyone else around
the table is sitting there waiting for you to finish. Also, if you’re going through the
trouble to find a specific card, it can set off a red flag to anyone holding a counterspell
that maybe they should save that counterspell for whatever you searched for. Or
worse, if the table is worried that you’re assembling a devastating combo then maybe
they should go ahead and kill you before it comes back around to your turn.
There is something liberating in stepping away from these sorts of cards and this sort
of thinking. Instead of trying to force your deck into the same lines of play each game,
sit back and enjoy the discovery of seeing what your deck gives you this game. You may
have to work a little harder to win, but that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes you’ll
even find some cool card combination you didn’t even think about when putting the
deck together. There’s also political cover to be gained from not constantly searching
through your deck for specific cards—if people aren’t concerned you’re assembling
your killer combo with precision then they’re more likely to turn their attention to
more troublesome players and leave you time to draw into your haymakers.

HAYMAKER MAGIC
Commander players often refer to haymakers. A “haymaker” is a type of punch, a
wild swing containing all of a person’s might, intended to K.O. the opponent. In
Magic, these are big, splashy, high-impact cards or plays that usually have a dramatic
impact on the flow of the game. The format is actually tilted towards encouraging
these sorts of plays since they are often a lot of fun to pull off, witness, or even be
victimized by. In fact, you’ve unlocked a major achievement in Commander when
you kill another player in such a way as to leave him or her laughing and smiling.
When choosing cards for your deck, ask yourself—is this card interesting and novel?
Would I have almost as much fun losing to this card as I would winning with it? At
its heart, Commander is supposed to be about everyone sitting down together and
having a great time playing Magic.
Obviously, within the technical confines of the game there’s going to be an official
“winner,” but what we should all strive for is to make sure as many people at the table
have fun during the game as possible. Even if someone doesn’t technically win the
game, they still “win” if they leave the game with a smile on their face.
White, Green, Red:
So how do we do this? We give them a good story to tell. the shard of Naya.
The best Commander games play out like a high-concept movie. Say a player jumps
out in front with a strong early play and becomes the first obvious “villain” at the
table. The rest of the players band together to try and take him down. Some might
even sacrifice themselves along the way to help with the cause. Maybe the villain goes
down in a blaze of glory, expending all his resources in some huge play that takes a few
players down with him.
Or maybe while everyone’s concentrating on what seems like the Big Bad, nobody’s
paying attention as an ally turns around and steals the game from nowhere, proving to
be the evil mastermind the whole time.
Why do we as humans love great movies, great television shows, and great books?
Because we love stories, and you know what? Magic gives us tools to tell great stories
too! Sure, at its fundamental core Magic is a game of strategy and skill, of math and
probabilities, of analysis and reason—but Magic is also a game of magic and artifacts,
clashing sorcerers and monstrous rival armies, of heartbreak and laughter, of tricks and
traps and miracles. A great Magic card isn’t just a collection of stats and rules, it’s also
an embodiment of art and creative writing—all of it coming together to provide an
immersive moment in the story that is a game of Magic.

There are many reasons why players are drawn to the game of Magic, but I think
this ability to tell these mini-stories with your cards is a big part of why people love
Magic. In tournament Magic, there are limits to the kind of stories we can tell. If
we want to be competitive, each element of our story needs to be efficient, powerful,
consistent and a part of a distinct plan for victory. We can also expect our opponents
to be similarly armed. There may be a few surprises along the way, but for a successful
tournament story, usually the tried and true rule the plotlines.
Commander is the format where adventures of legend can be had. This is where
you can dig into Magic’s deep and rich history of beautiful artwork and swords and
sorcery. Here, you’re at liberty to pull out something obscure, something weird,
something nostalgic, something silly, and put a smile on everyone’s face. This is what
Commander is supposed to be about—a sense that everyone at the table just shared a
kick-ass story for the ages.
Black, Red, Green:

the shard of Jund.
Fireslingin’
jeff “the chef” chinn - sacramento, ca
My group of friends recently created some Commander decks out of our very limited
card pool. I made a deck with Rayne, Academy Chancellor as my Commander, and
my friends created decks utilizing Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis; Krenko, Mob Boss;
and Rith, the Awakener.
I had chosen Rayne for a couple of very specific reasons. First, she is cheap, touting
a CMC of 3. Second, her ability lets me draw cards, which is like crack for me. If
there was a format of Magic where I could just draw a bunch of cards all of the time,
I would probably love it. Third, and perhaps most importantly, she was the only blue
Commander option, and I knew that the blue cards we had access to would make
for some memorable games. Blue cards can be annoying and perhaps too powerful at
times, but they are always interesting and they always mix things up.
The game started slowly and smoothly with everybody hitting their land drops and
putting down a small creature. Then I hit my third land and plopped down Rayne. I
felt like I hit some kind of achievement by playing my Commander first. It felt good,
like I just lapped my opponents in a race. My smugness must have radiated off of me
something fierce as my opponents gave me dirty looks. Oh well.
I ended my turn shortly after the summoning of Rayne and then the turn went to the
Krenko player. He untapped and drew and a bright smile beamed across his face. He
tapped a mountain and played Goblin Fireslinger, who has the awesome ability to do
1 damage to target creature or player. My friend shot me a gleeful look and ended his
turn (the bugger didn’t have haste, thankfully).
Eventually, the turns circled back to him and he tapped and destroyed my Rayne. I
was able to draw a card from the assault thanks to Rayne’s ability, and it just happened
to provide an answer of sorts to the problem of the fireslinger: Psychic Battle. For
anybody not intimately familiar with this card, the text reads: “Whenever a player
chooses one or more targets, each player reveals the top card of his or her library.
The player who reveals the card with the highest converted mana cost may change
the target or targets. If 2 or more cards are tied for highest cost, the target or targets
remain unchanged. Changing targets this way doesn’t trigger this ability.”
As soon as I had the mana for it, I plopped that sucker on the field, and then on
the next go around, I played Rayne for 5 CMC. My friend-turned-enemy tried the
Goblin Fireslinger ability again and we all revealed our topdeck. The highest CMC
was tied, so the target was unchanged. Fine. I drew a card, and put Rayne back in her
still warm Commander seat.
My next turn came and I tried playing Rayne again for 7 CMC (now the most
expensive Commander we had). My friend tried the Goblin Fireslinger ability again.
Ha! The Rith player won this time with some sort of 5 CMC beast. Luck smiled upon
me, and I would not be struck down by that runty goblin again. Oh wait, he didn’t

want to change the target, so Rayne died again? *sigh* OK. I drew a card and put
Rayne back in her VIP lounge (I think she was starting to prefer it there anyway).
On my next turn I played Rayne again for 9 CMC. This might sound a bit expensive
as I sure had other cards I could play and get more value from. But this was war. I
was being shut down completely by a 1 CMC 1/1 goblin with a lighter and an old
school slingshot. There was no way I was going to admit defeat to the goblin version
of Dennis the Menace. So I tapped my 9 islands to play my Commander yet again.
My blood sworn enemy/former friend tapped his goblin again to try to take Rayne
out. We revealed the top. The Krenko player revealed a mountain, so I was excited. I
saw a Doom Blade on the top of the Nefarox deck and a cheap artifact on the top of
the Rith deck. I revealed the top of mine and showed a Colossal Whale. Not only did
I win the flip, but I won it handily!
Without hesitation I redirected the 1 damage to the Goblin Fireslinger himself and
killed the twerp. I did it! I reached victory! I won the game!
What was that? I didn’t win the game? I just managed to kill a 1/1 creature? And while
I’ve been focusing my attention on that, Rith has become equipped with the Rings of
Kalonia and Valkas and is now a trampling 9/9 creature; Krenko has amassed a legion
of pointy goblins ready to mow down everybody in sight; and Nefarox, well, Nefarox
was having his own difficulties on his side of the board. Being Overlord of Grixis at
that moment seemed like being the captain of a sinking ship. Hmmmm, maybe I
should have readjusted my priorities.
Suffice it to say, I lost that game. Hard. Psychic Battle obviously came into play in a lot
more than the Fireslinger feud I entrenched myself in, and once I cast Curse of Echoes
on what ended up being myself (it was redirected to me thanks to Psychic Battle), the
game got really wacky really fast. That is what I remember most about the game, not
the fact that I was first out.
To add insult to injury, turns out Rayne was dying needlessly! Goblin Fireslinger can
only hit players, not creatures! We all misread the card—but you know what? Didn’t
really matter—the story as it unfolded was epic and memorable to all of us.

2
the rules
• Quick Overview
• Comprehensive Rules
• MULLIGANS
• IF YOU PLAY FIRST
• SIDEBAR: BANNED LIST
• SIDEBAR: SIDEBOARDS
• Why Play with Sideboards?
There’s a website that hosts the official Commander rules and I suggest you keep the
link handy to keep track of any rules changes, as well as check out rules discussions
on the format:
Official Commander Rules on mtgcommander.net
QUICK OVERVIEW
However, if you just want a quick overview, here’s the important stuff:
1. Choose a Legendary creature as your Commander.
2. The Commander’s mana cost limits the colors of cards you can play in your
deck and your deck cannot generate any other color mana (it would just be
colorless).
3. A Commander deck contains exactly 100 cards including the Commander
(formerly General). Your Commander starts the game in the Command
Zone rather than shuffled into your library.
4. Except for basic lands you can only have 1 copy of each card.
5. Commander is played with Vintage-legal cards and some number of banned
cards.
6. You begin the game with 40 life.
7. Your Commander is always available to cast from your Command Zone so
long as you have the mana.
I know you’re probably ready to get into the fun stuff—deckbuilding! Don’t worry,
the next couple of chapters are chock full of advice on building your Commander
decks, but I’d recommend at least a cursory glance through the comprehensive rules
presented below.
COMPREHENSIVE RULES
1. Commander is designed to promote social games of Magic.
It is played in a variety of ways depending on player preference, but a
common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a
different kind of Magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a
gentleman’s/gentlewoman’s agreement which goes beyond these rules to
include a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to
interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other
players what they expect/want from the game.
House rules or “fair play” exceptions are always encouraged if they result in
more fun for the local community.
25 the rules
Players must choose a Legendary creature as the “Commander” for their deck.
Players may choose any Legendary creature as their Commander, although
some choices may be met with disapproval by other players. Any number
of players in the same game may choose the same Commander, and other
players may include that card in their deck even if it’s not their Commander.
Commanders are subject to the Legend rule just like any other Legendary.
The Commander is the principle around which the deck is built. It is more
easily available than other cards in the deck, and decks will usually want
to leverage their Commander’s strengths in their plans. It is not, however,
guaranteed to be available at every point in the game, so good Commander
decks should be able to function without it for a time.
A deck’s Commander is also known as its “General” for historical reasons.
2. A card’s color identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in
the card’s rules text. A card’s color identity is established before the game
begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.
The Commander’s color identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck.
Cards in a deck may not have any colors in their identity which are not
shared with the Commander of the deck. The identity of each card in the
deck must be a subset of the Commander.
Lands whose type includes Swamp, Island, Plains, Forest and/or Mountain
(basic lands, shocklands, dual lands, etc.) DO contain the corresponding
mana symbol(s) as per Magic’s Comprehensive Rules 305.6. As such, while
they are considered “colorless” they do have a color identity and may not
appear in a deck unless the Commander is of the appropriate identity.
While hybrid mana symbols may be played with either color mana, they
contribute both colors to the card’s color identity. Therefore they may only
be played with a Commander whose identity includes ALL of the hybrid
symbols’ colors.
A card that transforms includes both sides when determining its color identity.
Basic land words (Swamp, Forest, etc) in the text box of a card do NOT
represent a colored mana symbol. They are not restricted to Commanders of
the same color identity.
Reminder text is not included in the color identity of a card. For instance,
Blind Obedience’s reminder text for the mechanic Extort uses the hybrid
26 the rules
black and white mana symbol, but the enchantment’s color identity is
considered just white, not white and black.
3. A deck may not generate mana outside its colors. If an effect would
generate mana of an illegal color, it generates colorless mana instead.
4. A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards,

including the Commander.
5. With the exception of basic lands, no 2 cards in the deck may have the
same English name.
6. Commander is played with Vintage legal cards, with some exceptions.

A. Cards are legal as of their set’s prerelease.
B. Cards on the Official Banned List (see Sidebar) should not be
played without prior agreement from the other players in the game.
C. Note that there are a handful of cards that are banned from being
your Commander, but can still be used in your Commander decks
as 1 of the other 99 cards.
7. The start of game procedure for Commander is as follows:
A. Players announce their choice of Commander and move that card to the
Command Zone.
B. Players may then sideboard if the optional rules for sideboards are being
used.
C. Each player draws a hand of 7 cards.
D. Players may mulligan their starting hand. See Mulligans, below.
8. Being a Commander is not a characteristic, it is a property of the card.
As such, “Commander-ness” cannot be copied or overwritten by continuous
effects, and does not change with control of the card.
9. If a player has been dealt 21 points of combat damage by a particular

Commander during the game, that player loses the game. This is an
additional state based effect.
A. Commander damage is cumulative throughout the game; nothing can
reduce the amount of damage a Commander has previously done to a player.
B. Because it is a property of the card and not a characteristic of the game object, a
card is still the same Commander even if it leaves the field and returns.
C. While effects can raise a player’s life total, it doesn’t reduce the amount of
damage previously taken from a Commander.
D. Conversely, combat damage can be reduced, prevented, or replaced as it
is taken, in which case it was never dealt and doesn’t count towards the
total taken from that Commander.
E. Commander damage is specific to each Commander/player pairing, not
combined across all Commanders.
F. A player can lose if he or she is dealt 21 points of combat damage by his
or her own Commander.
27 the rules
10. While a Commander is in the Command Zone, it may be cast.
As an additional cost to cast a Commander from the Command Zone, its
owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast from the Zone. This is
sometimes referred to as the Commander tax.
A Commander is still subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting

creatures (unless it has flash or some other effect allowing it to be played at
another time, such as Vedalken Orrery).
11. If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exiled from anywhere,

its owner may choose to move it to the Command Zone instead. This is
a replacement effect; the creature never goes to the graveyard and will not
trigger such abilities.
Commanders will move to the library or hand as normal; only transitions

to exile or the graveyard may be replaced. If a card is put into exile face
down from anywhere, and a player is allowed to look at that card in exile,
the player must immediately do so. If it’s a Commander owned by another
player, the player that looked at it turns it face up and puts it into the
Command Zone.
12. Players begin the game with 40 life.
13. Commanders are subject to the Legend rule; a player cannot control
more than one Legend with the same name.
14. Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game do not
function in Commander unless the optional sideboard rule is in use. If
sideboards are used, Wishes and similar cards may retrieve sideboard cards.
28 the rules
WHY ISN’T THE BANNED LIST BIGGER?
Looking over the Banned List, you’ll see some of the most degenerate and powerful
cards that Magic has ever seen. Many of these are banned or restricted in Eternal com-
petitive Magic tournaments and often tend to be quite expensive to acquire. Some
of the cards have been found to be particularly overpowered in a multiplayer format.
Since Commander was designed to be a fun and social game, it is best that these cards
not be used.
Commander players will find as they first start to play that there are plenty of cards
out there that are very nearly as powerful and degenerate as the cards found on the
Banned List. Which leads to questions such as “if [card X] is banned, why isn’t [card
Y]?” and “[card A] seems more powerful than [card B], so why isn’t [card A] on the
banned list too?”
The key to understanding the Banned List is to realize that the list is meant to be
mostly representative rather than entirely comprehensive. Trying to create a Banned List
that includes every degenerate card or broken combo in the history of Magic would
prove to be extremely difficult and also be incredibly cumbersome and unwieldy for
new players to learn.
Take a look at the first line of the Comprehensive Rules above, and it bears repeating:
Commander is designed to promote social games of magic. It is

played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a
common vision ties together the global community to help them
enjoy a different kind of Magic. That vision is predicated on a so-
cial contract: a gentleman’s/gentlewoman’s agreement which
goes beyond these rules to include a degree of interactivity be-
tween players.
The cards on the Banned List tend to severely limit the interactivity between players
that is the foundation of what makes Commander so much fun. But those cards aren’t
the only baddies out there, and when you run across a card that seems just as bad or
nearly as bad as a card on the Banned List, a card that limits the interactivity that is
the backbone of the format, you probably just shouldn’t play it in casual Commander
games without talking about it with your play group.
29 the rules
MULLIGANS
A challenge to playing a 100 card deck is that, after you sufficiently randomize it be-
fore the game, you’ll end up with an unplayable hand. Commander emphasizes the
fun had through player interactivity, and there are few things worse than being the
only person around a multiplayer game table that can’t do anything because your hand
is just unplayable. So Commander encourages liberal use of pre-game mulligans so
that each player has a starting hand that will enable them to at least participate in the
early turns of the game.
Partial Paris Mulligan rule

While there are quite a few different ways to resolve mulligans for multiplayer Magic,
the Commander Rules Committee endorses what’s called the Partial Paris Mulligan.
Because Commander games are long and usually not played in multigame matches,
this modified mulligan rule is designed to alleviate mana-light hands without sig-
nificantly increasing the odds of finding individual cards. This is also known as the
“Brittany” mulligan rule.
1. In turn order, players may exile (face down) some or all of the cards in their hand.
2. Each player then draws 1 less card from their deck than the number they exiled.
3. Players who exiled at least one card may return to step 1 and repeat the pro-
cess, drawing 1 less card each time.
4. Players shuffle all exiled cards into their deck.
It is worth noting that even with this form of mulligan, decks playing an insufficient
number of mana sources will routinely draw poor hands or insufficient mana as the
game progresses.
Another popular way to mulligan is to allow a Big Deck Mulligan, where any player
can shuffle his hand back into his deck and draw 7 new cards once. After that, stan-
dard Paris Mulligan rules can apply—you can shuffle your hand back into the deck
and draw 1 less card each time.
IF YOU PLAY FIRST

If you come to Commander from playing Tournament Magic, you’ll be familiar with
the Draw or Play rule where if you are the player who goes first you must skip your
first draw. In Commander, even if you go first you still get to draw a card too.
30 the rules
BANNED LIST
current as of the release of Theros
The Commander Rules Committee very rarely adds cards to the Banned List, but
it does happen occasionally, so for the very latest information please go to the link
provided above. They review the health of the format and consider changing the
Banned List at the same time that Wizards of the Coast rolls out their Banned and
Restricted announcements—the Monday before each set’s prerelease weekend. The
list below represents the Banned List current as of the date of publication:
Ancestral Recall Limited Resources

Mox Sapphire Metalworker
Mox Ruby Sundering Titan
Mox Pearl Primeval Titan
Mox Emerald Painter’s Servant
Mox Jet Panoptic Mirror
Balance Protean Hulk
Biorhythm Recurring Nightmare
sidebar
Black Lotus Sway of the Stars

Coalition Victory Time Vault
Channel Time Walk
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Tinker
Fastbond Tolarian Academy
Gifts Ungiven Trade Secrets
Griselbrand Upheaval
Karakas Worldfire
Library of Alexandria Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Additionally the following Legends may not be used as a Commander, but can be
included in the 99 other cards in your deck:
Braids, Cabal Minion

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Kokusho, the Evening Star
31 the rules
SIDEBOARDS
Optional Rule
Rather than filling every deck with banal responses, it is sometimes preferable to allow
some flexibility in the composition of a deck. If your playgroup decides on allowing
sideboards, here’s how you handle them:
1. Players may bring a 10 card sideboard in addition to their 99 cards and 1

Commander.
2. After Commanders are announced, players have 3 minutes to make 1-for-1
substitutions to their deck.
3. Any cards not played as part of the deck may be retrieved by Wishes such as
Living Wish and Ring of Ma’rûf.
So why play with sideboards?
Highly tuned threats piloted by skilled opponents mandate efficient answers. The
minimum number of response cards required to ensure they are available in the early
turns can easily overwhelm the majority of a Commander deck’s building space.
Sideboards can help players respond to the “best” strategies in a timely fashion. They
sidebar
should be strongly considered as a necessary defense against brokenness and degenera-

cy in an environment where no gentleperson’s agreement on style of play exists.
Mayael’s New Guy
keir - edmonton, alberta
We had 4 players including a guy who was brand new and had never played before. I
lent him my Mayael the Anima deck. Keep in mind this is no run-of-the-mill Mayael.
This is a deck I’ve been honing for the better part of 3 years, adding and subtracting
cards, perfecting the mana base, getting the ideal ramp cards to thin my deck of lands
so Mayael hits more frequently.
Late in the game, he dropped a Greater Good with Mayael, Seedborn Muse and
Kessig Wolf Run in play.
He eliminated player 4 with a Vorinclex he brought out with Mayael. Steel Hellkite
was shutting down my Animar combo deck, and an Angel of Serenity ripped apart
player 3’s board. We wanted to kill his guys, but the Mimic Vat he had on board was
sort of stopping that.
After Wolf-Running the Hellkite, he sacked it to Greater Good and drew 28.... so his
hand was pretty good. He dropped a Winding Canyons and just played creatures and
activated Mayael each turn. These creatures included a Stalking Vengeance.
Eventually, he had just 13 cards left in his deck. He attacked player 4 for lethal,
so player 4 did what anyone about to die would do; he cast Blue Sun’s Zenith for
everything at the Mayael player, causing him to draw 12.
So the new guy was left with 1 card left in his library. I looked at his bin and his board,
and knowing my deck and what was in it, I knew what he’d draw. I also knew he
couldn’t kill the last 2 players with what he had on board, so I had to solve the puzzle
for him.
He drew his card and attacked player 2, leaving him at 10. He then cast Scourge
of Kher Ridges. I thought to myself “this is his first Commander game and I’ll be
damned if he gets milled to death” so I cast Hinder on his Scourge of Kher Ridges.
“What does it do?”
“Counters Scourge”
“Oh…”
“And it puts it on the bottom of your library!”
So with 1 card left in his deck, he drew the Scourge, got another attack phase, swung
out, and Scourge’d his own team away, triggering Stalking Vengeance for an absurd
amount.
To say the new guy had a blast was an understatement. Needless to say, he’s been
trading around for format staples to build his own deck ever since.

3
choosing your commander
• THE FIRST STEP
• BUILDING AROUND YOUR
COMMANDER’S ABILITIES
• THE POLITICS OF CHOOSING YOUR COMMANDER
• TYPES OF DECK STRATEGIES
• fiction: time stop
the coolest thing about
playing this format is the
commander itself,
and the rules that surround it. While the randomness and chaos of playing a singleton
format is mostly a lot of fun, it can sometimes be a little frustrating—which is why it’s
so fantastic to nearly always be able to count on casting your Commander whenever
you have the mana for it. You’ll find that your Commander is the most reliable and
consistent element of your deck and it pays to keep that in mind when building the
rest of your 99.
THE FIRST STEP

Choosing a Legend as your Commander can be as simple as asking yourself what colors
do I want to play? Do you have a bunch of cards throughout Magic’s history that you
miss playing with? Not long ago, I realized that most of my favorite Magic cards of
all time could be found in green, black and white, or were gold cards that spanned 2
of those colors, so I built a deck stuffed with as many of my favorite cards and combos
that I could squeeze in. There aren’t too many Legends that are green, black and white
but I went ahead and picked Doran, the Siege Tower because several of the cards in
my deck had a high toughness that could benefit from Doran’s ability. Also, Doran
can hit hard and is aggressively costed, so if I needed to rely on Commander damage
to take someone down I could do so.
While it’s perfectly fine to build a Commander deck this way (“from the bottom-
up”), it’s often a lot more fun to craft your deck to complement the abilities of your
Commander, or to play a lot of cards that get a whole lot better when your Commander
is in play. Legendary cards in Magic are often infused with a lot of great flavor and
you can get a lot of satisfaction from letting that Legend’s flavor and personality infuse
itself throughout your deck. Since your Commander is nearly always available to
you from the Command Zone, it’s not unreasonable to build your deck with the
expectation of having that Legend in play quite frequently.
BUILDING AROUND YOUR

COMMANDER’S ABILITIES
Since building your deck with an eye towards having your Commander in play is
the icing on your Commander cake, take a good look at this Legendary creature.
Take in all the lines of text, the static and activated abilities, its casting cost, the
creature type and its power and toughness. All of these can have bearing on what
sort of cards you’ll want in your deck.
35 choosing your commander

Let’s look at Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. His first ability says he gets +1/+1 for each creature
card in your graveyard. To maximize this ability you should play a high quantity of
creatures in your deck. You may also want to figure out a way to get a lot of them into
the graveyard, such as creatures that self-sacrifice like Viscera Seer or Sakura-Tribe Elder,
or using spells like Stinkweed Imp or Life from the Loam that have the Dredge ability
which will quickly fill your graveyard with cards from your library.
His second ability lets you sacrifice another creature, and each opponent loses life
equal to the sacrificed creature’s power. To maximize this ability you should play
creatures that have high power, and there are certainly plenty that fit the bill in green
and black. Cards like Mortivore and Lord of Extinction are particularly good in this
role since you may already be pushing a lot of creatures into your own graveyard to
feed Jarad’s first ability.
His last ability may seem like a throwaway if you’ve got him already as your Commander
since if Jarad dies you can just put him into the Command Zone and recast him—but
depending on how removal-happy your opponents might be, the Commander tax
might get so high to recast him that it might be preferable to just let him go to the
graveyard and sacrifice a Swamp and Forest to bring him back to your hand.
You’ll also not want to overlook his creature types as a Zombie and an Elf. Both of
these creature types have had a lot of tribal support over the years, and you might
consider making Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord the Commander of your green/black Elf or
Zombie deck.
THE POLITICS OF CHOOSING

YOUR COMMANDER
When choosing your Commander you also want to keep in mind that multiplayer
Magic has a very important element that dueling Magic does not have: politics. There
are Legendary creatures that can hugely impact how other players interact with you.
For example, let’s look at Phelddagrif ’s special abilities:
Phelddagrif gains trample until end of turn.

Target opponent puts a 1/1 green Hippo creature token onto the battlefield.
Phelddagrif gains flying until end of turn. Target opponent gains 2 life.
Return Phelddagrif to its owner’s hand. Target opponent may draw a card.
In multiplayer Phelddagrif is like Santa Claus, the gift that keeps on giving—as
long as you’re nice and not naughty. If you make it clear you’re willing to hand out
hippos, life and cards, your opponents will often be willing to help with whatever
onboard issues you might have. Politics 101: you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours,

and Phelddagrif ’s abilities are custom-made to do that. Many players will be hesitant
to come after you early in the game in the hopes of reaping the benefits of some of
your activated abilities, so even before you play your Commander you may get some
positive rewards just from choosing this Legend.
Let’s take a look at another Legend, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. Here are his abilities:
White spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Blue spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Spells your opponents cast cost 1 more to cast.
At first blush he seems like a perfect Commander. He helps you cast your spells for
less mana and his Mana Tithe affects all opponents around the table. While that’s
technically true, more importantly what that last ability actually does is annoy the
living crap out of everyone at the table while not really locking them out of playing
spells. That’s a recipe for disaster; no matter how strong your position in the game
if multiple players flat out gang up on you from the beginning it’s trouble. At a bare
minimum every piece of creature removal will be pointed at your general. Worst case
scenario, multiple players decide the best way to remove the Grand Arbiter annoyance
is to just take you out of the game. Even before you’ve cast your Commander, he
could be negatively impacting your chances simply because of the choice you made.
An important question you need to ask yourself when choosing a Legend as your
Commander is: how will the other players react when this Commander gets played?
Multiplayer is tricky because you don’t want all your opponents to be enemies until the
time is right to take them out. The best Commanders tend to be powerful without being
too overtly threatening or provocative. A Legend that’s extremely powerful can drive
your opponents’ actions against you just like a Commander that’s extremely annoying.
Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever play aggressive, powerful, or annoying
Commanders. The takeaway is this: make sure you think through the reaction the
other players will have when you play your Commander—or in some cases, the
reaction they’ll have when they merely find out that you chose that Legend as your
Commander—and plan accordingly. Maybe you’ll want to add in a lot of defensive
measures to protect yourself from getting ganged up on, or maybe you’ll want to make
sure your deck can function fine without the Commander in play if you figure a lot of
people will try to prevent you from keeping the Commander on the battlefield.

TYPES OF DECK STRATEGIES
While building your deck and choosing cards for it, there are different styles or
approaches you can take that might guide you in your selections. Here are some of
the more common strategies in Commander:
Aggro
If you pick a Commander that has a low mana cost and has a high power, you may
want to really push the aggressiveness of your deck. Since Commander tends to
encourage slower board development and bigger, splashier spells that cost more mana,
you can sometimes come out of the gate guns blazing and take your opponents down
fast. The more opponents you have around the table the less viable this strategy
becomes if you want to win the entire game, but sometimes it’s fun just to go out in a
blaze of glory, taking down the player who might have worried everyone else around
the table. Anax and Cymede could work very well in a highly aggressive strategy.
Voltron
This strategy involves buffing up a particular creature—often your Commander—
with equipment or auras that make him larger, more threatening, and hopefully
unstoppable. Ideally you’ll want to pick a Legend with hexproof, like Lazav, Dimir
Mastermind or Uril, the Miststalker. Legends that are resilient—such as Tajic, Blade
of the Legion—also do quite well in a Voltron strategy.
Care Bear
Sometimes it’s more fun being a king-maker rather than the king, and so you can
choose to build a deck that helps one or more of your opponents more so than yourself.
This is referred to as “Care Bear Magic” and can be an amusing change of pace. If
someone makes a play that seems cool or is playing flavorful and fun cards rather than
a powerful deck, throw your helpful cards behind them and help them win. We talked
about Phelddagrif earlier in this chapter, and its abilities all lend themselves well to
this sort of strategy.
Griefer
Some people get a lot of enjoyment in shutting down other people’s plans rather than
trading haymakers back and forth. He or she might find it amusing to lock everyone
under a Winter Orb with Opposition to tap down the land they untap. A word of
warning: not too many Commander fans appreciate this style of deck, which flies in
the face of the style of play the format tries to encourage, so if this sounds like your
cup of tea you may want to warn your playgroup ahead of time. On the other hand,
some opponents may actually like the challenge of trying to break out of these sorts
of griefer strategies.

CAN’T CHOOSE? ROLL A D20!
If you don’t already have a favorite Legend you’re itching to build a Commander deck
around, I can recommend a few “starter” Commanders that should be pretty easy
or cheap to acquire, have a decent power level, and yet should not freak out other
Commander players.
1 Daxos of Meletis White/Blue

Use cards like Writ of Passage or Crafty Pathmage to make him unblockable, or go a
little Voltron and boost his power and toughness so he can tango with smaller blockers
and survive.
2 Treva, the Renewer White/Blue/Green

Use spells that can make a bunch of token creatures all of the same color, like Aura
Mutation’s saprolings. You can also get tricky with cards that change the color of any
number of creatures, like Heaven’s Gate for white or Sea King’s Blessing for blue.
3 Sygg, River Cutthroat Blue/Black

Not a bad Commander for a more aggressive/Voltron approach, if you can boost his
power to 3 and successfully attack each turn you can draw quite a few cards. Black
also has a lot of ways to deal damage or drain life, such as Gray Merchant of Asphodel
from Theros.
4 Johan Red/Green/White
Vigilance is a handy ability to have in multiplayer, letting a big creature swing in for an
attack and still be available for blocking. Johan doesn’t technically provide vigilance to
your team, but for all practical purposes he does so long as he himself doesn’t attack.
Plus, he just looks cool!
5 Wort, Boggart Auntie Black/Red

There are a ton of powerful and fun goblins that have been printed over the years, and
quite a few tribal synergies with goblins so if this interests you Wort makes a good
Commander.
6 Kresh the Bloodbraided Black/Red/Green

One truism of Commander is that creatures die… a lot. Kresh loves to get his braids
all blooded, and this color combination gives you pinpoint removal like Terminate or
Doom Blade for the big creatures, and adjustable sweepers like Earthquake or Gaze
of Granite.
7 Stonebrow, Krosan Hero Green/Red

Green and red have no end of good trampling creatures, so if you want an aggressive
deck that attacks with huge monsters, Stonebrow could be your man.

8 Sol’kanar the Swamp King Blue/Black/Red
The artwork on this guy is just too cool not to build a Commander deck featuring him
at least once. He makes a great Commander for a blue/black/red “good stuff” deck.
9 Tolsimir Wolfblood Green/White

Green and white have many cards that can produce a lot of tokens, and Tolsimir can
help double their offensive power. And who doesn’t want to call up a Legendary wolf
companion to your side?
10 Dromar, the Banisher White/Black/Blue

If your opponents like to play cards that produce a lot of tokens, Dromar is the perfect
way to get rid of them without costing you a card. Plus, it’s a huge flying dragon Legend!
11 Experiment Kraj Blue/Green

A legendary ooze mutant is just too much fun to think about… and the more you
think about his abilities the more interesting card combinations you can come up
with. I love to add a Spike Tiller to my Kraj deck letting him copy land abilities.
12 Karador, Ghost Chieftain Green/White/Black

Karador makes a great green/white/black “good stuff” Commander so long as you’re
playing a fair number of creatures. Cards like Buried Alive and Corpse Connoisseur
become powerful tutors in a Karador deck.
13 Melek, Izzet Paragon Blue/Red

If creatures aren’t really your bag, it’s fun to build a spell-heavy deck around Melek and
use cards like Scroll Rack and Sensei’s Divining Top to keep the top of your library
spicy.
14 Intet, the Dreamer Red/Green/Blue

You’ll get mad style points for picking this criminally underused dragon, his ability can
be quite powerful in drawing and playing cards for free, and this color combination
has a ton of fun multiplayer cards if you want to build a “good stuff” deck.
15 Brion Stoutarm White/Red

Magic has a long tradition of giants picking up creatures and throwing them at
opponents, so it was especially cool when they printed a Legendary giant with that
ability. White and especially red have a fair number of cards that can steal creatures
from your opponents, many of them temporarily… so why not throw them at someone
before you have to give them back?
16 The Mimeoplasm Blue/Black/Green

Use blue counterspells or black removal to put juicy creature targets in opponents’
graveyards, then play The Mimeoplasm to assemble your custom-made monster.
Green gives you cards to search up your own creatures you may want to copy.

17 Teysa, Orzhov Scion Black/White
Teysa is a Commander that never seems to worry players until suddenly she’s taken
over the game with a ton of token creatures and is exiling all the threats.
18 Oros, the Avenger Black/Red/White

Build your deck with a bunch of white creatures that are proof against Oros’s ability,
equip your dragon with Basilisk Collar and go have some fun!
19 Glissa, the Traitor Green/Black

One of my all-time favorite Commanders! She’s aggressive and a good Commander
for small games and you can play a bunch of artifacts to take advantage of her ability
to get them back from the graveyard whenever a creature dies. Executioner’s Capsule
is my favorite combo with Glissa.
20 Ruhan of the Fomori White/Blue/Red

Talk about Embracing the Chaos! Ruhan is a fun change of pace because who he
attacks is out of your hands. He’s already a big monster, but since you’re in white you
can play equipment-searching cards like Stonehewer Giant to go Voltron with Ruhan
and make him even more scary!
Time Stop
james arnold
I breathed in slowly and let the vision return. Water, salt, sand. The maritime aroma
flooded my senses. I could taste the oceanic air, hear the whisper of wind in my ear,
feel the hint of sun on my forehead and the crush of the tide on my feet. The power
of that faraway paradise flooded through my outstretched arms. With a surge of azure
energy the gigantic stones sprang to life, moving in a ponderous dance.
Navigating the third sphere of Phyrexia would have been an impossibility—a collection
of distortions, branches, and dead ends—had it not been for Azami. The endless halls
of her library contained a great deal of information, as I had found, not limited to
Kamigawa. Hours of twists, turns, and doubling back had lead us to this strange place,
a forgotten endpoint in this insane parody of a grid.
The cavern was filled with the constant grinding baritone of the portal stones as they
shifted from point to point. The low rumble was punctuated by the gentle rustle of
paper all around us. Luminous runes bathed us in a soft turquoise glow, an endless
variety of scrolls dancing through the air like butterflies. Occasionally one would stop,
presenting its contents to the robed figure who stood beside me.
Dark hair, dark eyes, dark voice—she articulated every word as she translated from the
myriad languages her parchments held. “Now turn the outer circle until the three blue
stones line up with the green ones on the other side.”
I rotated my wrist slightly, and the outer circle groaned to life. The portal that loomed
over us was large enough to fit an army—when it was open. Tightly interlocking shapes
formed a swirl of geometric patterns, sealing the way.
Images danced across the surface of the stone as it slowly shifted from one pattern to
another, individual parts moving with clockwork precision. I could see the silhouettes
of paragons, tyrants, and everything in between. These images were carefully
reconstructed catalogs of shifting forces and pivotal moments in time—moments
where man and monster became legend.
There were hundreds of immortalized figures vying for supremacy within the etchings
of the portal, but there was only one who held my attention. One who stood taller
than the rest. One who shone with the brightest light.
“It is time.” My companion’s voice startled me from my thoughts. She pointed to

the keystone and I pushed it far back into the recesses of the wall. With a force that
shook my rib cage, the last mechanism triggered deep within the vault. Slowly, with
the final seal in place, all the portal stones began retracting at once, a massive rush of
air sending us back a step as the pressure in the chamber equalized.
__________
“Azami! There’s another puzzle here.” One last barrier. Walking past me, brushing me
out of the way with a dismissive flick of her hand, she scoffed.
“I know.” Several scrolls trailing obediently behind her form, she strode up to the
final door of the hub, head held high. Ignoring the multitude of golden treasures that
littered the room, she began to manipulate a small puzzle box, her scrolls flowing
around the procedure to give her the best view of what to do next.
I looked around the vault, seeing the ornate designs for the first time. I had seen
this place in sketches, stories, and journals, all pointing to a towering grandeur. The
records paled in contrast to what I beheld: the statues, the ancient armors, the flicker
of magical energies still alive in every nook.
I ran my hand along a wall engraving, smooth and measured, confident, the work of
a master. “I can understand how some never leave a place such as this.”
As Azami worked, I heard the all-too familiar rush of metal, hoof, and claw charging
through the open portal. I unclasped my warhammer, the rune-etched head still slick
from our previous encounters that day. “Haven’t had enough, boys?”
I turned toward the portal, my weapon at the ready, and focused my thoughts on the
thread of memory that would bring me the power I needed to survive. In a situation
like this, I knew just the experience to draw on...
For a moment I drifted off to the wooded foothills of a river valley in late summer.
Pulsing with life, the blazing vibrancy of verdant green turning to reds and golds was
intoxicating—my muscles surged with strength. Azami sighed in irritation and began
working faster.
The first Phyrexian to rush the room died instantaneously, my maul cleaving through
flesh and steel as though it were a rotten tree stump. The second abomination was
not so fortunate, partially deflecting a hammerblow that nevertheless sent it spiraling
through the air and into a nearby wall with a sickening crunch. Three warriors charged
in with a flash of talon and blade. In one clean stroke all three were on the ground.
Azami continued on, her eyes darting between scroll and puzzle box, muttering to
herself as she worked.
“What was that?” I leaned in to hear her.
“I said we don’t have time for this!” she snapped.
More twisted creatures enslaved by Phyrexian compleation charged through the open
portal. I called to mind a small chapel I had visited in winter, the absolute stillness of
the open meadow where it stood concealing latent energy blanketed under the cold,
waiting for the release of spring. I felt the untapped potential in my lungs, like a
scream waiting to be unleashed. I channeled the fire of conviction into my hammer,
smashing the ground in front of me. White flame erupted from the point of impact,
shattering the incoming Phyrexians, lancing through Azami and myself without harm.
Drenched in a sticky green oil so dark it was almost black, I shook off the foul remains
of the monsters as best I could. It was only then that I saw it: several scrolls lay in
tatters on the floor, wrapped around my fallen opponents’ limbs. A lump in my throat,
I slowly turned to Azami. Not looking up from her work, she shrugged.
“Those scrolls were of no further use to me.”
Before I could answer, thank her, say anything—the room unlocked. Azami gasped in
surprise.
There had to be a hundred scrolls lining the walls within. The ornate decorations on
the scroll rods spoke volumes of the treasures of knowledge and wisdom contained
therein. Azami rushed forward, and I felt the lump in my throat get tighter. It wasn’t
too late, I could still say something to the woman who had just saved my life. Yet, as
her fingertips were about to touch the first scroll, I remained silent.
That’s when the trap triggered.
I felt the reverberating thud as the time lock took hold. Through the temporal haze
I could see her, still about to touch that first scroll. For minutes I just stood there,
looking at it all. I produced the stolen scroll, carefully removed from Azami’s library
many years prior. I walked as close as I dared to the null zone, placing the scroll on
the floor where she would be able to find it if, and when, she was released. This was
the scroll that warned of the rules of the vault, the final traps contained therein. The
only reason the vault could continue to exist, and the reason that I would be allowed
to leave with a new Commander, is if I left one in exchange.
An eye for an eye.
As the room rotated on an unseen axis, Azami disappeared around the corner. I looked
away, shaking my head. But just as her room vanished, a new one came into view.
He stood twice as tall as any warrior I had ever seen, armored down with plates of
magically reinforced steel, bearing a weapon the ignorant insultingly referred to as a
sword. He was tall and proud of stature. As I walked towards the one-man army, the
blade of a nation, the son of suns, I heard his voice, reanimating and coming back up
to speed.
“...Wwwwwwas just thinking that maybe this is a trap.” Rafiq turned his head, and
was startled to see me. “By the Angels, who are you?”
“Lord Rafiq, I am a Planeswalker, and you’ve been tricked. The Planeswalker you were
just accompanying left you in a time lock so that they could make off—alone—with
the treasures of this vault.” Rafiq’s face was one of shock as I explained his predicament
to him.
“Why then, are you here?” he demanded.

“I’m here to set you free,” I said, smiling. Rafiq’s form stiffened.
“Freedom always comes at a price, what is yours?” His piercing eyes locked on me.
“I’m in need of someone like you—one with great skill at arms and the heart of a lion.”
He walked toward me, lifting his deadly weapon. The tempered edge was razor sharp,
glistening in the runelight. Slowly he tested his grip, armor plates creaking and
snapping into place, knowing the freedom of movement for the first time in many
months.
“How do I know this isn’t just another trap, then?” His blade honed its way towards
me.
“I can say any number of things to assure you of my intentions, but it’s your choice
to believe. I will tell you this: I came here to get you out of this place and I need your
help.” As the weapon edge drifted closer, I stood my ground.
“There is more that you are not telling me, Planeswalker.”
“There are a great many things I’m not telling you, but that’s not the point. The point
is I’m telling you that if you ever want to escape this vault, now is the time.”
His eyes studied me as the predator does his prey.
I didn’t flinch. “I may not be Elspeth Tirel, but you could do a heck of a lot worse
than me.”
He considered... then planted the tip of his blade in the ground between us. Offering
a hand, Rafiq narrowed his gaze.
“Very well, Planeswalker, I will give you a chance to live up to your word.”
Grasping his hand and wincing slightly at the strength of his grip, I forced a smile.
“That’s all I ever asked.”

The flash
adam coles - columbus, ohio
It started innocently enough.
Kozilek had a mana rock heavy hand (but with 16 mana rocks, that’s pretty common),
as did Melek, Izzet Paragon. Savra, Queen of the Golgari discarded turn 1 instead of
playing a land, binning a Golgari Thug. Sygg, River Guide opened with a Mystical
Tutor... for Enlightened Tutor(!) which turned into Darksteel Plate equipping Sygg
himself. Kozilek just started churning through cards via a turn 3 Mind’s Eye with mana
up and then a few turns later casting the big man himself. Melek used more traditional
cantrips to dig his way to a Consecrated Sphinx while Savra sat back playing 1/1 dorks
and dredging constantly. Kozilek was removed when Sygg wrathed the board (not for
the first time), but not before Melek managed to Snap his Sphinx back to his hand.
It’s Melek’s turn. I’m holding Shimmer Myr, Duplicant, Trading Post, and Unwinding
Clock and have about 30 mana open (thanks to Cloudpost, Vesuva-Post, Thespian-
Post, and Glimmerpost all at once). Sygg is tapped out after a Rout and we all know he
doesn’t play free counterspells (no Pact of Negation, Force of Will, etc). Savra doesn’t
have instants and has no creatures in play. Melek, who has only a few mana rocks and
a Leyline of Anticipation out, decides now’s the moment for a backbreaking hard-cast
Omniscience and goes for it. We all groan a little and ask if he’s got the win in hand,
but he doesn’t. Instead, he dumps Consecrated Sphinx, Charmbreaker Devils, Gilded
Lotus, and Archaeomancer (returning nothing) into play.
Someone says, “Whelp, there’s the game. We can’t stop Sphinx.” To which I reply, “I
got this guys.” I flash in the Shimmer Myr (no counter from Melek) and then go for
the flash Duplicant on Consecrated Sphinx. Melek then grins and reveals 1 of the 2
cards in his hand: Evacuation! We all pick up our guys and he replays everything, this
time using Archaeomancer to target Evacuation. It backfired though, since he forgot
I got back Shimmer Myr and, more importantly, Duplicant, so I go for it again, this
time with the Archaeomancer trigger on the stack in order to dodge the Evacuation
madness. He laughs and shows me a Force of Will for the Duplicant. I sigh sadly and
let the Force happen on my poor Duplicant. I then tapped out for Unwinding Clock
and Trading Post, used Trading Post to sacrifice a mana rock to get Duplicant and cast
Duplicant again, which finally got there and exiled the Sphinx! All of this happened
during Melek’s end step and with an Archaeomancer trigger on the stack.
When the turn finally passed to Sygg, poor Austin just sat there and said, “Nothing I
can do is gonna match up with what just happened, so here’s a land and I’m passing
the turn.”

4
commander deckbuilding 101
• MANA REQUIREMENTS
• A GOOD MANA CURVE
• SIDEBAR: THE TROUBLE WITH CMC=3
• CARD ADVANTAGE IN MULTIPLAYER
• BLATANT POWER VS. SUBTLE SYNERGY
• RESEARCHING CARDS FOR YOUR DECK
• fiction:
47 command tower
commander deckbuilding 101
you know the rules, and you’ve
picked your commander...
now what?
Now it’s time to build your deck, that’s what! In this chapter I’ll present things to keep
in mind while pulling together cards for your deck, as well as guidelines for making
sure your deck runs like a well-oiled machine.
FUELING THE ENGINE:

MANA REQUIREMENTS
Today’s Magic decks typically run 24 lands in their 60 card decks—40% mana and
that’s not including other mana accelerators such as Elvish Mystic that can push a
deck towards having nearly 50% mana in their decks. So does that mean you should
run 40 lands in your 100 card Commander deck plus an additional 8-12 non-land
mana sources?
In most cases, that would probably be excessive. The rule of thumb I follow when
sketching out deck ideas is 39 mana-producing lands plus a Sol Ring, a 2-mana artifact
such Fellwar Stone or Everflowing Chalice, and one to two 3-mana artifacts like
Darksteel Ingot and Chromatic Lantern. If I’m playing green I’ll likely go ahead and
include Sakura-Tribe Elder and maybe a Cultivate or Kodoma’s Reach. If I’m not
playing green I’ll usually find room for the artifact Journeyer’s Kite, which isn’t mana
acceleration but it can help with mana-fixing and making sure you keep hitting your
land drops.
Keep in mind that I’m counting mana-producing lands here. Lands such as Maze
of Ith or Dark Depths that don’t produce mana should be counted as spells when
calculating your mana percentage.
If I’m not building a mono-colored deck I will also usually add in the appropriate
“bounce lands” from the original Ravnica block: Azorius Chancery, Boros Garrison,
Dimir Aqueduct, Golgari Rot Farm, Gruul Turf, Izzet Boilerworks, Orzhov Basilica,
Rakdos Carnarium, Selesnya Sanctuary, and Simic Growth Chamber. These awesome
mana fixers were judged to be “too good” for Limited after people realized you’re
basically getting 2 lands in 1 card for a relatively minor drawback. Think of them as
squeezing some bonus lands into your Commander deck without using up additional
card slots, and sometimes their drawback of returning a land to your hand can be
useful: you can reset the Vivid lands (Vivid Grove, Vivid Creek, etc.), guarantee more
landfall triggers such as on Avenger of Zendikar, or replay Lorwyn’s Hideaway lands
(Mosswort Bridge and Windbrisk Heights are the best ones).
48 commander deckbuilding 101

Alright, so we’ve talked about the number of mana producing lands and then
additional mana accelerants. Now we need to talk about fixing your mana. Obviously
with a monocolored deck this is pretty easy, but the more colors you add to your
deck the more complicated it gets. Unless you’re coming to Commander having a
pretty deep collection of dual lands already, I’d probably stick with 2-color Legends
at first. Wizards of the Coast has done a nice job of providing a lot of good relatively
inexpensive mana-fixing over the years, and did us all a huge favor by reprinting
the original Ravnica block’s awesome “shock lands” in the Return to Ravnica block,
making it much easier on the pocketbook to acquire the cards you need for your
Commander deck.
A trick I use to ensure I strike the right colored-mana balance in my deck is to count
the colored mana for each spell in my deck and tally them up. For instance, a spell
that cost 1GGW would get 1 tick mark under white and 2 tick marks under green. I
then add up all the tick marks for each color and come up with a percentage mix. I can
then look at the lands I have providing colored mana and make sure the percentage
lines up.
Keep in mind the more colors you run in your deck, the fewer lands you’ll want in
your deck that produce colorless mana. There are a lot of great utility lands that
are fantastic in Commander, such as Winding Canyons, Gavony Township, Inkmoth
Nexus, and Mutavault, and while they let you squeeze more function into your deck
without using up spell slots, they can’t color-fix your mana. If you’ve got a bunch
of spells in your deck that have heavy colored mana requirements, having too many
lands that produce colorless mana can leave those spells stranded in your hand.
EVEN BIG DECKS NEED

A GOOD MANA CURVE
Commander Magic is often about the big, splashy haymakers that produce the
awesome stories we like to recount with friends again and again. Many of those epic
plays involve big, splashy spells and creatures that often cost quite a bit of mana to
cast, and the instinct to include a lot of them in your deck is strong. Don’t hold back
when doing your initial card pull for your deck, you never know when cards might
jump out at you for having nice synergy together. Once you’re done though, you’ll
need to turn a critical eye to the cards you’ve got there in front of you. Take all of
them and put them in stacks by mana cost, with your first pile including spells that
cost 0 or 1 mana all together along with lands that don’t produce mana (such as Maze
of Ith). Cards that cost 8 mana or more, or are X-spells (having “X” in their casting
cost) will make up the last stack in the curve.
Now eyeball your stacks. You’ll probably notice that the stacks containing 3, 4 and 5
mana will be the highest (see Sidebar: The Trouble with CMC=3) because there are
a bunch of great Commander cards at those costs. If you trim your stack down to
100 cards without paying attention to the mana curve, however, you risk stalling on

lands and having a handful of expensive spells you can’t cast for too many turns, and
that’s no fun. Just like good tournament decks, paying attention to your mana curve
ensures the best chance that you’ll be able to play relevant spells in the early, mid-, and
late game.
Below is a sample mana curve as a rule of thumb for building your first Commander
decks. As you play your deck, pay attention to the flow: does it feel that you’re able to
participate at all stages of the game without your hand getting clogged with spells you
can’t cast? Tweak the numbers in your curve based on what you observe.
Sample Mana Curve

You’ll note that this mana curve peaks at 2 mana; the reason I don’t make the 0-1
mana stack the highest point in the curve is because there are relatively few high-
impact multiplayer cards at that mana cost, and while it’s important to pay attention
to the mana curve, you don’t want to be a slave to the curve if it means playing
suboptimal cards. I have found after building hundreds of Commander decks that
you can generally find 8-9 quality cards to include that cost less than 2, and that
you can find dozens of great choices at 2 mana. Unless you are playing in a hyper-
competitive, cutthroat Commander environment, not having a play outside of a land
drop until turn 2 is perfectly fine.
12 11
9 9 8
7
3 2
0-1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+ X
39 Mana-producing Lands

THE TROUBLE WITH CMC=3
One thing you’ll find after building multiple Commander decks is that there are a ton
of great cards at the 3 mana cost. Whenever Wizards of the Coast prints a new Magic
expansion and I run across a 3-mana card that looks good in Commander, I wince a
little bit. Trimming the cards in your 3 mana stack is a very painful thing to do when
building your deck, so here’s some advice: when initially pulling cards for your deck,
whenever you set aside a card that costs 3, take a hard look at it and ponder whether
or not there’s another card at a different mana cost that does something similar to it.
sidebar

THE IMPORTANCE OF
CARD ADVANTAGE IN MULTIPLAYER
In tournament Magic, decks will often include spells that provide 1-for-1 answers
to threats, along with some number of spells that provide card advantage over your
opponent. In multiplayer Magic, spells that trade a card to answer a threat won’t get
you very far—though it is a good idea to have some pinpoint removal since it is usually
cheap and fast, which can be critical to save your bacon if someone is threatening to
win the game or take you out. Path to Exile and Krosan Grip will often have a place
in your 99. However, in general you’ll want to play answer cards that give you more
than just a 1-for-1 trade. Play Shriekmaw over Doom Blade, or Indrik Stomphowler
over Naturalize. Sweeper cards can be even better: Wrath of God and Damnation to
take out all the creatures, or Akroma’s Vengeance or Pernicious Deed to take out all
the everything.
You’ll also want a fair amount of raw card drawing spells that can keep your hand
stocked with cards to play throughout the game. There are a bunch of cards that can
go into any deck—artifacts like Skullclamp, Memory Jar, Staff of Nin and Temple
Bell. Mikokoro, Center of the Sea easily fits into a land slot for all but the most color-
intensive Commander decks. Each color will also have cards that can provide raw card
drawing, just type in “draw cards” in the text line of your favorite online card database
and select the colors you’re playing.
BLATANT POWER VS.

SUBTLE SYNERGY
I’ve spent some time in this chapter talking about making sure you play lots of high-
impact cards and cards that net you card advantage, but as is often the case there are 2
sides to every coin. If every card you play in a multiplayer game sits way out in front
of the power curve you’re bound to start getting a lot of concerned attention from the
other players in the game. Too much attention can be hazardous to your health since
even the highest concentration of quality cards can’t often stand up to a united front
of multiple opponents working to take you down.
That’s why sometimes it pays to look for what I call “subtle synergy”—cards that look
rather innocuous at first glance, but when played with other cards can sneak up and
turn into powerhouses. Finding these under-the-radar ways to throw haymakers can
often earn you tons of style points, especially if they involve cards people rarely see
played against them.

As an example, many years ago I had a deck that was built to create a lot of 1/1
saproling tokens. I had everything from Aura Mutation to Verdant Force in there, but
the lynchpin cards in the deck were Elvish Farmer and Fecundity. Elvish Farmer was
just a 0/2 Elf that could slowly produce saprolings of his own, but also let you sacrifice
saprolings for no mana to net you 2 life a pop. Fecundity was a “sharing” type card
that green got a lot of back in the day, where any player could draw a card whenever
their creature died. Of course, in my deck I could make a lot more creatures than
most players would due to my saprolings, and the Elvish Farmer could make them
die on demand and draw a bunch of cards with Fecundity, arming myself with plenty
of cards to make even more saprolings and eventually making them large enough to
become a scary army. My friends wised up fairly quickly and started killing Elvish
Farmer and Fecundity on sight, but not before I got a lot of game-winning mileage
from flying under the radar.
RESEARCHING CARDS FOR YOUR DECK

If you’re building a Commander deck from the bottom up—starting with some
favorite cards you want to play with and then picking a Commander with the right
color scheme—then you likely don’t need to do much research. However, if you start
with your Commander and then pull together cards to play with him or her, it doesn’t
hurt to do some digging even if you’re already sure of your game plan.
Set your Commander in front of you and really take a look at the card. Think about all
the implications from its printed text box, creature type, power and toughness. Think
about what players might do before it gets cast. Think about what players might do
after it gets cast. Think about whether you’ll need to defeat someone by invoking the
“Commander deals 21 points of damage” rule—is your deck up to that task?
There are quite a few online card databases out there. I’d recommend going to the
source over at Magicthegathering.com, which is called Gatherer. Several other large
Magic websites have them too, such as Starcitygames.com. Even if you think you
already know what cards you’re going to want to use go ahead and run some queries
through the card databases—there are likely cards you overlooked that would fit your
plans perfectly.
If you have the time it doesn’t hurt to sift through your entire collection and just see
what ideas pop up as you go along. For me there’s something about holding the actual
card in my hands that seems to oil the gears of creativity much better than staring at
a computer screen. As a time saver don’t just pull cards for the current Commander
you’re looking for, but consider the next Commander you’d like to play and pull cards
for it, too.
Over time you’ll find there are cards you go to time and time again for Commander,
so it pays to set aside a special box (or boxes) for just those very cards—a Commander
Toolbox that’s easy to find and access.
Command Tower
john dale beety
I feel sorry for the Planeswalkers I’ve met who don’t have a family or a place to call
their own. I’ve seen too many worlds to want to stay in one spot all the time, but I’ll
keep my cozy fire and my extended clan. There’s no plane like home.
Home’s where I went a while back. I landed at my usual spot: Uncle Jack’s Junkyard,
Command Tower, my alcove on the ground floor. The guard in the lobby didn’t even
blink when I walked up. She just straightened her thick gray gloves and picked up the
crystal on her desk, one of a set I’d acquired at a quarry in Otaria.
“Uncle Jack? The kid’s back.” She listened, nodded. “He says to head on up.”
There are 32 flights of stairs in the tower, which is why I’d put on my running boots
before ’walking over. I went up them lickety-split, caught my breath at Uncle Jack’s
door, and knocked.
“Come on in, kid.”
Uncle Jack looked fat and happy as ever when I entered his office, though I’d learned
long ago not to read too much into his smile. He waved with a gray-gloved right hand.
His left hand was bare to write and tan like the feather-barbs at the top of his quill.
“Just let me finish this column... there.” Uncle Jack put up his quill and blotted the
page. “Welcome back, kid. I was hopin’ you’d come.”
“Thanks, uncle.” Everyone called him uncle, even his blood-cousins. In my clan, you’re
an aunt, an uncle, or a kid. Or in my case, the kid. “How’s business?”
“Fair to middlin’. Just got a contract to scrap a haunted house. How’s your monster-
huntin’?”
“I just figured out how to summon the soul of a world.”
Uncle Jack tilted his head. “That’s not one of your metafigures of speech, is it?”
“Nope. The locals call it ‘Progenitus.’”
“Huh.” Uncle Jack stood and jerked his thumb toward the tower’s west window. “Does
it eat magic goats?”
“Maybe? I haven’t fed it one.” I blinked. “Wait, do you mean atogs?”
“Atogs, goats, same letters. Take a look out the window.”

I went west. “So you never told me how those atogs were working out for you—”
“Take a look.”
I saw, and I swore.
“Where’d you learn to talk like that, kid?”
“Otaria,” I said without thinking. We stared at each other a while. “Uh, Uncle Jack, I
didn’t give you that many atogs.”
“Yeah. You didn’t tell me how fast they breed, either.”
“They do?”
“‘They do?’ asks the kid.” Uncle Jack snorted. “You gave me magic goats and you don’t
even know how they work.”
“Of course I do. They eat what I tell them to eat. I summon them, I use them for a
third of a day at most, and then I send them back. You’re the one who wanted to keep
them.”
“Unh-unh. You can’t pin this on me, kid. You should’ve known better than to give me
a girl magic goat and a boy magic goat.”
I looked out the window again. “One was a girl?”
“The lith-goat.”
I closed my eyes. “So you’re telling me that the Lithatog and the Thaumatog were
reproductively compatible enough to make a bunch of baby atogs.”
“Yep.” Uncle Jack folded his arms. “Fix it. Send them all back.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Uncle.” I shrugged. “I can send the Lithatog and the
Thaumatog home, but those babies? This right here is home.”
“Yeah? Well, they’re eatin’ their home.” Uncle Jack pulled a scope from his desk. “Take
a look down there.”
I retrieved the scope and peered through it. What I’d assumed were just rough patches
on the ground were craters with tooth-marks.
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh’s right.” Uncle Jack took the scope back. “I was calcufigurin’ their growth rates
when you showed up. I give it two days before they start eatin’ the Command Tower.”
“That’s not good.”
“Nope. Fix it, kid.”
“Let’s see.” I steepled my fingers and thought for a moment. “I could summon a
Carrion Feeder. Eats creatures—”
“No creature-eaters.”
“It’s simple for me to summon and really efficient.”
Uncle Jack thumped his chest. “You say I’m a creature. No creature-eaters.”
“Ugh, fine.” I wondered for an instant what it would be like to summon Uncle Jack as
a creature. One blue mana and one green, at least, and he would be legendary. Maybe
some Planeswalker’s commander.
Commanders...
“Hey, Uncle Jack.”
“Yeah?”
“You said no creature-eaters, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What if it only ate atogs?”
Uncle Jack hesitated. “Tell me more.”
“Just let me summon one more atog and I can fix your problem.”
He sighed. “Do it.”
“All right. Let me go down to my alcove... ”

__________
“You didn’t have to follow me, Uncle Jack.”
“Sorry, kid. I wasn’t about to let you run off without fixin’ my magic goat problem.”
“I could’ve done that from your office.” I opened the last locker in my alcove. Empty.
“Ugh. So I have most of what I need.”
“Most of it.”
“Yes.” I pointed to the shelf where I had stacked my artifacts. “I have a Coalition
Relic, a Darksteel Ingot, a Fellwar Stone, and a Spectral Searchlight, but I’m still a
little short.”
“I don’t care if you’re short. Fix it.”
“It doesn’t work that way, but I have an idea. May I use the Command Tower itself?”
“Sure. Just get the job done.”
“Will do. Let me throw these in a bag and talk to the guard, and then we’ll go around
to the west side.”
The guard handed over her communication crystal. I held it by the correct points to
speak to the whole tower.
“All occupants of the Command Tower, may I have your attention please. First, do not
look out any west windows. I repeat, do not look out any west windows. Second, do
not be alarmed if your lights go out. They will return in a few moments. Again, do not
be alarmed if your lights go out. They will return in a few moments.”
I gave back the crystal and left the tower, Uncle Jack at my heels. “What was that
about?”
“When I asked to use the Tower, I meant the whole thing.”
“You’re scarin’ me, kid.”
“Nothing bad’s going to happen to it.” We rounded the corner to the west side.
“Nothing permanent, anyway.”
The Lithatog bounded up to greet us. She nosed at my pack.
“Nothing for you, girl,” I told her. “Actually, go back home,” and she did.
Uncle Jack snorted. “One down, who knows how many to go.”
“That doesn’t matter.” I pulled the artifacts from my pack. “Stand back, Uncle Jack.”
“You got it, kid.” He edged away.
I clutched relic and searchlight, ingot and stone in my arms. White. Blue. Black. Red.
Then I reached out with my mind to the Command Tower. Green.
“Atogatog,” I muttered, “come to me.”

Behind me, workers in the Tower screamed. I shook my head. I’d told them not to
panic. Then Uncle Jack screamed, but at least he had an excuse. The Atogatog had
landed right in front of him, a splinter from its wooden headdress close enough to
stick in his nose.
“Over here, Atogatog.” It leapt to my side, grinning as always. “I brought you here to
feast. Look! Atogs, so many atogs. Now... eat them all!”
The Atogatog started with the runts, so at first it did not grow quickly. Once it went
on to the healthy babies, it grew and grew. Soon it took two at a time in each hand and
shoveled them down, then three and four and more. It saved the Thaumatog for last;
the best beast I’d lent Uncle Jack went from the ground to high above the Command
Tower and down the Atogatog’s gullet.
“Well,” I told Uncle Jack, “that solves your atog problem.”
“I still see a big one, kid.”
“Oh, that?” I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted to the grin in the sky.
“Atogatog! Eat yourself!”
It raised a forearm to its teeth and ripped off flesh. Blood fell around us. Until then
Uncle Jack had watched the Atogatog eat and eat without changing the smile on his
face, but at that sight he turned away and bent close to the ground. From far away I
heard an anguished roar; much nearer was the sound of retching.
“Come on, Uncle Jack.” I guided him back to the Command Tower lobby, dodging
blood and puke. Once we were inside, I told him. “There. Fixed.”
“Still a mess—” He heaved but had nothing left to throw up.
“Sorry, Uncle Jack. Waste disposal is your job.”
“Fix it.”
“I could lend you a Sarcatog.”
“No.” Another heave. “No more magic goats.”
“Sure, no more magic goats.” I patted his back. “I’m going to my alcove. Call me for
supper.”
“You... food... how... ”
“Summoning makes me hungry.” I started to walk away, paused, turned. “Special

request tonight, Uncle Jack. Let’s have an old-fashioned family meal.”
Mortal Combat!
tomas bevirt - near omaha, nebraska
I was very new to playing Commander and was still fuzzy on the rules but I built a
black mono deck with Griselbrand as my Commander. I was able to Vampiric Tutor
for Liliana of the Dark Realms, and then began to jack my mana up. I got Demonic
Tutor and went for Planar Portal. So far, nobody stopped me... I had a Royal Assassin
and Sorceress Queen out keeping me safe, and everyone was focused on each other
and left me alone because I had the Howling Mine... then I got the combo that I
needed. Next round I cast Mortal Combat. Everyone laughed because they said that
would never happen in Commander and in a black deck for that matter. Holding a
Darkness and a Doom Blade in my hand I played Morality Shift that next round.
The table fell silent and I could see them all scramble to find ways to deliver the most
damage to me! I have never seen nerds sweat so much! I took damage from the first
couple of players as I figured the last player before me would unload everything on
me! As expected, full on attack and direct damage. I cast Darkness. Done. My turn....
game over. Not a single word was spoken except for the worker at the game store who
exclaimed, “I want those cards!” Oh, and they had wanted to play for ante (something
I thought wasn’t done since 1995) but since I didn’t know the rules, I declined. Had I
known, I would have walked out with some swag, too!

5
Full Deck Brewing Walkthrough
• WHO LEADS THE
WALKING DEAD?
• SIDEBAR: Tribal Staples
• CASTING A WIDE NET
• sample decklist
• KILLING YOUR DARLINGS
• fiction: the vengeful dead
zombies!
who doesn’t like zombies?
If you love The Walking Dead, George Romero, and World War Z, you can get your
undead fix in Magic: The Gathering as well. Wizards of the Coast has made quite
a few powerful Magic zombie cards over the years, as well as sprinkling in a lot of
zombie-themed cards that get better the more zombies you play. The horror-themed
Innistrad block has quite a few of them! The good news is that you can build a zombie
deck relatively cheap and easy, but powerful enough to frighten anyone who sits down
to play against your undead horde. In this chapter, I’m going to walk through many
of the approaches I take when building a Commander deck from scratch to help you
get a feel for the process. If some of it works for you, great! If you find a different
approach works for you, go for it!
WHO LEADS THE WALKING DEAD?

So, we know we want to build a zombie deck. First order of business is who’s our
Commander? There are a few multicolored zombie Legends, but I want to keep costs
low for this first build, so let’s keep it mono-black. There are a handful of choices, but
I’m going to go with Balthor the Defiled. Why? He’s pretty cheap to acquire, and his
activated ability to raise the dead—or in your case, raise the undead—at instant speed
is quite powerful. Plus, having him as your Commander lets you break his drawback
of exiling himself to activate his ability—remember the rule that said whenever your
Commander is exiled, you can instead put him in the Command Zone? So whenever you
need to raise your army back to (un)life, you can bring Balthor back out to play.
61 Full Deck Brewing Walkthrough

Tribal Staples
A really fun way to build Commander decks is to focus on a particular creature type,
which is referred to as building a Tribal deck. Throughout history, the designers of
Magic have made cards that have boosted particular tribes—Elves, Goblins, Merfolk,
Slivers—and it’s fun searching through the card databases and finding all the cards
that play well with your particular favorite creature type. There have even been Magic
sets where Tribal themes are the main focus. The Onslaught block (Onslaught, Legions,
and Scourge) is stuffed to the gills with fun Tribal cards, and the Lorwyn block (Lorwyn,
Morningtide) has a strong Tribal theme as well.
Outside of Tribal cards that mention specific creature types, here are some Tribal
staples that can go in any creature-type themed deck:
Lands Blue
Mutavault Call to the Kindred
Cavern of Souls Crown of Ascension
Distant Melody
Faces of the Past
Artifacts Mistform Warchief
Adaptive Automaton
Peer Pressure
Belbe’s Portal
Riptide Chronologist
Brass Herald
Riptide Shapeshifter
Caged Sun
sidebar
Xenograft
Coat of Arms
Cryptic Gateway
Doom Cannon White
Door of Destinies Coordinated Barrage
Konda’s Banner Crown of Awe
Riptide Replicator Defensive Maneuvers
Urza’s Incubator Harsh Mercy
Volrath’s Laboratory Shared Triumph
Green Black
Alpha Status Conspiracy
Bloodline Shaman Cover of Darkness
Caller of the Hunt Crown of Suspicion
Crown of Vigor Patriarch’s Bidding
Descendants’ Path
Elvish Soultiller
Luminescent Rain
Red
Crown of Fury
Reins of the Vinesteed
Mana Echoes
Steely Resolve
Roar of the Crowd
Tribal Forcemage
Shared Animosity
Tribal Unity
Gold
Mirari’s Wake
Vigean Intuition

CASTING A WIDE NET
Alright, so we’ve got our Commander… now it’s time to search up our undead army.
Pull up your favorite online card database, search for card type zombie and you’ll see
there are well over 250 cards! If you specify zombies that are only black in color, it
slashes about 30 or so from that list. Hm, that didn’t help much, did it?
What about zombies that mention zombie in the card text? This is a good way to zero
in on the zombie Tribal cards—cards that support a zombie-themed deck—and we’ll
probably want a fair number of these. Doing this trims the list to around 50 or less,
which is much easier to scan through. Here are some of the cards that caught my
attention:
Gravecrawler
This tournament staple isn’t super-cheap to acquire, but it’s not unreasonable and is
obviously a powerful card in a zombie deck.
Lord of the Undead
This is more expensive than I’d have expected from a card that’s been printed in 4 Magic
sets… but it’s also quite powerful in a zombie deck and I think it’s worth the cost.
Death Baron
Whoa, this card is quite expensive to pick up as a single, so I’m not going to include it
in my list but if you can get your hands on a copy by all means find room!
These are some other cards that seem good enough for our deck without breaking the bank:
Cemetery Reaper Shepherd of Rot

Corpse Harvester Unbreathing Horde
Gempalm Polluter Vengeful Dead
Grave Defiler Zombie Master
Gravespawn Sovereign Zombie Trailblazer
Noxious Ghoul
Next up, I’m going to search for black, colorless, or land cards that mention zombie in
the card text and are not creatures. This gives us a list of possible Tribal support cards
that are not actual zombies, less than 50 or so, which is pretty easy to comb through.
Unholy Grotto
Like Gravecrawler, a little more than we want to spend, but I think it’s probably worth
it for the effect.
Tombstone Stairwell
This is an old-school card that is loads of fun, and can lead to some crazy things when
you’ve got cards in play that trigger off zombies coming into play like Vengeful Dead
and Noxious Ghoul. Just be careful that an opponent doesn’t have so many creatures
in his graveyard that he can swarm you with more zombies than you can block!
Syphon Flesh
A nice card that can get rid of a pesky lone creature that an opponent controls that you
otherwise couldn’t deal with, and gives you a handful of extra zombies. For the win!

Grave Betrayal
This expensive but powerful enchantment can take over the game if your opponents
let it stick around for any length of time.
Army of the Damned Endless Ranks of the Dead

Call to the Grave Zombie Apocalypse
These are all fantastic zombie-themed cards for any zombie deck.
Okay, so the decklist is fleshing out nicely! A few other things that are on my mind:
Nim Deathmantle / Eldrazi Monument

While Balthor and cards like Zombie Apocalypse can let you bring back your undead
army, sometimes your opponents are going to try and kill off your guys at inopportune
times. These artifacts will give your zombies a bit more resilience.
Distorting Lens / Scuttlemutt

A problem with running a mono-colored deck is that you’re more vulnerable to creatures
that have protection from your color. You don’t want your army of black creatures staring
down a Chameleon Colossus that’s had a bunch of mana pumped into it. Distorting
Lens and Scuttlemutt can make a blocker any color but black so you can block that big
guy and save your bacon. These cards are also particularly good in a black deck since
some of your removal can only destroy non-black creatures. Turn Distorting Lens or
Scuttlemutt on your opponents’ black creatures and make them any color but black, and
destroy those bad boys!
Skullclamp
This is a Commander staple that goes in any creature deck. It’s a little on the pricey
side, but I think this deck really needs a source of card drawing.
Alright, let’s group these cards by mana cost and see what our mana curve looks like so far:
land 3 Converted Mana Cost 5 Converted Mana Cost

28x Swamp Cemetery Reaper Corpse Harvester
Unholy Grotto Fleshbag Marauder Eldrazi Monument
Lord of the Undead Noxious Ghoul
Unbreathing Horde Syphon Flesh
0-1 Converted Mana Cost Zombie Master
Zombie Trailblazer
Gravecrawler
Skullclamp 6 Converted Mana Cost
4 Converted Mana Cost Gempalm Polluter
Gravespawn Sovereign
2 Converted Mana Cost Balthor the Defiled
Endless Ranks of the Dead Zombie Apocalypse
Distorting Lens Grave Defiler
Nim Deathmantle
Shepherd of Rot
Liliana’s Reaver
Soulless One 7 Converted Mana Cost
Tombstone Stairwell Grave Betrayal
Vengeful Dead
8 Converted Mana Cost
Army of the Damned

We still have about 34
slots, with a mana curve
that looks like this.
6 6
3 4 3
2 1 1
0-1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+ X
1 1
6
8 8
10
12
15
I want the mana
curve to look more
like this.

0-1 mana •• •••••• have 2, need about 6 more
We’ll want some creature removal, so I’m going to search for destroy creature that’s
black or colorless, sorted by casting cost, and looked for cards costing 0 or 1 mana
first. Slaughter Pact pops up, and is not too expensive—just make sure you put a
reminder on top of your deck so you don’t forget to pay the upkeep cost and lose the
game! Bone Splinters isn’t bad when you’ve got a bunch of expendable undead lying
around, just make sure to save it for something big. I like Executioner’s Capsule as a
“rattlesnake” card that could wave people away from attacking you, else you pop off
their most powerful creature. I’ll round out the list with a few utility artifacts.
Add Bone Splinters Glaring Spotlight
Claws of Gix Slaughter Pact
Executioner’s Capsule Witches’ Eye
2 mana ••• •••••••••••• have 3, need about 12 more

There are some good creature removal spells at 2 mana, including a zombie—
Skinthinner! I’d like to add some artifact mana for acceleration, and Swiftfoot Boots for
general awesomeness. We still need about 5 more cards, so I search the card database for
zombies that cost 2 mana, and find some good candidates. Withered Wretch is good in
particular to blunt the potential symmetry of Balthor and Tombstone Stairwell.
Add
Blood Scrivener Go for the Throat
Boneknitter Mind Stone
Cabal Interrogator Plaguebearer
Doom Blade Skinthinner
Everflowing Chalice Swiftfoot Boots
Fellwar Stone Withered Wretch
3 mana •••••• •••••• have 6, need about 6 more

At 3 mana we have the nifty Stronghold Assassin—who’s been errata’d to be a zombie
in addition to being an assassin! Attrition is a way to sacrifice a creature that’s dying
anyway—say, from chump blocking—into death for a threatening creature an
opponent controls. Seal of Doom is like Executioner’s Capsule, a good “rattlesnake”
card. A little card drawing would help, and Underworld Connections does the trick
quite nicely. To offset the life loss, let’s toss in Loxodon Warhammer, which is just an
all-around great Commander card.
Add
Attrition Seal of Doom
Loxodon Warhammer Stronghold Assassin
Murder Underworld Connections

4 mana ••••••• ••• have 7, need about 3 more
Slaughter is a great reusable creature removal spell when you start the game at 40
life. Black is a pretty popular color in Commander, so Filth is a nice way to give
your zombies evasion with swampwalking. Don’t forget Zombie Trailblazer can tap
a zombie to turn target land into a Swamp! Door of Destinies is an all-star card that
belongs in any Tribal deck.
Add
door of destinies slaughter
filth
5 mana •••• •••• have 4, need about 4 more

This is exactly the sort of deck where Black Market will shine… it’s a little pricey, but
totally worth the investment and it shouldn’t be difficult to trade for if you look hard
enough. Looking at zombies that cost 5 mana, we find a few decent candidates to
round it out. Vengeful Pharaoh can play a decent rattlesnake card whether he’s in play
or in your graveyard.
Add Black Market Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Corpse Connoisseur Vengeful Pharaoh
6 mana ••• ••• have 3, need about 3 more

There are some fantastic mass removal options for black—Damnation, Hellfire—but
they are quite expensive and so I’m not including them in this deck. However, Life’s
Finale is cheap to acquire and does the trick quite nicely. Staff of Nin is a good source of
card drawing and a great Commander staple. For the final slot, I did a search of zombies
that cost 6 mana and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed stepped up and claimed the seat.
Add Life’s Finale Staff of Nin
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Lands
When playing a mono-colored deck there are a ton of great utility lands you can
fit into your deck, but quite a few of them are rather pricey. Thespian’s Stage is
relatively cheap, and it can copy the more expensive utility lands that your opponents
are playing. I like Terrain Generator as mana acceleration when you’re playing quite
a few basic lands. If you can get your hands on a Cabal Coffers or Shrine of Nykthos
they totally belong in a mono-black deck, but Crypt of Agadeem doesn’t do a bad job
of generating a bunch of mana either.
Add Crypt of Agadeem Terrain Generator
Leechridden Swamp Thespian’s Stage

SAmple decklist
land (40) 3 Converted Mana Cost 5 Converted Mana Cost Converted
Crypt of Agadeem Crypt of Attrition Black Market Mana Cost
Leechridden Swamp Cemetery Reaper Corpse Connoisseur
Slaughter Pact Fleshbag Marauder Corpse Harvester
Swamp x34 Lord of the Undead Eldrazi Monument 0-1cmc
Terrain Generator
Thespian’s Stage
Loxodon Warhammer
Murder
Seal of Doom
Gray Merchant
of Asphodel
Noxious Ghoul
9
Unholy Grotto
Stronghold Assassin Syphon Flesh
Unbreathing Horde Vengeful Pharaoh 2cmc
1 Converted Mana Cost Underworld Connections
Zombie Master
14
Claws of Gix
Everflowing Chalice Zombie Trailblazer 6 Converted Mana Cost
Bone Splinters Gempalm Polluter 3cmc
Executioner’s
Capsule 4 Converted Mana Cost
Gravespawn Sovereign
Life’s Finale 12
Glaring Spotlight Balthor the Defiled Mikaeus the Unhallowed
Staff of Nin
Gravecrawler Damnation
Door of Destinies Zombie Apocalypse
4cmc
Skullclamp
Witches’ Eye Endless Ranks of the Dead
Filth
10
Grave Defiler 7 Converted Mana Cost 5cmc
2 Converted Mana Cost Liliana’s Reaver Grave Betrayal
Blood Scrivener
Boneknitter
Slaughter
Tombstone Stairwell 8
Cabal Interrogator Vengeful Dead 8+ Converted Mana Cost
Distorting Lens Army of the Damned 6cmc
Doom Blade
Fellwar Stone 6
Go for the Throat
Mind Stone
Nim Deathmantle
7cmc
Plaguebearer
Shepherd of Rot
1
Skinthinner
Swiftfoot Boots 8+cmc
Withered Wretch
1
land - 40

KILLING YOUR DARLINGS
There’s an old phrase that you hear in writing classes called “killing your darlings.”
Sometimes you’ll have a scene or a character that you absolutely adore, that is clever
and funny and simply amazing—and yet, your story is better off without it. As much
as you hate to do it, you sometimes have to kill your darlings for the greater good of
the whole story.
A lot of times when pulling cards together for your Commander deck, you’ll find that
you have way more cards than you do card slots. Trimming down to 100 cards can be
painful, and you may be tempted to throw out your mana curve to squeeze in more
favorites at higher mana costs. Resisting that urge and killing your darlings will help
you have a better, more streamlined deck that will ultimately be more fun to play.
What’s really nice about Commander is this: all those cards you hated to cut from
your deck make a great excuse to build a second Commander deck!
the Vengeful Dead
andy rogers
They call him a “Minion Lord.” Evidently zombie minions obey his commands. But how
does that even work? Why would dead people be obedient to anyone? Doesn’t death sort of
remove that ability? Whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter because Balthor, the Defiled and
I are currently working together. I lose one bet to a tavern swindler and end up with an
undead halfling commanding my army...
I sidle up to him uneasily. The guy gives me the creeps. He never smiles and his yellow
eyes remind me of a very nasty vampire I once met on Innistrad (that guy just couldn’t
take a joke). Balthor looks like a garden gnome who just lost his mushrooms. His
bright red beard nearly touches the ground and he has this unyielding stare that tells
me he’d rather be giving birth to a loxodon than listening to anything I have to say. He
hardly speaks, so I decide to open a new conversation with a zombie joke I’m positive
will break the ice.
“So, that Nissa Revane is pretty hot, right? Wouldn’t you just kill to see her in a lace
coffin?” Silence. Balthor doesn’t even twitch. I am such an idiot.
Balthor continues to ignore me, but I notice he does soundlessly move his hand to the
hilt of his axe. Somewhere beneath his ridiculous mustache I think he bares his teeth.
I shrug nonchalantly, but back up a step. Do dwarves bite when angry?
“Take it easy, Rumplestiltskin. I’m just trying to lighten the mood. What’re we looking
at here, anyway?”
Balthor turns toward the battlefield in the valley below us and I do the same. From
our vantage point on this hilltop the ground looks like it’s covered by a thousand
squirming soldier ants. In reality these are Balthor’s undead minions: lifeless fleshbags
marching on Nissa’s elf army. Each time one is struck down another stands up in its
place. He must’ve woken the dead from every cemetery in Dominaria to make an
army this big.
I recognize one of the fat ones. He was the baker in An-Havva before he died. He used to
make these killer cinnamon rolls. My stomach grumbles for a split second then turns to
cold soup as I watch the apocalypse around me.
“Seriously, what’s our plan here?” I ask him in my best Gideon Jura voice, hoping it
will pull an answer out of him. “We’re beating the elves well enough, but those drakes
overhead make me nervous.” Balthor says nothing. Please don’t bite. I can feel myself
sweating as I inch closer to him.
“See the blue vedalken on that hilltop?” I point at a four-arms hanging back from the
fighting, his escort of flyers circling the air over the opposing high ground. “I think
they’re protecting him while he tries to counter your magic. I’m guessing he’ll set them
loose once he’s got a spell worked out. Then it’s only a matter of time before we’re
screwed. We’ve got nothing that can defend against the drakes.”
Balthor taps his wickedly sharp axe on the ground twice, then gives me a stare that will
undoubtedly haunt my dreams forever. I have a sense that he’s about to do something awful.
Without breaking eye contact, Balthor cuts himself—long and deep—through the
torso with his axe. His gray skin shreds like fetid meat against the bevel, while organs
curl and drop to the ground like dead takklemaggots.
I vomit at the sight of his masochism. For all I know those could’ve actually been
takklemaggots.
“Are you kidding me?” I screech between heaves. “That’s disgusting!” Damn, I’d eaten
lunch at this great little kithkin tapas place.
Black blood seeps from his tiny body and smokes on the ground like flaming tar. His
yellow eyes roll back and leave empty sockets while his body grows dry and blows
away. All of this happens in under a minute. I’m still rueing the loss of my lunch,
however, when I realize a change is taking place on the battlefield.
Bald, black, worm-like bodies sprout from the ground everywhere. As the bodies
writhe, gangling arms unfold and legs separate beneath them. I see the baker from
An-Havva again and realize that zombies across the battlefield are being raised anew.
The elves fall back at the unexpected ranks of the dead.
“Ok, I still think it’s disgusting, but whatever you did, it worked.” I look over to
Balthor but he’s gone—completely vanished into the Aether. Not even a single red
beard hair is left where he stood.
Now, where’d that angry midget go?
I was about to start looking for him when an oncoming drake plunges at me,
presumably to claw my eyes out, so I roll left and conjure a quick Doom Blade to slice
its neck. As the creature flops and dies I survey the battlefield yet again: zombies are
everywhere, many of them assaulting Nissa and the vedalken directly. It almost looks
like we’re winning—except for the squadron of drakes. They swoop over the chaos and
drop in altitude every few seconds to pluck a zombie from the field and ravage its body
with their dagger-sharp talons. It’s like watching a band of gluttonous squad hawks
extract gomazoas from the sea for sport.
“Balthor!” I scream into the sky. “You’re supposed to be here, commanding my army!”
That’s when the plucky fellow taps me on the shoulder.
“What?” I jump a mile in surprise. “How are you—”
As I speak he grabs his axe and starts the whole I’ll-just-slice-myself-in-half-no-big-deal

ceremony again. This time I look away—and watch another wave of zombies appear
on the battlefield. For the next several minutes Balthor continues to kill himself, only
to reappear and kill himself again. Each instance brings hordes of undead minions
back to life. If any of the kithkin cuisine had been left in me I would’ve thrown it up.
I quietly watch as our zombie army slowly but surely overcomes the elves and Nissa.
The fact that we’re slaughtering an elf army seems to add an extra level of pleasure to
the fight for Balthor. At least I think it does. It’s not like I can tell for sure, he never
really smiles. But during his brief moments of ‘life’ I think I see a maniacal glint in his
eye each time one of the elvish woodsmen is maimed by a zombie. The look on his
face speaks of long ago battles between dwarves and elves.
Maybe that’s how he died. If he ever stops killing himself, I’ll ask him.
Despite our victory on the ground, the vedalken and his drakes are still posing a real
problem. I take care of a few of them with simple spells, but we need a game-changing
answer. Something that will finish the drakes off for good. As I ponder this I see our
zombies punch a final blow against Nissa. In a flash of green the Blind Eternities open
behind her and suck her body into the Aether. For a few seconds I can see a band of
her Chosen warriors waiting for her on her homeplane, Zendikar. They look shocked
as her near lifeless body falls at their feet. The floating hedrons of Zendikar hover
silently behind them.
“That’s it!” I yell. I know my course of action. I would hug the nasty little dwarf if I
thought I could survive it.
Closing my eyes and reaching deep into my mana reserves I pull a huge artifact from
the Aether. I drop it in the center of the battlefield. The ground shakes when it lands
and its effect is instantaneous. The Eldrazi Monument revitalizes Balthor’s minions.
Its presence gives flight and indestructibility to the zombies. In mere seconds I watch
every last drake fall, and the vedalken wizard is soon overwhelmed by the undead.
I flash a smile at my short companion.
“That was awesome!” I blurt. “How many times can you kill yourself like that, anyway?
Cemetery reapers must love you. But seriously, I’m never eating before we hang out
again. Do you know how much kithkin food costs? Maybe you could resurrect a
moneychanger and pay me back?—And hey, if we walk to Goldmeadow now, we
might make it before the restaurant closes... ”
He shook his head, tapped his axe on the ground twice, and disappeared.
Mono-Red Sucks, Right?
daniel zaloga - northern new jersey
I love red. It is hands down my favorite. Of course, this means Ashling, the Pilgrim is
my favorite general (no, I do NOT play 99 Mountains and Ashling).
I was sitting down to a 5 player game. By this time, the guys at the shop had seen my
Ashling deck wreak havoc at tables before, so they knew it wasn’t safe to just ignore
me. Who goes after the mono red player? Well, all these guys did; I simply could NOT
get Ashling to stick. Between board wipes and targeted removal, the Commander tax
was quickly reaching the point where I wouldn’t even be able to cast my favorite little
2-drop! Any other creature I played was also killed off... to be fair they are a fairly
trollish lot, like Dragon Mage and Balefire Dragon. So I decided I needed to play
smart. I had to sit back, watch the game, and know when to make my move. I had 2
lovely cards in hand I knew I needed to save. If I played out one or the other, they’d
surely be destroyed. Oh yes, these were 2 particularly tasty cards to a red mage like me
who loves to watch the world burn...
Then, the player immediately to my right cast a Tombstone Stairwell, and it was like
a light shone down on me from above. With a wicked smile on my face, on my turn
I calmly played my Vicious Shadows and my Furnace of Rath and passed the turn.
From the look on my face, the guys at the table knew something was up, and that’s
when I looked at them and said, “I win.”
You see, 19 or so Gravespawn tokens hitting the graveyard gave me a hell of a lot of
Vicious Shadows triggers to pass around. Thanks to the Furnace, I was able to kill all
of them in a single turn, even those who had managed to get their life above 40. This
prompted the Teneb, the Harvester player to stand up and give me a high-five while
proclaiming, “And mono-red sucks in Commander, right?!”

6
prossh, skyraider of kher
• CASTING PROSSH
• MAKING SURE HE CONNECTS
• SACRIFICING FOR PROFIT
• Food For Thought
• SIDEBAR: Budget-minded
Starter Kit
• SAMPLE DECKLIST
• fiction: a greater good
magic: the gathering com-
mander 2013 brought us a
bunch of fun new legends to
build decks around...
and Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is one of the more exciting ones! Just look at him, a
hungry dragon who whets his appetite with crunchy kobold snacks—or whoever else
might be standing around—waiting for the order to go feast on your opponents’ life
totals. This is a Legend who demands action, who wants to take people down with
Commander damage, so any Prossh deck will want to reliably cast him, protect him,
and make sure he connects. Prossh also allows us to sacrifice creatures at will, and
there are plenty of Magic cards where that ability can be a boon.
Below are things to think about when looking through your collection or a singles
binder and choosing cards for your deck.
CASTING PROSSH
Sometimes when building a deck around a Commander that costs a significant amount
of mana, you may want to include cards that “shave” mana from the casting cost.
For instance, in many decks where you’re casting dragons you may want to include
Dragonspeaker Shaman, who reads, “Dragon spells you cast cost 2 less to cast.” Like
many Legends from the Magic: The Gathering Commander 2013 product however,
Prossh has an ability that’s tied to how much mana you spend casting him. In Prossh’s
case, you get a number of kobold tokens equal to the amount of mana spent to cast
him, and the more creatures you have in play, the more you can potentially boost
his power. So in this deck, we’d rather play cards that actually produce mana to cast
Prossh with. Outside of the usual suspects—Sol Ring, Fellwar Stone, Darksteel Ingot
and other artifact mana—the Jund color combination gives us some other options
that are good in Commander and particularly good with Prossh.
First up is Black Market, a 5-mana black enchantment that gets a charge counter
on it whenever a creature dies. Then, at the beginning of your pre-combat main
phase, add a black mana to your mana pool for each charge counter on Black Market.
Considering how often your little kobolds are going to die (“don’t worry, we’ll make
more!”), not to mention everyone else’s creatures, if Black Market sticks around for any
length of time you’ll have all the black mana you could ever want.
Another great card in Commander is Mana Geyser. After the first few turns of the
game, it should be pretty easy to find most of your opponents tapping all their lands
to cast some of their board-building cards, so a well-timed Mana Geyser can net you
enough red mana to cast Prossh with mana to spare.
75 prossh, skyraider of kher

Also to keep in mind: even if someone counters Prossh when you cast him, you still get
the kobold tokens anyway. And lastly, the Commander tax you pay for casting from your
Command Zone multiple times counts towards giving you kobold tokens.
MAKING SURE HE CONNECTS

Many of your opponents are going to be justifiably concerned with their life totals
once Prossh hits the board with a gaggle of kobolds to stoke his fires, and may have
been holding some removal specifically to deal with existential threats. That’s why I
think it’s important to have plenty of cards in the deck that give him haste, so you
can get right down to the business of laying dragon style beats. Fires of Yavimaya and
Anger are great additions that do this for you in Jund. Since Prossh is a dragon, we
get the evasion ability of flying to avoid getting chump blocked by ground-pounders,
but there will occasionally be other creatures in the sky more than willing to get in the
way of an attack. Clearing the skies with Cloudthresher can help, but I particularly
like the surprise of Fatal Frenzy suddenly doubling the offensive power of an attacking
Prossh and giving him trample, which will often be more than enough Commander
damage to finish off an opponent. Sure, you’ll need to sacrifice Prossh afterwards, but
that’s great! He’ll be waiting in the Command Zone for another run afterwards, with
an even bigger entourage of kobolds.
SACRIFICING FOR PROFIT

Since Prossh likes to sacrifice to boost his ego and his power, and brings plenty of sacrificial
fodder along with him, it would probably be a good idea to include cards that support
the theme of sacrificing for profit. Lucky for us, this color combination has no end of
cards that we could use for that. In fact, in the Shards of Alara block—where “Jund” first
entered Magic vernacular—the green/red/black shard was all about sacrificing creatures
for profit, as embodied by the devour mechanic. Mycoloth and Dragon Broodmother
in particular work well with Prossh. Both of them can sacrifice for benefit with devour,
while also providing mass amount of tokens to feed a hungry Prossh.
I really like Eldrazi Monument in this sort of deck. We’re going to be playing a
large number of creatures and plan on having lots of extra cannon fodder around, so
the drawback of the Monument is negligible. The upside is huge—making all our
creatures indestructible, flying and giving them +1/+1… why, you could even beat
down with kobolds with that artifact in play!
A lot of your creatures are going to be relatively small, but I still think Greater Good
is worth playing mainly as a way to turn your Commander into cards if something
happens to him. Helm of Possession is going to get some groans from your opponent
as you trade in a kobold for his Commander or some other equally scary creature.
In fact, since you’re going to be sacrificing for profit, why not take advantage of red’s

ability to temporarily steal creatures from your opponent? Nab ’em, use ’em, and then
sacrifice them before you have to give ’em back! Cards like Mass Mutiny, Zealous
Conscripts, and Insurrection are all fantastic cards that get even better when you can
sacrifice the creatures at the end of the turn.
There are a number of black creatures with the ability to not stay dead, which is helpful
to feed these effects. Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, and Nether Traitor are some
of the best. Also, since you’re already making tokens representing the Kobolds of Kher
Keep, you might as well go ahead and put Kher Keep in your deck to add to the flavor
of Prossh’s comfort food.

Food For Thought
A few other musings on building a deck around Prossh: appropriately enough, the first I want to mention is the
enchantment Food Chain. Food Chain is another card that lets you sacrifice (or technically, put a creature in exile) for
profit. When you exile a creature using Food Chain, you’re rewarded with mana of any 1 color equal to the converted
mana cost of the exiled creature plus 1 (this mana can only be used to cast creature spells). One of the nice things
about playing Commander though, is if your Commander is put in exile, you can instead move him to the Command
Zone. So, imagine this scenario:
Exile Prossh for 7 red mana (moving him to the Com-

mand Zone instead), and 2 kobold tokens for a green and
a black mana (the kobold tokens are considered to have 0
converted mana cost, so exiling them with Food Chain nets
you 1 colored mana).
EXILED EXILED
EXILED
Cast Prossh from the Command Zone with a 2 mana

Commander tax, giving you 9 kobold tokens.
Exile Prossh for 7 red mana,

and exile 4 kobold tokens for at
least 1 green and 1 black mana,
netting you 5 kobolds.
EXILED
EXILED EXILED x5
Cast Prossh from the Command Zone with a 4 mana

Commander tax, giving you 11 kobold tokens.
x5 existing
x11 new
Exile Prossh for 7 red mana, and exile 6

kobold tokens for at least 1 green and 1
black mana, netting you 5 more kobolds.
EXILED
EXILED EXILED x10
So, what can you do with infinite 0/1 kobolds and infinite mana to cast creature spells?
Well, for one thing you’ll be able to make Prossh as big as you want, but I’ll leave
other shenanigans to your imagination. Just remember that if Prossh ends up in the
Command Zone after that, it’s very unlikely you’ll ever be able to cast him from there for
the remainder of the game!
Another card that has long sought a home in Commander is Dragon Appeasement, and I
think Prossh is the perfect home. The enchantment is expensive, and a bit risky—you skip
your draw phase—but a Prossh deck is exactly the sort of deck that can reliably trigger the
drawing of cards when one of your creatures is sacrificed. Just keep in mind that the card-
draw is mandatory, not optional—you’ll want to take care not to deck yourself
Budget-minded Starter Kit

You’ve got Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. Now what? Below is a good mix of cards to get
you started without setting you back too many dollar bills.
Mana Creatures Spells

Command Tower Anger Dragon Appeasement
Darksteel Ingot Bone Shredder Fatal Frenzy
Dragonskull Summit Brawn Fires of Yavimaya
Fellwar Stone Cadaver Imp Mass Mutiny
Golgari Rot Farm Cloudthresher Rancor
Gruul Turf Deadwood Treefolk Swiftfoot Boots
Kher Keep Kobold Taskmaster Vicious Shadows
Mana Geyser Molten Primordial Word of Seizing
Rakdos Carnarium Nullmage Shepherd
Rootbound Crag Reassembling Skeleton
sidebar
Rupture Spire Shriekmaw

Sakura-Tribe Elder Viscera Seer
Savage Lands Zealous Conscripts
Sol Ring
Vivid Crag
Vivid Grove
Vivid Marsh
Woodland Cemetery

SAmple decklist
Converted
land (39) 1 Converted Mana Cost 4 Converted Mana Cost
Badlands Basilisk Collar Anger Mana Cost
Bayou Berserk Bladewing’s Thrall
Blood Crypt Carpet of Flowers Brawn
Cavern of Souls Executioner’s Capsule Damnation 0-1cmc
Command Tower
Dragonskull Summit
Glaring Spotlight
Rancor
Greater Good
Helm of Possession 10
Exotic Orchard Slumbering Dragon Nullmage Shepherd
Fire-Lit Thicket Sol Ring Sarkhan Vol 2cmc
Vampiric Tutor Wolfbriar Elemental
2x Forest
Gaea’s Cradle Viscera Seer 12
Golgari Rot Farm 5 Converted Mana Cost
Graven Cairns
Gruul Turf
2 Converted Mana Cost Black Market 3cmc
Bloodghast
High Market
Jund Panorama
Demonic Tutor
Fauna Shaman
Eldrazi Monument
Mana Geyser
Mass Mutiny
10
Kher Keep Fellwar Stone Mycoloth
3x Mountain Kobold Taskmaster Shriekmaw 4cmc
Overgrown Tomb
Phyrexian Tower
Lightning Greaves
Nether Traitor
Word of Seizing
Zealous Conscripts
9
Rakdos Carnarium Reassembling Skeleton
Reflecting Pool
Rootbound Crag
Sakura-Tribe Elder
6 Converted Mana Cost 5cmc
Shivan Harvest
Rupture Spire
Savage Lands
Swiftfoot Boots
Sylvan Library
Cloudthresher
Deadwood Treefolk
8
Stomping Ground Dragon Appeasement
3x Swamp Dragon Broodmother 6cmc
Taiga
Thespian’s Stage Bloodhusk Ritualist
Bone Shredder
Massacre Wurm
Preyseizer Dragon 7
Twilight Mire Prossh Skyraider of Kher
Vesuva Cadaver Imp
Vivid Crag Darksteel Ingot 7cmc
Vivid Grove Eternal Witness
Fatal Frenzy
7 Converted Mana Cost 3
Vivid Marsh Anger
Woodland Cemetery Fires of Yavimaya Bladewing’s Thrall
Food Chain Brawn 8+cmc
Seal of Doom
Squee Goblin Nabob
8 Converted Mana Cost 2
Insurrection

Kozilek Butcher of Truth
land - 39

a greater good
mj scott
“A little lower.”
“There isn’t anywhere lower than this.”
“Lower and around the corner of my—ahhhh yes, there. You have some talent after
all, Planeswalker.”
“And you’re getting fat. It wouldn’t be so difficult if I could see where I was scratching.”
I moved my staff up and down and in a vaguely circular motion as Prossh, one of the
most feared dragon predators on Dominaria, twitched and sighed.
“Ah, ah, ah—Yes!” he exclaimed in a burst of steam, his left hind leg shaking
spasmodically.
“Enough. Time to go.” I grimaced and reverently laid my staff down against an
outcropping of rock.
“I am spectacularly unsatiated.”
“Then you can go find a willing kraken after the battle. Put your head down.”
The sound that came from Prossh’s throat was something between an earthquake and
a tsunami. My soul flinched, but outwardly I stood up straighter—as straight as could
be expected of a gimp.
“I harbor a vehement dislike for your tone.” Prossh swiveled an eye of liquid amber in
my direction. It fixed upon me with the force of a gale.
“Remember, it’s all for the greater good,” I said congenially, tracing the patterns of
Prossh’s most hated spell in the air. He flicked his tongue at me but acquiesced, his
head inching toward the ground until I could place the Helm atop his golden brow.
“It pinches,” he complained.
“You should try a corset,” I kicked his foreleg with my toe and he extended it reluctantly.
I carefully levitated a Greave above his left index knuckle. The artifact glowed softly,
stretching itself in width and length until it fit perfectly over the dragon’s finger like
the jewelry of Shivan priests. I repeated the process on the other side.
“These itch like the abyss!” he roared, flapping his wings until the fawning kobolds
around us started trilling in alarm. The sound reminded me of tiny Ravnican dogs
being stepped on. I closed my eyes to block out the memory of the city.
“At least you have all your legs,” I gritted, and Prossh immediately quieted. He grunted
as I tightened straps and adjusted, snapping hungrily every now and then at passing
kobolds. The carmine-hued creatures meandered and bumbled around us, muttering
to themselves. Finally, Prossh couldn’t help himself and his great jaws reached out and
snatched a particularly rotund kobold from existence. The draconic fangs crunched
down through kobold flesh and bone in a luxuriously wet sound I wish I’d never
heard. Prossh smacked and lolled his tongue in pleasure.
“Do you have to do that?”
“What, this?” Prossh belched.
“They’re sentient creatures. Couldn’t you get your kicks with a bit more respect?” I
gripped my robes in one hand and, with the grace of a drunk flamingo, managed
to grab my staff with the other. I thumped over to the precipice overlooking the
battlefield.
Prossh snorted. “They couldn’t hope for a more honorable end than to be eaten by a
dragon.”
And at that moment, we were besieged.
A stunningly beautiful blue mage was pulling spell after spell from the Aether, her
ivory skin and ebony hair shining in the lurid glow of the battlefield.
Would’ve liked to have known her at the Academy I thought to myself.
A flaming barrage hit us from the north, where I could see another Planeswalker, of
the red persuasion, setting loose a horde of goblins in our general direction. From the
southwest, a hulking beast approached, his shoulders mantled with the effervescence
of a myriad of enchantments.
“This is abominable,” Prossh snorted.
“Finally, we agree. I don’t know how we’re getting out of this one.” I shook my head,
wrapping my fingers around the cool, dark wood of my staff. Prossh jettisoned himself
into the air to do recon. I watched as he glided into the space of battle. No matter how
many times I saw him soar, my heart leaped just the same as if it was the first time.
Prossh engaged a mixed-color angel, then a sizable spider. The canyon shook with
bellows of rage and a cacophony of spells as one mage answered another. The beast
wearing the enchantments encroached upon our position one hairy, inevitable step at
a time. Prossh swooped down to munch kobolds between skirmishes. He swallowed
them barely chewed, and they didn’t even scream. I watched the great dragon actually
punch an angel in the face with a kobold arm that was sticking out of his teeth. The
angel shook her beaked lance at him and went back for reinforcements.
I leaned out over the rockface to get a better idea of the lay of the battlefield, hoping
to cast a spell that might buy us some time. The ground lifted and careened beneath
me, and far away I heard the strains of a fire-mage’s incantation. I slipped, my bad leg
going over the edge of the cliff. I felt the caressing whisper of the ravine below me,
and grabbed at the rocky ledge with my free hand. I couldn’t let go of my staff. I was
nothing without it.
“Festering fire-gorgers!” I swore, and scrabbled at the shale. My good foot found
purchase, but the strength of my hand failed me. My nails broke against the pebbles
and I fell, the hot air of the battlefield rushing up against my neck. I felt myself relaxing
back into nothing. Slow as a dream, my connection with the real world severed. I was
falling into anonymity, into endless sleep.
“Not yet.” A rumbling voice, like molten gold rushing over obstacles of obsidian,
broke into my consciousness. A whirlwind whistled around me as I slammed against
something solid, my spine screaming in agony.
“You,” I muttered, not sure if I was grateful or resentful. Sometimes at night I did wish
for a quick and painless death.
Prossh wheeled upward with me prone on his back, a limp parasite. His speed
outmatched the fumes and fire and we ascended to safety. I heard distant cursing
from other Planeswalkers and mages in my mind’s eye. Despite the pain in my body,
I smiled.
“You have it in you?” Prossh growled, twisting his golden neck back to look me in the
eye. My dark gaze met his of pyrite. I rolled over and grasped his flank-scales.
“Of course,” I smiled.
“Good. I need a little discipline,” he flicked his tongue.
We rose into the air.
I reached into the depths of my black robes and wrapped my fingers around the Ingot.
Its power seeped into my blood and I felt it as a wave of cold metal flowing under my
skin, a ferrous taste springing to the fore of my senses.
“Sacrificia koboldistae.”
The kobold entourage below us howled and writhed, their destruction a kind of
empathetic, religious epiphany. Prossh opened his great jaws and the foxfire souls of
the kobolds flowed into his gullet in a vaporous river. He closed his mouth and sighed
in pleasure. I felt his entire body convulse and expand beneath mine.
“Frenex Fatalia,” I scattered bits of vampire bone and imp wings across the sky. The
battlefield was a lavender and scarlet sunset beneath us, tendrils of blue-gray smoke
rose above the screams of the lost.
“I’ll be back,” Prossh grumbled, before he roared in pain and outrage. He tripled in
size, and I struggled to hold on to his scales. Screaming a bloody aria, he charged our
enemies. I clung to his back, flopping around like a corpse doll and cursing his name
with every other jarring bounce.
He smashed through the blue mage’s aerial defenses. I saw her, standing on water,
thinking herself immune to all forces. Her wall of spirits failed beneath Prossh’s
onslaught, and my rival Planeswalker fell to her doom in a nova of starlight.
Below me, the battle raged. The blue mage was vanquished, but the red mage and
many others—a Planeswalker that controlled etherium-enhanced sphinxes, the
enchantment-warded beast stalker, and a noxious lich lord, to name a few—were still
hard at it. The sun was low in the sky. The stars were out above us, diamonds stitched
into in a black velvet train. The horizon was red, running with blood. Staring at the
heavens, I lost my balance and pitched to the left. Unable to counterbalance myself, I
smacked the dragon’s hide with my palm.
“Prossh!” I shouted. The dragon twisted, and I found myself safely situated once more.
“I’d still like to get to know that lady in blue,” I yelled, to let him know I was alright.
“Wouldn’t you,” he shouted back, but I heard the strain in his voice. The Aether was
ripping away scale after scale as my spell began to extract its payment. I watched his
wings transform from indomitable arches to shredded pinions in less than a minute.
He screeched in agony as the Aether mercilessly tore away at his flesh. The gold of his
eyes fluttered away in droplets of ore, then his teeth and claws dissolved into ash. I felt
his presence dissipate as I was slammed back against the cliff. I lay there, too exhausted
to move. I was crippled, and alone.
I’d lost my leg on Ravnica. I’d walked there, for a meeting with someone named
“Liliana Vess.” It was a trap, of course—I’d been ambushed by undead and a number
of things she certainly didn’t have the power to conjure. She must have had an ally
much greater I told myself every night as I tried to fall asleep, trying to reconcile my
complete and utter loss and victimization. I would have been able to take her in a fair
fight I told myself.
My leg had been eaten by zombies. I watched them do it, while I scrambled through
the wreckage of my mind to find a spell that could save what was left of my existence.
I’d done it, but it didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like charity. Liliana had winked at me
as I walked away. What had she wanted with me in the first place? I wasn’t the type
of Planeswalker who went around meddling with worlds. I just wanted a normal life.
“There’s no normal life,” Prossh had said, when he found me lying in a gutter on
Shandalar. “I’m bored,” he’d said. “Sitting on treasure gives me hemorrhoids and I
have no fondness for torching castles nor kidnapping fair maidens.”
“You’re a dragon,” I’d said hoarsely. My hair had fallen out and I was covered in lice—
though to be fair, even the lice on Shandalar were things of wonder. “Look at me.” I
started to weep. Prossh turned his head sideways and belched. It was the worst thing
I’d ever smelled in life—or death. It brought me fully back to reality. I coughed and
struggled to crawl away from the stench.
“Okay. The truth is, I really just need someone to help me eat more kobolds.” Prossh
had said.
“I can do that.” That was three years ago.
“Again,” I whispered, and, clutching my staff, rose to my feet. I spoke my words of

magic. I disbursed the spell components into the Aether, and simultaneously said a
prayer I didn’t even know I knew.
“Sentimental,” Prossh said, materializing from the darkness. The army of kobolds that
appeared with him was massive. They shrugged at me in resigned pride, and I laughed.
“Gastronomical!” I replied, climbing onto Prossh’s back.
“Those last kobolds were a bit bland,” he said.
“Hey, I haven’t had axebane stag in weeks,” I retorted. “I need a roast! Look how
scrawny I am.” I held out my tunic to emphasize the bony profile of my twisted hips
and jutting ribs.
“True,” said Prossh, “You’re a real featherweight, even adjusting for your missing leg.
And I am getting fat. How about I rustle up a stag, then you engineer a spell for lean
but full-flavored kobolds?”
“I’ll think about it. After dinner.”
Above the fires of war, my dragon and I planned a sumptuous banquet.

Angelic Sunday
kaleb ragan - springfield, missouri
The day was a Sunday, much like any other. I had just moved into a new town to start
college at a new place, a fresh start. Of course, after getting unpacked, I trolled about
town to find a place to play. Lo and behold, MetaGames United was holding a Sunday
Commander tournament. So Kaalia of the Vast and her demented church of demon and
angel worshippers got to go to work.
Sitting down at the pod, I was staring down the barrel of Mikaeus, the Lunarch; Sen
Triplets; and Ghave, Guru of Spores. I kept a mediocre hand, and we began. A decent
first 2 turns turned to sadness for Kaalia as a Crucible of Worlds and Strip Mine from
Ghave kept me off my red sources past turn 6 or so.
Fast forward to roughly turn 27. God’s wrath had sundered the table, the plane had been
cleansed, even a rather merciless eviction reduced the field to cinders, forcing many an
empty board state.
Kaalia barely held on thanks to her Lightning Greaves and a scant 10 life points, forgotten
by the dueling giants around her. Ghave sat comfortably at 28 with his harlot Seedborn
Muse and a pair of flying vampire tokens, all truly committed to their cause. The Triplets
held Esper strong at 34, though they were taking a beating from Ghave. Mikaeus was
nowhere to be seen, costing roughly 12 mana at this point, and a mighty Seraph of the
Sword and Avacyn, Angel of Hope herself protected their struggling 18 life.
Ghave swung, thrashing the Triplets, tapped out from countering what was sure to be
a devastating Entreat the Angels from The Spore Guru. The Triplets lived, and as the
turn ended... a Path to Exile from Mikaeus targeted the Muse, and you could almost see
Avacyn’s smirk. Ghave and his tokens remained tapped.
My Kaalia untapped.
I drew, 3 cards now in hand, a scant 5 mana on board from that damnable Crucible/
Strip Mine. My draw? Torrent of Souls. My yard? Aurelia herself, begging to take the
fight. Cards in hand? Gisela of the Goldnight and a very sad Sheoldred, Whispering
One.
I cast Torrent using both black and red mana. Aurelia returns, burning from the grave.
I attack. Kaalia and Aurelia, now joined by Gisela, swing a mighty 34 power from
nowhere to send Ghave howling into the depths of nothingness. For the second attack,
the Triplets meet their fate at the end of heavenly swords and a very vengeful cleric.
Broken, battered and bruised, the 3 lay tapped as Avacyn and her lone seraph grant a
mercy kill to Kaalia, her anger spent, death’s embrace a cold bliss for the fiery priestess.

7
tariel, reckoner of souls
• CASTING TARIEL
• DEATH, NOT EXILE
• SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE
• FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Starter Kit
• SAMPLE DECKLIST
• fiction: life’s finale
the red/white/black color
combination offers a host
of interesting spells and
strategies.
The original Commander product gave us 3 red/white/black Legends to build
around: Tariel and Kaalia of the Vast were brand new; while Oros, the Avenger was a
reprint. Most of the time I see people sporting decks with Kaalia of the Vast as their
Commander. Tariel has a powerful combination of abilities if you build your deck to
fully take advantage of them, and since she’s not played often she shouldn’t raise too
much concern from your opponents until you’re ready to crush them!
CASTING TARIEL
At 7 mana Tariel is rather expensive, so you’re going to want to have a fair number of
cards to help you accelerate your mana. Sol Ring, Fellwar Stone, Darksteel Ingot and
Chromatic Lantern are all staples of Commander but are particularly helpful in decks
that can’t take advantage of green’s mana acceleration and fixing.
Since we’re using red and black mana for Tariel we can, as we did with Prossh last
chapter, make good use of the steady stream of black mana from Black Market, and
the burst of red mana available from a well-timed Mana Geyser. Both of these spells
will help ensure you get Tariel into play sooner rather than later.
DEATH, NOT EXILE

2 of the strongest removal spells ever printed are pretty much a given for any
Commander deck that can run white: Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile.
But Tariel wants juicy targets available in opponents’ graveyards, so when searching
for cards for this decklist we’ll want to focus more on destroy effects rather than
exile. Cards like Terminate, Dreadbore, Orzhov Charm, Hero’s Downfall, Mortify,
Slaughter and Fissure give you the instant-speed pinpoint removal you need to destroy
individual threats, and there are tons of mass-removal options in white and black such
as Wrath of God, Damnation, Rout and Life’s Finale.
Of course, once you’ve got graveyards loaded for plunder, sometimes you’ll need a
little luck on your side since Tariel’s reanimating ability is random rather than targeted.
Sometimes you’ll get a Seedborn Muse, and sometimes you’ll get a Bird of Paradise.
Tilt the scales in your favor by throwing in a couple of the Advocate cards from
Judgment, such as Spurnmage Advocate and Pulsemage Advocate, whose activated
abilities include returning cards from an opponent’s graveyard to their hand. That
way you can give them back their little, insignificant creatures while you reanimate
the huge, board-dominating bomb. The Advocates are also great political cards: you
can give an opponent a card back that’s needed to handle a mutual threat to you both.
88 tariel, reckoner of souls

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE
Between wanting to kill off opposing creatures for well-stocked graveyards, and getting
enough mana to cast your 7-mana Commander, a Tariel deck will benefit from a
slow and steady approach to winning the game. I envision that you will often win
games by reanimating some gigantic creature from your opponent’s graveyard—Lord
of Extinction springs to mind—so you’ll want to gain incremental card advantage and
card quality along the way. Some combination of Sensei’s Divining Top, Witches’
Eye, Journeyer’s Kite, Crystal Ball and Druidic Satchel should keep you hitting your
land drops while also searching up quality cards to let you respond to threats. A
healthy mix of life gain/life drain can help too, so consider Elixir of Immortality,
Moonlit Wake, Scholar of Athreos, Pontiff of Blight, Exsanguinate, Blind Obedience,
Treasury Thrull and Kokusho, the Evening Star.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A subtle strategy available in this color combination is the ability to control if creatures
attack or block. Master Warcraft is a star example of this, letting you jump in at instant
speed and determine which creatures attack that turn, as well as which creatures block
and how they block. This can be anything from an expensive Fog (“no creatures
attack”) to a total bloodbath as creatures of similar size go crashing into each other
and die. There’s even another spell that can help facilitate the dying of blocking and
blocked creatures—Fight to the Death.
Oracle en-Vec plays into some of this strategy quite nicely. Activate her ability and
you put a player on the spot—he or she has to decide right now, during your turn,
which creatures to attack with on that player’s turn. This can have the effect of forcing
them to skip their attack step altogether, or letting you know which creature you may
have to worry about. For maximum utility, pick the player to your immediate right,
so that you and everyone else gets a turn before that player’s turn. If you’ve got a way
to tap down a creature—say, Icy Manipulator—then you can really freeze out the
attack step.
There are a few great blockers like Abu Ja’far and Loyal Sentry that can keep attackers
away from you in the early game since no one is going to want to trade a large
creature for those small creatures. Later in the game you can use some of those
combat management cards, along with cards like Goblin Diplomats, Imp’s Taunt, and
Basandra, Battle Seraph to force opponents to either attack into your lethal chump
blockers or attack your opponents—a win-win!

You’ve got Tariel, Reckoner of Souls. Now what? Below is a good mix of cards to get
you started without having to sell your soul to the Orzhov Syndicate to fund your build.

Boros Garrison Abu Ja’far Crystal Ball
Clifftop Retreat Goblin Diplomats Druidic Satchel
Command Tower Loyal Sentry Elixir of Immortality
Darksteel Ingot Oracle en-Vec Executioner’s Capsule
Dragonskull Summit Oros, the Avenger Exsanguinate
Fellwar Stone Pontiff of Blight Fight to the Death
Isolated Chapel Pulsemage Advocate Grisly Spectacle
Mana Geyser Scholar of Athreos Icy Manipulator
Orzhov Basilica Selenia, Dark Angel Journeyer’s Kite
Rakdos Carnarium Spurnmage Advocate Life’s Finale
Rupture Spire Sunblast Angel Master Warcraft
Sol Ring Treasury Thrull Mortify
Vivid Crag Orzhov Charm
Vivid Marsh Retaliate
Vivid Meadow Slaughter
Swiftfoot Boots
Terminate
Witches’ Eye
sidebar

SAmple decklist
Converted
land (39) 0-1 Converted Mana Cost 4 Converted Mana Cost
Badlands Abu Ja’far Damnation Mana Cost
Blood Crypt Elixir of Immortality Erebos God of the Dead
Boros Garrison Executioner’s Capsule Grisly Spectacle
Cavern of Souls Loyal Sentry Icy Manipulator 0-1cmc
Clifftop Retreat
Command Tower
Maze of Ith
Sensei’s Divining Top
Master Warcraft
Proper Burial 11
Dragonskull Summit Skullclamp Retaliate
Exotic Orchard Sol Ring Slaughter 2cmc
Spurnmage Advocate Wrath of God
Fetid Heath
Godless Shrine Vampiric Tutor 14
Graven Cairns
Isolated Chapel
Witches’ Eye
Basandra Battle Seraph 3cmc
2x Mountain 2 Converted Mana Cost
Orzhov Basilica
6x Plains
Blind Obedience
Demonic Tutor
Beacon of Unrest
Black Market
Broken Visage
11
Plateau Dreadbore Fissure
Rakdos Carnarium Exsanguinate Mana Geyser 4cmc
Reflecting Pool
Rugged Prairie
Fellwar Stone
Fight to the Death
Rout
Selenia Dark Angel
9
Rupture Spire Goblin Diplomats
Sacred Foundry
Scrubland
Imps’ Taunt
Journeyer’s Kite
6x Swamp
Thespian’s Stage
Lightning Greaves
Oracle en-Vec
Kokusho the Evening Star
Life’s Finale
8
Vesuva Orzhov Charm Oros the Avenger
Vivid Crag Swiftfoot Boots Pontiff of Blight 6cmc
Vivid Marsh
Vivid Meadow
Terminate Sunblast Angel
Treasury Thrull 6
Chromatic Lantern 7 Converted Mana Cost
Crystal Ball
Darksteel Ingot
Tariel Reckoner of Souls
Teysa Envoy of Ghosts
2
Druidic Satchel
Hero’s Downfall
Moonlit Wake
Mortify
Orim’s Thunder
Pulsemage Advocate
Scholar of Athreos
Thousand-Year Elixir land - 39

Life’s Finale
a.e. marling
I had to kill my own commander. If a Planeswalker had ever experienced a greater

grief, I could not imagine it. Revulsion wracked outward from my belly as if I had
drunk zombie blood. Cold sweat stung my eyes, and my legs shook so under my robe
that I had to lean against a boulder on the bluff overlooking the battlefield.
My commander shone in the sky as a red star. Her black wings folded back as she falcon-
dived a dragon. Her great axe clove through the monster’s skull, and it plummeted in
shattered scales and a smoke of dying fury.
The dragon’s broodmate seized my commander. Feathers ripped from her angel wings,
but she did not cry out even as claws rent her crimson-plated armor. I felt each wound
on her as a stab of agony. She beat back the dragon then swooped to intercept a razor
gale of thopter constructs. A sphinx of living metal led them, an enigma of filigree that
circled lower to crush me.
The sphinx would have to hurry, or a legendary undead assassin would kill me first. He
had already slain my loyal sentry—the brave man’s scream had come from the base of
the bluff. I mourned to think of his end at the point of the assassin’s dagger poisoned
with distilled nightmares. Soon I would be overwhelmed.
As we had planned.
“Make them commit all their forces to the field,” Commander Tariel had said the
night previous. She stood in front of an arrow slit in our realm’s last-standing castle.
The moon glowed through the narrow window. “Then rout them with one spell.”
“And you’ll be here with the vanguard?” I asked.
“You’ll not go to the field unprotected.” The angel gripped my arm. The heat that
wafted into me was not what I would expect from a person, not like the warmth of
heart blood from the caress of my betrothed. This was the touch of a furnace.
“Abu Ja’far will protect me,” I said.
“The other commanders will not risk all unless I fight.” A red cloth wrapped over the
angel’s eyes. She yet seemed to stare at me.
The fire within her was making me feel lightheaded. “But what if I can’t summon
your spirit back?”
“Tell me, what is the only purity, the divine singularity?”
“Revenge?”
I thought of the land’s other angels hunted down by the legendary assassin of Grixis.
This monster, Thraximundar, had forced the noble kingdom of Bant to desperation.
People cowered in cathedrals, stained-glass windows pulsing with the firelight of
burning cities. Clerics abandoned their relics to form a cabal searching for stronger
allies. They had found one in Tariel.
“Victory,” she said. “And the will to do what none else can to achieve it.”
Once I gathered myself enough to speak in a steady voice, I said, “I’ll do it. If you’ll
answer me two things.”
“Tell me the first.”
“Why blindfold yourself?”
“Others see. I already know.”
“Then, why did you choose me?” I would not say it, but I had opposed Tariel’s return.
I would have smashed the statue of the exiled angel. I would’ve doomed my own lands
in my righteous pride. “I wasn’t the most faithful. Or the strongest. Why resurrect me
from all the realm’s fallen?”
“That I will answer after our victory tomorrow.”
The next day on the battlefield, I knew the spell I had to cast, but it sat on my tongue
like greasy ash. My throat locked around the incantation, my body rebelling against
the death magic. Too long had I trained as a sorcerer sworn only to protect, to heal. I
had kept my word to my last breath. Now I felt near death again.
Tariel called my name. Chains and bloodied ribbons swirled around the angel. She,
who had once sucked demon’s venom from a paladin, swallowing the death herself.
She, who had chased a dragon into a volcano and cut out its heart. She, whom the
Court of Orderly Contemplation had banished for her sacrileges. She, called back in
our hour of despair. She was Tariel, The Red Angel, Reckoner of Souls.
And I would not fail her.
I spoke the word of death. The sky thickened to tar, and I had to watch as Tariel sank
amongst our winged foes. The battlefield warped into a hellscape of rocky spines. The
land heaved and impaled the dragons, the sphinx, the zombie assassin, and my angel.
The rose-petal plates of her armor littered the battlefield. Her limbs fractured, and she
turned back into a statue. The red streak of her blindfold flitted through the clearing air.
I caught the cloth. I channeled my spirit’s desolation into the last stage of the spell.
All the choking anguish in me pierced the mind of a distant beast mage, and his three
greatest dragons perished before he could call them from their lairs, dying in their
slumber. Their billows-breath silenced.
My fingers clutched Tariel’s blindfold so tightly that my nails drew blood. I staggered
down into a land twisted by my magic into a nightmare. Pierced bodies loomed over
me in this battlefield thicket. I had a sense I’d never see another living thing.
The clatter of iron-shod hooves startled me, though I had made plans to meet the
castle vanguard. The knights rode on black-maned leotau. Their mounts growled in
hushed rumbles as we traveled beneath the impaled dead.
A Knight of the Skyward Eye trotted to my side. With a shock I saw she was my
betrothed. Once, I had recognized the green scrollwork of her armor among a thousand
knights, and now I had not so much as noticed her.
She peered around the corpse forest with glazed eyes. She touched her sigils of
distinction. “You died with honor, defending your realm from blasphemy. You came
back, but your honor stayed dead.”
I ground my teeth. If I had held to the quaint laws of my order, this battle would have
been lost, and Bant with it.
“She changed you,” my fiancée said.
Changed, I thought, yes, from death to life. The memory of my resurrection had seared
itself into my consciousness.
I had awoken sprawled amid dead friends and self-sacrificed cultists. Offerings of
blood splattered over the statue of the exiled angel. The hue of life spread over her
alabaster. Flocks of roosting blackbirds transformed into the feathers of her wings. The
wonder and terror of it all had ignited my Planeswalker spark.
I blinked away the vision and saw my betrothed.
“I have grown,” I said.
“She corrupted you.” My fiancée turned, and her leotau mount snapped its tail at me.
I disliked her lack of respect for Tariel. The Court had only banished the angel because
she outshone the rest. I had come to see that after fighting alongside her.
On the battlefield, a leotau paused to lap at dragon blood. The scaled beast had left
gouge marks on the spike that impaled it. A knight pulled on his mount’s reigns, and
by that time I was running. I had seen a red pauldron.
A trail of scattered armor led me to a wretched sight: a statue of an angel skewered.

Her limbs had broken at the shoulders and knees. These pieces I gathered, heavy
against my chest. The knights beat at the entrapping spike with mallet and chisel.
“Lever her down with the ropes,” I said, my throat caked with dust and sorrow.
“Slowly! Have a care, or by Tariel I swear I’ll barter your blood!”
We hefted the angel’s torso free. The rock had come to pieces within the breastplate,
and her wings had shattered. We gathered all the alabaster flesh we could find.
A knight shook his head. “You think you’re bringing her back from this?”
“She—said I could.” My voice cracked. I dreaded to think that Tariel had lied to me,
that she had knowingly doomed herself for our victory.
From a vial I sprinkled grains of wheat into her gauntlet.
“From the plains of Bant I summon thee.”
Power coursed through me of sunlit fields rippling with sea breeze. My heart thudded
with such force that my vision blurred. My shaking hands could not open the next
vial, so I shattered it and scattered the ashes in her breastplate’s rent.
“In the flames of our homes I bind thee.”
The heat of burning cities roared through me. My robes smoked as I channeled mana
from all the stone hearths of Bant, from all the forge fires, all the ruins of cinder.
“The Vindicator, quickly.” I motioned to the angel’s great axe.
Three knights dragged it to her side. I passed my hand over the notched edge. A relief
of pain, and a gout of blood fell onto the angel’s stone. I staunched the wound with
her blindfold.
“The blood of our fallen calls thee to victory.”
The dry and rotten taste of grave dirt filled my mouth. I harvested the corpse energy
of the realm’s cemeteries. Blackness leeched through my palms into the statue.
I finished the ritual with her name. “Breathe again, Tariel, Reckoner of Souls.”
Pieces of marble fit together. Metal in the breastplate turned molten and reformed.
The heat of furious purpose wafted from her.
It is working!
I held her blindfold over the whiteness of her stone eyes. Her alabaster was turning
to flesh, the change creeping up her neck. I knew I should tie her blindfold, but the
thought of seeing her eyes tantalized me. Would they be lava red from her passion? Glossy
like black pearl? Or the white of the blind?
I wanted to know, but I feared seeing this angel’s eyes might kill a mortal. Or anger
her. The two might come out to the same thing.
Tariel clamped her hands on my wrists. Her fingers felt like hot tongs as she took the
blindfold from me and secured it.
She said nothing. I did not know what to say, so I rubbed my eyes and motioned to
the knights. “The elixir. Now.”
“Drawn fresh from the urn, like you said, Planeswalker.”
I nodded, taking the corked pot. The Thousand-Year Elixir had come from the land of
giants, in a jug too heavy for even a leotau to carry. I pried out the stopper. The scent
was captivating, like a spring breeze on the brow of a man lost in a cavern.
“With your blessing, Tariel.” I tipped the elixir.
Her mouth opened. When it closed again, tendrils of steam leaked from the corners
of her lips.
I didn’t think she would take the hand I offered, but she did. She kneeled, grasped
her axe, and stood. When she waved Vindicator, two dragons came alive. They pried
themselves off spines of stone. Tariel pointed, and the mated pair of dragons flew to
flame the necromancers’ stronghold.
My once-betrothed was signing warding circles around her heart. Three more knights
dismounted to kneel to Tariel. I couldn’t keep from beaming. I even took a celebratory
nip from the elixir.
“You chose yourself,” Tariel said.
“What?”
“You asked why I resurrected you.” Black feathers swirled around her as wings
manifested. “Your soul would’ve haunted this realm, so intense was its desire for life,
for another chance to defend Bant. My spell sensed the purity of your need.”
Her words were a pain of relief. Tariel did not bring back souls against their will, as the
Court had accused her in charges of sacrilege.
“We have our victory. Bant will be rebuilt.” I lowered my voice. “And within a
generation, you’ll be exiled again. The men you saved will consider it the only
honorable thing to do.”
“It matters not. They’ll call me when their need is great.”
“That might not be for a century. I’ll be… ” I straightened my robes, reminding
myself that if I could speak words that shook the realm, I needn’t be afraid of saying
non-magical ones. “I thought I might travel to the plane of Innistrad. Some very
knowledgeable nobles there, I understand. The weather is no Alara, but if there was
need of you, would you answer the summons?”
“Only if you made them.”
Tariel sprang into the air. Her wings snapped open in two midnight sails. She beckoned,
and dragons lifted themselves from the ground and lumbered after her. To my eyes,
their fire was the second brightest thing in the sky.
Gaea’s Worms For the Win
allen rassekh - fair lawn, new jersey
I’m playing Karador, Ghost Chieftain and the Riku of Two Reflections player casts
Collective Voyage. Everyone pitches in with the join forces and we all go to get 12
basic lands except me, I get only 10. Why? I have Hermit Druid in play with Worm
Harvest in hand and I wanted to leave just 1 basic land in my deck and roll the
dice. On my turn I activate the Druid and mill 68 cards, then cast Worm Harvest
for 20 1/1 tokens. NICE! On my opponent’s turn he promptly drops a Bojuka Bog
obviously targeting me, leaving me with an empty graveyard and something like 20
cards left like my library. Everyone laughs, including me. To this day he has the record
for largest Bog at 68, but the story’s not over. The Riku player, deciding that it would
be hilarious to mill me out at this point then casts Minds Aglow, which everyone but
me chips in mana to draw cards somewhere in the high teens. I have only 3 cards left
in my library after I draw for the turn. I had originally decided I would just attack
the player who Bogged me with my 20 tokens for some old fashioned revenge before
I got milled, but as I look at my huge hand I begin to laugh uncontrollably. Everyone
gets nervous. I drop Mirror Entity... followed by Gaea’s Cradle. EPIC.

8
rafiq of the many
• “I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS CRAP!”
• CHANGELINGS
• FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Starter Kit
• SAMPLE DECKLIST
• fiction: quest for the holy relic
i’ve got a stash of artifacts
that i often use in
commander decks
or the occasional Modern tournament, but then I’ve also got a dusty old box of stuff
that doesn’t really call to my soul for play. I like to go through this box every once
in a while just to see if any of the cards get any new life from the latest cards that’ve
been printed. In this vein a cycle of 4 artifact creatures from Visions caught my eye
a couple years ago—Brass-Talon Chimera, Iron-Heart Chimera, Lead-Belly Chimera
and Tin-Wing Chimera. I remembered way back in the day thinking these creatures
were a cool concept, but never quite good enough for constructed tournament play. I
put together a casual Chimera deck, but once I started playing Commander—where
you can only have 1 copy of a card—they didn’t seem worth messing around with.
When I ran across the Chimeras more recently the last time I rifled through the musty
artifacts box, I thought of Runed Stalactite, and it occurred to me that card might be
nifty to turn my Commander into a Chimera and then be able to put those funky
Chimera counters on him. I mean, it’s not a devastating combo or anything, but
rather it’s just strange, cool, and likely something that no one at your table may have
seen before. Blazing uncharted Magic territory is one of the finer joys of Commander,
so I set those 5 cards aside waiting for a deck idea to drop them into.
Then Theros came out and we suddenly had a few more Chimeras to work with and I
knew it was time to make my move. So now the question was—which Commander
should I pick? Since Runed Stalactite was important, I figured I’d want white in
the deck to make use of white’s equipment searching: Quest for the Holy Relic,
Steelshaper’s Gift, Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant. I’d want to use green
to help search out the 4 Chimeras with cards like Fauna Shaman and Survival of the
Fittest. I might even want to dabble in blue for a few cards that can give creatures all
types like Amoeboid Changeling, along with a few buyback spells like Whispers of the
Muse and Mystic Speculation to work nicely with Prescient Chimera.
“I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS CRAP!”

So I knew I probably wanted a Bant (green/white/blue) Legend for my Commander,
but which? After scanning the list, I knew I had my man—Rafiq of the Many! Now,
Rafiq is a pretty popular Commander because he’s a powerful Legend, relatively cheap
to cast and can have a pretty dramatic impact on the board. People will typically build
him with a bunch of “good stuff” cards in Bant colors or they’ll use him in a Voltron-
style deck, boosting Rafiq with equipment or Auras until the Commander damage he
can potentially inflict reaches lethal levels. This all fits in with the flavor of Rafiq as a
military commander; I can imagine him being no-nonsense and matter of fact. What
you see is what you get.
So how much fun would it be to pick that sort of guy for the kind of crazy Chimera-
themed shenanigans I had in mind? “Commander Rafiq… I have a very unique mission
for you…” I can just imagine the look on a hard-nosed soldier’s face when you explain
to him the crazy crap you want him to do.
100 rafiq of the many

CHANGELINGS
In the Bant colors, Theros brings us Coastline Chimera, Horizon Chimera and Prescient
Chimera for some backup for Chimera shenanigans if we can’t get the cards we need
to turn Rafiq into a Chimera. The same block that brought us Runed Stalactite also
brings us some nice Changelings that can also stand in as actual Chimeras—in Bant
we can recruit Amoeboid Changeling, Shapesharer, Mirror Entity, and Chameleon
Colossus to the cause. In fact, the thought of tossing Chimera counters on Chameleon
Colossus and his ability to double his power and toughness is rather exciting!
Now, if we’re messing around with Changelings and setting up Rafiq to gain all creature
types, might we want to give him some other Tribal goodies as well? Call me twisted,
but I started thinking about tossing slivers into the mix—Manaweft Sliver for mana-
fixing, Shadow Sliver to give them Shadow and make them practically unblockable,
Harmonic Sliver to blow up artifacts and enchantments, Telekinetic Sliver to tap
down stuff, Brood Sliver for creature tokens, and Synapse Sliver for card drawing.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT

While I was searching for some interesting buyback spells in the Bant colors, I ran
across Verdant Touch. Animating lands is sometimes nice to use defensively against
players who like to play a lot of creature-sweepers—animate several of their lands and
if they try to sweep the board they’re going to lose some of their lands. But thinking
about animating lands and the fact that I could then give that land any creature type
reminded me of an interesting and weird combo from way back involving Griffin
Canyon. This little-seen gem from Visions taps to untap target Griffin and gives it
+1/+1, so if you animate Griffin Canyon, equip it with Runed Stalactite, you can
tap it to untap it and give it +1/+1. Repeat, oh I don’t know, maybe 1,000,000
times, then sacrifice Lead-Belly Chimera to give it +2/+2 and trample and swing in
to crush whoever at the table has the most life. The more I thought about this, the
more I wanted this fun little combo to happen, so I’d include cards like Knight of the
Reliquary to search up Griffin Canyon, and cards like Spike Tiller and Kamahl, Fist
of Krosa to animate it.
Scarecrone is a fun card to use with Changelings, since if any of them are doomed to
die anyway you can sacrifice them to draw a card. Scarecrone is particularly awesome
in this deck though because your plan is to find the artifact Chimeras and sacrifice
them, and Scarecrone has the ability to bring artifact creatures from your graveyard
and put them back into play for more shenanigans.

You’ve got Rafiq of the Many. Now what? Below is a good mix of cards to get you
started without dishonoring yourself by pawning sigils to buy your deck.

Command Tower Amoeboid Changeling Finest Hour
Darksteel Ingot Brass-Talon Chimera Nim Deathmantle
Fellwar Stone Chameleon Colossus Quest for the Holy Relic
Griffin Canyon Coastline Chimera Runed Stalactite
Rupture Spire Deadwood Treefolk Verdant Touch
Scuttlemutt Horizon Chimera Whispers of the Muse
Sol Ring Iron-Heart Chimera
Thespian’s Stage Lead-Belly Chimera
Vivid Creek Prescient Chimera
Vivid Grove Shadow Sliver
Vivid Meadow Shapesharer
Spike Tiller
Stonehewer Giant
Sylvan Primordial
Telekinetic Sliver
Tin-Wing Chimera
sidebar

SAmple decklist
Converted
land (39) 1 Converted Mana Cost 4 Converted Mana Cost
Azorius Chancery Mystic Speculation Brass-Talon Chimera Mana Cost
Breeding Pool Noble Hierarch Chameleon Colossus
Command Tower Quest for the Holy Relic Coastline Chimera
Exotic Orchard Runed Stalactite Horizon Chimera 0-1cmc
Flooded Grove
4x Forest
Sensei’s Divining Top
Skullclamp
Iron-Heart Chimera
Lead-Belly Chimera 9
Glacial Fortress Sol Ring Rafiq of the Many
Griffin Canyon Steelshaper’s Gift Sublime Archangel 2cmc
Whispers of the Muse Telekinetic Sliver
Hallowed Fountain
Hinterland Harbor Tin-Wing Chimera 13
Inkmoth Nexus 2 Converted Mana Cost
3x Island
Mutavault
Amoeboid Changeling 5 Converted Mana Cost 3cmc
Bloom Tender Brood Sliver
Mystic Gate
4x Plains
Fauna Shaman
Fellwar Stone
Cauldron of Souls
Eldrazi Monument
11
Reflecting Pool Manaweft Sliver Finest Hour
Rupture Spire Nim Deathmantle Prescient Chimera 4cmc
Savannah
Seaside Citadel
Qasali Pridemage
Saffi Eriksdotter
Spike Tiller
Stonehewer Giant 10
Selesnya Sanctuary Shapesharer Synapse Sliver
Simic Growth Chamber
Sunpetal Grove
Spellskite 5cmc
Temple Garden
Stoneforge Mystic
Sylvan Library 6 Converted Mana Cost 8
Thespian’s Stage Verdant Touch Adarkar Valkyrie
Tropical Island Deadwood Treefolk
Tundra Experiment Kraj 6cmc
Vesuva
Vivid Creek Darksteel Ingot
Dauntless Escort
Kamahl Fist of Krosa
Sun Titan 5
Vivid Grove
Vivid Meadow
Wooded Bastion
Eternal Witness
Giltspire Avenger
Harmonic Sliver
Knight of the Reliquary
Angel of Serenity
Avenger of Zendikar 3
Sylvan Primordial
Mimic Vat
Mirror Entity 8cmc
Scarecrone 8 Converted Mana Cost
2
Scuttlemutt Terastodon
Shadow Sliver Woodfall Primus
land - 39

Quest for the Holy Relic
ant tessitore
“Planeswalker! Why must you insist on summoning me into situations like this?”
“Nice to see you too,” I said. “You know, most people would appreciate the
opportunity to visit other planes as you have.”
“Most people would not appreciate being summoned into near death experiences to
serve as your meat shield!”
“You’re not just a meat shiel—”
I ducked under Rafiq’s broadsword as he sliced one of my alien pursuers in two, then
smashed another’s skull to a pulp with the hilt of his blade.
“We need to get out of here!” he shouted.
“I need to concentrate,” I replied. “Stall them.”
“I shouldn’t be on this plane. Damn talon-worms… ” Rafiq complained, swinging

his blade back and forth in great arcs in front of us, keeping the swarm at bay.
“There are too many!”
The brief pause in their attacks was long enough for my spell to complete. I grabbed
hold of Rafiq’s armor as the Blind Eternities pulled us from Shandalar.
...
Rafiq landed in a huff. “Where have you taken us, Planeswalker? This is not Bant.”
“Dominaria. I thought while I had you with me you could help with something. I
promise it will be worth your while… ”
“I no longer require items of monetary value.” replied Rafiq. “As the most sigiled
knight on Bant, I seek a more spiritual growth.”
“Exactly why I thought you might be interested. I’m here for a holy relic.”
Rafiq looked up. “Holy relic eh? That’s more in line with my agenda. Be quick
about it Planeswalker, the air here is too acidic for my taste.”
We came to the opening of a small cavern. The walls of the cave were coated with a
hardened saliva mixture that reflected the light as if it were still wet.
“What place is this?” asked Rafiq.
“An abandoned hive.”
“Not those wretched talon-worms you love so much… I thought we were looking
for a holy relic.” said Rafiq.
“A source has informed me the relic is buried somewhere inside.”
Suddenly I felt an impact at the back of my skull. My teeth slammed together with
such force they split through my bottom lip. The world spun, and I fell.
“Planeswalker!” Rafiq was yelling over me. “Planeswalker get up! We are under
attack. One of your kind!”
As I came to I could make out a small woman in the base of the valley. She was
dressed in a playful array of hooks and chains, the visible parts of her skin covered
in tattoos. The woman had brought with her a man I recognized as Kaervek the
Merciless, a voodoo mage from Dominaria’s past. She was reaching for a sheath at
her side when there was a flash of green light and a hooded Planeswalker appeared
flanked by a large oozing monstrosity.
“Rafiq, prepare yourself.”
“I am Rafiq of the Many,” he stated. “I am always ready.”
The pierced and tattooed mage moved her hands through a quick pass of arcane
symbols. She reached back and hurled a fist-sized ball of fire toward the newly
arrived Planeswalker. The ball of flames reached its destination and rapidly
expanded, leaving his ooze pet in a pile of black ashes.
The owner of the ash pile responded with magic of his own. He slammed his palm
into the ground and vegetation rapidly grew around him until he was immersed in
a deep tropical jungle. An elemental composed of thick thorny vines burst from the
freshly formed trees with impossible speed. It broke the ground as it tore toward
Kaervek, slamming into his chest and ripping him to ribbons. As quickly as it
appeared the elemental returned to its owner and collapsed in a heap of plant matter
at his feet.
“You better have something good for me.” Rafiq said as he watched the two
Planeswalkers destroy each other’s summonings. “I’d rather not end up like that.”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan”

“Talon-worms… again,” complained Rafiq as he saw my summonings complete.
A pair of plated slivers manifested at my side, each one granting the other added
defense.
“Just watch.”
I summoned two new species I had bonded with on Shandalar.
“This one is a predator on its plane. See how it warps the other two into deadly
attack forms? And this one can supply the hive with mana.”
“They are so scrawny… please tell me they are not the only reason we were almost
killed earlier,” moaned Rafiq.
“Quit whining and equip the runed stalactite I gave you so you can assume their
form and gain their strengths.”
“Absolutely not. You know how I feel about that thing,” Rafiq replied, tossing the
stalactite at my feet before running toward the battlefield. “I fight with honor.”
There was a great crash from within the summoned jungle. An imperiosaur—a
gigantic lizard with jaws that could chomp a man in two—erupted in a headlong
charge, its eyes locked on Rafiq.
Never have I seen a man run so quickly.
The monster at his heels, Rafiq tore back across the valley toward where I was
making my stand.
“Throw me the stalactite!” he yelled.
“What happened to fighting with hono—”
The imperiosaur bit a chunk of fabric off Rafiq’s battle tabard.
“THROW IT!”
The instant Rafiq caught the stalactite he gained the form and strength of my slivers.
He turned and met the charging imperiosaur with a flurry of talon strikes, reducing
the creature to a bloody pile of flesh.
The female Planeswalker was cackling with nihilistic glee as she watched the battle
unfold. She had summoned a massive stairwell of tombstones descending into the
underworld. Undead began slowly rising out of the pit.
“That cannot be good,” observed Rafiq upon returning to my side. “How do we

deal with the zombie hoard?” I could not help but wince at his appearance and the
clicking sound in his voice.
I summoned a sliver with a swollen, massive brain.
“This sliver will allow the hive to gain a telepathic power they can use to stun the
enemy and allow you to attack unimpeded,” I explained to Rafiq as my army’s heads
began to swell accordingly.
“And if the power has no effect on the mindless undead?” he asked.
I called forth a sliver capable of slipping into the realm of shadow.
“This should do nicely.”
At that moment, the hooded green Planeswalker emerged from his summoned forest
and called forth a large shifting mass.
“What in Alara is that?” asked Rafiq as he stood, mouth gaping.
“A changeling colossus. It will gain some benefit from my slivers. This is not good.”
The colossus stomped toward the female Planeswalker, its form continuously
undulating, doubling and quadrupling in size.
The woman, laughing, reached into her sheath and pulled out a silver scepter. With
a flourish she pointed the scepter at the charging monstrosity and uttered a single
word of power. A bolt of force erupted from the scepter and slammed into the
colossus, boring a gaping hole straight through its chest.
“Planeswalker—!” Rafiq turned to me.
The scepter wielding mad-woman had turned and leveled her weapon in our
direction.
“I know!” I quickly summoned a sliver that released a harmonic chatter, causing the
scepter to disintegrate in the red Planeswalker’s hand.
Furious, the woman summoned a large demon to her side, its scaled body covered in
glowing demonic runes. The demon crouched beside her and whispered into her ear
before flying off and driving its clawed hand through the green Planeswalker’s gut.
The demon circled around and landed beside the woman, licking the entrails from
its menacing talons.
“This isn’t good, Planeswalker. Bring out your lead belly and let us finish this,” Rafiq
said.
“You will need more than that.”

I summoned not only the chimera, but a suit of darksteel plate around Rafiq.
“That armor will make you nearly invulnerable.”
“I like the sound of that,” he replied as he ripped the horns from the chimera and
magically bonded them to his helm.
“One more thing… ”
I reached out into the Eternities, thinking back to the final bond I had made while
on Shandalar.
As the monstrous sliver answered my call, my summonings began to shudder. A

sickening sound of popping cartilage filled the air as my summonings grew threefold
in size and strength.
“What power… ” rumbled Rafiq as he looked down at my now-tiny figure.
My opponent seemed indifferent as she watched my army grow to the size of giants.
She glanced at her demon and smiled, before casting the spell he’d granted her upon
his arrival to the plane.
The sun became a pitch-black spot in the center of the sky. A ghoulish screeching
sound began to rip through the valley. The sun had become a hole, sucking up all
life until the entire battlefield save myself, the woman, and Rafiq, remained.
For the first time, I saw the woman frown.
She cursed to herself, then cast a spell which caused the earth to split apart. The
indestructible armor along with the stalactite Rafiq was holding were stripped away
and pulled into the chasm. The woman summoned Kaervek back to her side, and
with a final flourish placed a curse on Rafiq that drained him of his strength.
“What now,” he wheezed. “I am of no use to you like this.”
“I need to think. Any spell I cast will harm me as long as she has Kaervek to work
his voodoo magic.”
Suddenly Rafiq’s eyes went red with magical rage. He looked up at the woman,
roared, and bounded straight toward her.
“Rafiq?!”
“Save. Yourself… ” he managed to reply as he closed in on Kaervek.

I had one choice. As the woman licked her lips, planning to allow her minion to
destroy Rafiq, I took what remaining mana I had and cast a spell that would grant
Rafiq the strength he needed to survive the battle. Kaervek’s magics took effect, and
the flesh burned from my body as I forced the spell to completion before my world
went black.
...
“Planeswalker… you, mage!”
I came to with Rafiq looking down at me.
“You’re not half bad,” he said, smiling. “With the last spell you cast I was able to
make short work of them.”
I winced as I sat up, aching everywhere I should have had flesh.
“I hope that holy relic is worth all this,” Rafiq said as he helped me to my feet.
“It will take more than blisters to keep me from the Hivestone,” I murmured.
Rafiq punched me in the face.
“Hivestone?! You mean this ‘holy object’ is just some worm-talon relic?” he fumed,
standing over me a second time. “I did not sign up for this!”
I could not help but laugh… harder than I had in a long while.
Burn the Page
joe strickland - leavenworth, kansas
In a long lonesome comic shop east of Omaha, you can hear the sounds of laughter as
they’ve hit the final straw. Teferi followed by Knowledge Pool has locked you out till
dawn. So you saunter home and wonder, what’s a Red Mage to do? The game has lost
its luster, since everyone plays blue. So with questions and rage burning you go home
and start to brew.
Here I am, in a game again

Here I am, slinging burn
Here I am, I’m out of cards again
There I go, turn the page.
Well you walk into the store again pull a box out colored gold, and you feel the eyes
upon you when your Commander isn’t gold. You pretend it doesn’t bother you, but
you just want to explode.
Most times you can’t burn them out, other times you can, as your Hellkite Tyrant
steals you some artifact lands. After a Sire of Insanity lands, you’re left without a hand.
But with Howling Mine and Font of Mythos in play, it’s time to make your stand.
Draw 2 cards, with a Kiki-Jiki in play

The Tyrant’s there, with 13 lands
And a Gauntlet of Power on red
Time to make ’em, turn the page
The draws are Blasphemous Act Zealous Conscripts and Reiterate, the Tyrant sees a
board of juicy artifacts on his plate, but with a fateful swing, he seals the table’s fate.
Swing with the Tyrant grab a Stuffy Doll

Rings of Brighthearth, and a Strionic Resonator, cast
Zealous Conscripts untap a land,
use Kiki-Jiki with Rings and Resonator to make 2 more Stuffy Dolls 1 for each opponent,
then Reiterate Blasphemous Act 3 times dealing 39 damage to the board before simply
tapping the dolls to end the game.

9
conclusion
• concluding thoughts
• vision for the future
• fiction: door of destinies
there’s a lot to be
said for competitive magic:
the gathering.
There’s a lot to be said for competitive Magic: the Gathering. Human beings get
a thrill from competing, and Magic offers us something particularly enticing—the
ability to walk into a tournament with a deck unlike what anyone else is playing and
winning with your creation. Mastering the rules, figuring out the best cards to play,
and then matching your skill and talent against others who’ve done the same thing
can be a ton of fun whether you win or lose (though winning is naturally a bit more
fun). I’d recommend everyone give tournament Magic a try, whether it’s Friday Night
Magic at your local game shop, a Pro Tour Qualifier, or a Grand Prix. It’s a fantastic
part of the Magic experience.
But if you’ve never played Commander before, I’ll let you in on a little secret:
More than any other format, Commander gives you the ability to experience the
full spectrum of the Magic: The Gathering experience.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at a Magic card. If you’re looking at this card with a
tournament-player’s eye, what’s important? The rules text, power and toughness if
it’s a creature, the mechanics of the card—how efficient and powerful is this card in
relation to its casting cost? The mana cost better not be too much even if the effect is
efficient or powerful. And most importantly—will this card enable me to win a game
of Magic before my opponent has a chance to?
Now take a look at the same card but think about everything you overlooked. Take
a look at that fantastic artwork—what story is that telling you? What about the card
name, what’s the story behind that? Is there flavor text that’s giving you a chuckle or
giving you a clue about the overall themes of the Magic set? If it’s a creature, what’s
its type? Does that make the card compelling, strange or funny? Why was this card
made into that particular creature? Take a look at the power and toughness ratio, what
does that say about the flavor of the card? If the casting cost is too expensive to be
considered for tournament play, why was it costed that high? If it’s a gold card, how
do the elements of each color play out in the overall design of the card?
In Commander, you can tap into and enjoy all of these elements while you play a
game, sharing some amusement or irony with your friends around the table. Maybe
it’s a Bird of Paradise picking up a Sword of Fire and Ice and smacking someone in the
head with it. Maybe it’s the laughter when you realize how well the art fits with the
mechanics of a card like Elephant Ambush. Maybe some small story within the card
inspires you to build an entire deck around it—recently a friend came up to me and
showed me his “Ladies Looking Left” Commander deck, which only contained cards
that featured a female character turned to the left.
Magic is a fantastic, endlessly complex strategy game, that rewards skill and dedication
to improving your play. But the ever-changing team of smart, creative and dedicated
Wizards of the Coast employees has invested countless hours infusing so much more
into Magic than just the mechanics of gameplay.
112 conclusion
Over on TheOatmeal.com, there was a great comic strip called Why the mantis shrimp
is my new favorite animal. It starts off with reason #1, saying:
“Our eyes contain millions of light sensitive cells, called rods and cones. Rods
enable us to see light and motion. Cones enable us to see color.
...
“Humans have three types of color-receptive cones: green, blue & red. Our
additional red cone enables us to see not only red, but all the colors that are
derived from red (orange and purple).
...
“The mantis shrimp lives in warm, shallow water, and typically grows to be
between 6-12 inches (15-30 cm) in length. And this marvelous creature has
not two, not three, not five… but SIXTEEN color-receptive cones.
“The rainbow we see stems from just three colors, so try to imagine a mantis
shrimp’s rainbow created from sixteen colors. Where we see a rainbow, the
mantis shrimp sees a THERMONUCLEAR BOMB of light and beauty.”
If all you do is play competitive Magic, you’re getting a beautiful rainbow of Magic
experiences. When you play Commander, you get the chance to experience a
thermonuclear bomb of game play and creative flavor. Why wouldn’t you want that
from your game?
VISION FOR THE FUTURE

I hope you’ve found this book as enjoyable to read as it was to write. My goal is that it
inspires you to discover your own epic story ideas within your Magic card collection,
and help launch a cavalcade of fun and great memories around your game table. But
as you finish this book you must realize that the journey of discovery doesn’t end here.
There are areas of multiplayer Magic in general and Commander in particular there for
us to explore deeper and more thoroughly. The Complete Commander: An Unofficial
Guide is a tool to start you on your journey. If you go out on the internet and search you
can find endless articles by people writing about Commander, providing a wonderful
resource for ideas and food for thought. But I want this book series to be more than just
a primer for beginners; I want it to be a living document, constantly evolving as new
cards are printed and released. I want there to be new editions, perhaps concentrating
on multiplayer politics or other advanced strategies. I’d love to see more Commander
fiction, and more tales of epic plays around local Commander tables. With the passion
and creativity of the Magic community, I know we can summon some awesome
thermonuclear rainbows together.
113 conclusion
Door of Destinies
natahlia lysse zaring
Twisting branches arched overhead as we moved deeper into the forest. My bones
ached as I followed the rattling scarecrow, but I didn’t know if it was something about
this plane, or just the signs of age starting to show. As we walked, I tried to discern
any markings of our path... but the grim woods remained faceless, unmutable. I
wondered at this strange figure I had chosen as commander of my forces. I had been
told he was a king, but I saw no signs of leadership. He took no orders, but also gave
none. At least he was finally leading me to the Door—I hoped.
The trees were growing taller and the light, dimmer. We walked in silence. I had
never heard him speak a word, and he seemed to ignore mine, even those that weren’t
commands. If I were a different sort of Planeswalker, I would have punished him for
impertinence, but I had talked more than enough with that blasted dragon, to the
point that silence was a welcome pleasure. Like everything—including that dragon—
the scarecrow was a means to an end.
Suddenly, I could feel the pulse of mana ahead of us, stronger somehow than the
disgusting natural power that permeated the woods. Grimacing, I pulled energy from
the forest and used it to search my memory for a less repulsive manabond. I found
the badlands of my youth, and reveled in the comfort of the familiar hills and deadly
mires. I had no recollection of what had come before the waste, but the dragon had
more than compensated for my memory gaps by filling them in with how they had
left me there to die. Superstition had driven them, and I had long ago repaid that debt
with their blood. But I had never found her.
The scarecrow stopped moving, the pulsing mana inches from his face. Did he simply
know where it was, or could he sense it like I could? Frowning, I stepped past him,
trailing my fingers across his arm. I had thought him made out of wood, but it felt like
bone under my touch. What kind of person would create such a thing? I marveled at the
craftsmanship. While I might have been able to tame him without green or white mana,
they were a part of his mystery, and I wanted to know what he was; I wanted to use him.
Stepping up to the stand within the glow of the formless mana, I recited the words the
dragon had told me:
Golden sun, in the sky
tears that rain from my eyes
dark as death, creaking bone
fire writhing in soul’s home
branches scarring autumn’s air
show me what is hidden there
Soft, golden light began to emanate around us, and reality seemed to melt away. The
trees shied back from the light, hissing as it touched them—Shadowmoor was no
place for sunlight. Gobs of reality pooled on the ground at my feet. As the light
touched them, they hissed, much like the trees, evaporating into the air. The world
seemed to vibrate, groaning with the weight of peeling back the shadows. And then
it was over. Standing in front of me, doused in sourceless sunlight, was the Door. No
amount of magic could destroy it, not entirely. The dragon had said it was a fixture of
the multiverse. One step through, and it would bring me to my destiny. One more
step and it would bring me to her.
I had a brief thought of leaving my scarecrow behind, of carrying on this mission
alone, but then I saw them. Moving through the woods around us, they entered the
clearing with rattles and shakes and creaks and scratches. Some were shaped almost
like people, with arms and legs in roughly the right places. Others had scythes for
arms, or five legs, or no head. They formed no rank or file, but I knew they were my
army, a silent brigade that didn’t need a grand speech or a call to arms.
Grabbing the latch, I pulled it open, revealing a blinding light. Eyes closed against
the brilliance, I stepped forward, leading the charge into the unknown. I felt a slight
tingle, and then I was through.
Opening my eyes, I had to squint against the sunlight. I was in a courtyard, surrounded
by walls of pale stone. The sun shined through an open ceiling. Shading my eyes
with my hand, I turned to look at the low table in front of me and the diners kneeling
beside it on top of lavish pillows. Each of them had paused in their meal, many of
them with food halfway to their mouth. But I had eyes only for her.
She was seated at the far end of the room, but her face was unmistakable. It was my
face, the same eyes and nose I saw in every reflection. She wore her hair differently,
pulled back and wrapped with some kind of cord. The same braided rope was twined
along her right arm, and she had a loose piece of cloth wrapped around her torso. Her
shoulders were bare, and, as she stood to confront me, I saw that her skirt had slits in
both sides, though it hung down to her ankles. Her sandals laced halfway up her leg,
and I had to pause a moment, staring at her.
She was nothing like what I had expected.
“Who are you?” she asked, hands moving to her hips.
Before I could even think of answering, the people at the table gasped as the Reaper
King appeared beside me. Even my twin had to steel herself against his visage.
Everyone was frozen in wonder or fear as the next scarecrow arrived. It clambered
forward on three unsteady legs, but my commander’s destruction moved faster. The
air shimmered between him and the table. A woman’s skin began to grow red and
then crack, radiant light exploding from her body, showering the table in a macabre
rain of skin and guts.
The people then began to move, screaming and running in terror. But not her. More
scarecrows appeared, and with each one the Reaper King sent out a surge of destructive
magic. But still she didn’t move. We had the same face, but I couldn’t tell what was
going on behind her eyes, so stoic and calm. Did she have some secret spell she
was saving, seeking to bluff her way into victory? Or perhaps she’d already cast her
trump, hiding it in the room around us. A basket-handed scarecrow approached her,
snagging her in its basket and launching her against the far wall. She hit with a thud
and slid down, landing in a heap at its base. Slowly she picked herself up, using the
wall for support. She lowered her eyes at me defiantly, straightening her back. Behind
her, there was blood smeared across the wall.
I readied up a ghostway spell and cast it. There was no sense in overcommitting.
My army slowly faded into mist as they moved, leaving only echoes of their actions
behind. I made my way toward my twin around the outside of the room, skirting
the columns, never looking at her for more than a second. I was going to enjoy this.
Her eyes followed me as I stalked, perhaps watching for the right moment to strike.
“You’re not going to break me, you know,” she said.
I closed the distance between us, putting my nose on level with hers, our eyes—the
same eyes—staring into each other.
“They never told you, did they? About the little girl they left to die?” I could see
in her eyes that they hadn’t. “The wilderness taught me anger as the world tried to
kill me.” I pulled out my knife, a ritual blade I’d lifted off a Rakdos bloodwitch’s
corpse. Drawing it along my cheek, I cut myself, letting the blood pool onto the
blade. Moving it to my mouth, I stroked it with my tongue, licking off some of the
blood. To her credit, she barely flinched.
“The cities taught me hatred as the people showed me their fear.” Grabbing her hair
with my free hand, I twisted my fingers into her bun, pulling back her head. She
didn’t resist. Smiling, I drew the flat of the knife across her neck, leaving a trail of
blood behind in a gruesome mockery of slitting her throat. “The dragon taught me
vengeance, as he told me of the life I was robbed.”
She closed her eyes and raised up her arms to cast. I knew this had to be her last,
desperate attempt to stop me, so I moved quickly, plunging my knife into her chest
and twisting it about for good measure. But she kept moving, and her arms wrapped
around me in an embrace. I’ll never understand where she got the strength, not after
I had pierced her heart, but she squeezed my shoulders tightly. As she slid down my
body, collapsing to the floor, she whispered, “I forgive you. May the gods have mercy.”
I was stunned. Forgiveness? I didn’t want forgiveness! Screaming, I ended the

ghostway, bringing back my army. Destruction flew around me from the Reaper
King, decimating the building that surrounded us, and scorching the pasture outside.
In the center of it all, I crouched over my dead sister’s body. Bolas had lied to me. Her
spark had never awakened. Perhaps she’d never even had a spark. I was supposed to
take her power; this was supposed to make me strong! I wasn’t supposed to be forgiven.
And then I felt something familiar and foreign, at once comforting and alien, like a
lost memory flirting with the breeze. The wind swept around me, carrying scents I
thought I’d never smell again, and for the first time since arriving, I let myself get lost
in the majesty surrounding me. I felt hills, red with passion—not the passion of anger,
but of freedom. I felt life, felt order and chaos combining, felt nature flourishing
under a guided hand. I saw what Bolas could never see, what that dragon, for all his
knowledge, could never know. Each color was connected, was equal. Combining
them, using them together, that was what would make me strong.
I looked at the scarecrow lord and suddenly I understood. He was all colors and
none. He was something that transcended everything that Bolas had ever taught
me. Smiling a dark smile, I looked at the scarecrow as he stood there, uncaring, his
pumpkin hat tilted to one side. He would help me find vengeance. But not against
my sister. It was the dragon’s turn to feel the wrath of the Reaper King.
Designing Commander
Robby Rothe
At its core, Magic is just a collection of cards that allows people to play different
games. These “different games” that people play with Magic are formats like Vintage,
Legacy, Modern, Standard, Block, Limited and Commander. Commander is
the only format that is completely dependent on a singular card type: Legendary
Creatures. Without Legends, you don’t have Commander.
In every other format, the Legendary supertype is used to control the power of
creatures. The restriction of only being able to have a single copy of a creature on the
battlefield is a handicap—lead weights in a saddle—instead of a badge of honor. But
in Commander, Legendary creatures that have no chance of seeing tournament play
are all-stars on the kitchen table. With the meteoric rise of Commander, it is only
natural that Wizards R&D has started designing for multiplayer formats. But what
has changed since Legendary creatures were first introduced?
A Legends is Born
Legendary creatures got their start in 1994 in the set Legends, only a year after the
debut of Alpha (to this day Legends remains the only set named after a type). The
Legendary supertype came about because the lead designers of Legends, Steve Conard
and Robin Herbert, had the idea to create named, iconic creatures in Magic based
on characters from their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
“There wasn’t anything unique in the game. More importantly, there weren’t
any true heroes either. There was no Conan, no Han Solo, or anyone like
them. The game needed heroes.”
- Steve Conard, The History of Legends
A Benalish Hero could be anybody. It’s a creature who isn’t important enough to
warrant a last name. For all we know, Benalish Hero is just Crewman Number
6. However, Angus MacKenzie and Olivia Voldaren are creatures that are worth
remembering in the Magic multiverse. These are the personalities that you call to
your side when you need to fight the tough battles.
Legends contained a cycle of lands that let Legendary creatures

of a certain color band with other Legendary creatures. Before
it was a rules nightmare, “bands with other Legends” was a top-
down design interpretation of D&D characters teaming up for
some dungeon-hacking.
There were some other important design concepts within Legends. In order for the
Legends to be extra special they were also designed as multicolored. The multicolor
concept hadn’t seen print until that point; to be fair it was only Magic’s third
expansion set ever. Every one of Legends’ 55 Legends are multicolored, kicking off
Magic players’ love affair with multicolored Commanders.
The other main design concept introduced in Legends was the attribute profile of a
Legendary creature; or, in other words: what makes a Legend a Legend? In the set
there were four main types of Legends:
Vanilla, but larger in size. Able to do things that the A repeatable effect.
colors weren’t able to do.
A “build around me” effect.
Of these, the “build around me” group is most important for Commander.
Magic is a game with ever-growing parts, and part of its success is that anyone can
build a deck that is thematically about anything they want. Creating a deck around
Mana Flare and trying to abuse the extra mana is a concept that is relevant to several
different styles of play. Before Legends, creatures rarely had this “build around me”
effect. You can build an entire deck around Sol’kanar the Swamp King to take
advantage of casting black spells and making your opponents cast them as well.
What can you do with all that extra life? I’m sure there are a few ways for black to
put those extra life points to good use.
Holding out for a Hero

Since Legends didn’t have a to adhere to a story, the designs of Legendary creatures
were open to anything that the designers wanted. It wasn’t until a year after Legends in
Ice Age that Wizards pushed a story behind a Magic set. But stories need heroes and
villains—characters to call out by name—and Legends laid the foundation to make the
epic stories of Magic possible. Magic could finally have its playable King Arthur.
With the new paradigm of design backed by a storyline, Wizards of the Coast now
faced the problem of tying in the heroes’ stories to the actual cards. After Ice Age,
Mirage block kicked off the Weatherlight Saga, a story that carried Magic from 1996
to 2001. Legendary creatures from this era aren’t all that exciting for Commander
because they lack build-around type abilities. Storyline-driven card design (“Well,
they do this in the story, how can we shoehorn it into a card?”) put Legendary
creatures into a creative rut where they struggled for several years.
Rise of the Elder Dragons
For a long time, Wizards treated Legendary creatures either as story characters
or added the supertype to help balance power level by keeping multiple copies
from being on the battlefield at the same time. During this era the Elder Dragon
Highlander format was created and grew in popularity. Then in the early 2000s,
the design philosophy around Legends changed. Just as Wizards realized in the late
1990s that it needed to develop sets that were balanced for Limited play, they now
also realized they needed to design for multiplayer.
In this shift, 4 measurable changes happened:

1. The number of Legends being printed increased.
2. The number of “expensive” (mana-intensive) spells increased.
3. Legends were rebranded.
4. Planeswalkers were introduced.
Champions of Kamigawa: a Return to Legends

After a decade or so being meted out for storyline characters, the number of Legendary
creatures being printed exploded during the Legendary-themed Kamigawa block.
Percentage of legendary creatures per block
Pre-block early sets 0% Arabian Nights, Antiquities Mirrodin 0.8%

17.7% Legends Kamigawa 21%
4.2% The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands Ravnica 3.1%
2.3% Ice Age incl. Coldsnap, 2006 Time Spiral 6%
2.2% Mirage Lorwyn 2.3%
1.6% Tempest Alara 2.9%
1% Urza Zendikar 2.5%
1.5% Masques Scars of Mirrodin 2.4%
3.2% Invasion Innistrad 1.8%
2.7% Odyssey Return to Ravnica 3%
2.1% Onslaught Theros 5.6%
After the decline of Legends to their lowest point in a decade (Mirrodin block
introduced only 5 Legendary creatures), Kamigawa cranked the dial up to 11. Still,
not all Legends in the block were relevant to the Commander format (I’m looking
at you, Ben-Ben), and most were designed to support the block’s storyline. But
Wizards’ strong commitment to exploring the design space around Legends put the
type on a track back towards relevance.
Big Spells
Commander is known as the format of large spells. Perhaps not coincidentally,
Kamigawa block also explored the design space around large, expensive spells. It’s
not as simple as just upping the mana cost and making the cards more powerful,
it’s also seeing what the set and format needs to make big spells work. The game has
shown that it can handle larger spells and the Commander format is a reason why.
Percentage of spells with cmc 6+ per block

17.1%
16.4%
14.7%
12.5%
12.7%
11.5%
10.9%
15.3%
11.5%
13.6%
13.9%
9.8%
6.5%
7.1%
3.6%
3.2%
5.5%
7.1%
7.6%
9.5%
8.1%
6%
Arabian Nights, Antiquities
Legends
The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands
Ice Age incl. Coldsnap, 2006

Mirage
Tempest
Urza
Masques
Invasion
Odyssey
Onslaught
Mirrodin
Kamigawa
Ravnica
Time Spiral
Lorwyn
Alara
Zendikar
Scars of Mirrodin
Innistrad
Return to Ravnica
Theros
Dragons, Angels and Demons traditionally have costs
Pre-block early sets of 6 or more. These iconic creature types see print in
nearly every set. Green mages, of course, have plenty of
gigantic beasties to choose from when trying to take down
opponents’ double-sized life totals in Commander. But
what about poor, neglected blue? Unplayable sea monsters
like Leviathan and Tidal Kraken don’t make the cut. In
this modern design era of big spells and (playable) giant
monsters, Wizards has introduced Sphinxes as blue’s flag-
bearing creature type holding up the top end of the curve.
Legends: Rebranded
A year after Wizards soaked the Commander format with Legendary creatures
from the Kamigawa fire hose, Ravnica: City of Guilds saw the design of Legends
start becoming more “build around me” cards again rather than “story” cards.
The Ravnica block was slightly different than other blocks because it was more
worldbuilding than a story split into 3 parts. It gave a chance to open up the idea of
what a Legend could be without having to fully tie it into a story. With Kamigawa
block focusing on Legends as a theme, the new emphasis on cross-block synergy and
the acknowledgement of Commander as a format, this was a great time to stretch
out what Legends could do. Wizards designed a pair of Legendary multicolored
creatures to lead each of the 10 Ravnican guilds. Fully 18 of the 20 Ravnica block
Legends are build-centric creatures, ready to lead a deck as a Commander.
The following set release, Coldsnap, saw 7 out of 8 Legends that are viable,
interesting Commanders (the sole exception being poor, poor Haakon). The next
year, nostalgia-filled Time Spiral block saw another above-average concentration of
Legends, with the majority of them designed with unique abilities, ripe to build a
new deck around. By the time of Lorwyn released a year later, the design of Legends
had shifted to where every set could be expected to hold several new, themed and
playable Commanders.
Planeswalk This Way

Lorywn brought about a huge change to Magic, introducing Planeswalkers—the
first new card type since the creation of the game. With the full backing of the
Magic brand and creative team, Planeswalkers quickly took over the stage in Magic’s
storyline theater. Taking the weight of the storyline from the shoulders of Legendary
creatures, Planeswalkers enabled Wizards to tell longer stories reaching across planes
from block to block. With Planeswalkers propping up the storyline, design space for
Legends has been opened wide, free to become just like they were in Legends: special
and flavorful creatures, able to stand alone without needing to be tied to the mast of
a particular block’s plot points.
Release the Commander

With these shifts, the floodgates have opened and a stream of unique creatures have
poured out, each begging you to build a deck around them. Ken Nagle, Wizards’
lead designer of Worldwake, said that he created Wrexial, the Risen Deep because he
wanted a blue/black Commander to play with. Is it just a coincidence that Shards of
Alara block had 2 shard-friendly mythic Legend cycles?
With the continued growth of Commander, Wizards of the Coast has experimented in
new and exciting ways. Relying on the popularity of the Commander format, for the
very first time, Wizards printed new cards without introducing them in booster packs
first. They designed cards with mechanics made specifically for multiplayer to promote
that aspect of Commander gameplay. New Legends for the elusive wedge color
combinations excited players, something that wouldn’t have been possible before when
Wizards would have needed to force a tri-color theme into a block’s story. By printing
new cards in a product with a strong base of demand from Commander players,
Wizards was also able to insert new cards designed to impact Legacy and Vintage,
without worrying about whether the cards would break Standard.
In 2011, these special-release Commander decks flew off the shelves. With the
release of Magic: The Gathering Commander 2013, it is now a perennial product.
There has been a complete shift of how Legends are designed. The first thought for
designing Legends at Wizards has seemed to shift from “how are we going to tie this
into the story?” to “how can we make this really cool, especially for Commander?”
Legends aren’t just a token card type anymore. Commander has given Legends a
purpose and an opportunity to shine. Before the release of every set, there’s a large
group of players eager to see what new Legends they’ll be able to build a 99-card
deck around. Without Commander, would the Legendary Creature type have gone
the way of the Interrupt and the Enchant World? Maybe.
The latest swell in Magic’s popularity and success appeared around the same time
that Legends grew into their modern role. Legends were loved by a fringe collection
of players, who created their own alternative format to fully embrace the flavor of
Magic’s heroes. Wizards has embraced the concept and given players what they’d
dreamed of: new Legendary creatures concepted as independent, unique full-on
works of art.
Players can’t get enough Legends in order to play Commander. The most popular
Legends are those that create moments and interactions. In the new era of Wizards’
designing for multiplayer, Legends rule the battlefield with a plush view from the
Command Zone, leading their armies to epic fame and glory.
Glossary
Aggro
Indicates taking an aggressive stance in the game, attacking or otherwise dealing
damage or hastening the end of the game for one or more players.
Ally colors
The colors in Magic: The Gathering are presented in a wheel, and each color is
considered to have an ally in the color that comes before and after it in the color
wheel. For example, the color green’s allies are white and red.
Bounce land
A land that when played requires another land controlled by that player be returned
to his or her hand. Also known as “karoo lands” after the original cycle of such
lands printed in Visions.
Cantrip
A spell that draws a card in addition to its other effect, effectively replacing itself.
Check land
Lands that come into play tapped unless they check and find one of two basic land
types already in play. For example, Sunpetal Grove comes into play unless a forest or
plains is already in play, in which case it will come into play untapped.
Color Identity
A card’s color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card’s rules text. A card’s
color identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game
effects. The Commander’s color identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck.
A deck may not generate mana outside its colors. If an effect would generate mana
of an illegal color, it generates colorless mana instead.
Combo
A combination of cards that together provide some sort of powerful effect that can
potentially impact the flow of the game. A killer combo will often take out one or
more players once the various cards are played.
Command Zone
A zone used for special objects which affect the game like permanents do, but are
not actually permanents. This includes emblems, plane cards, scheme cards and the
Legend chosen as the Commander in a game of Commander.
Commander (card)
A Legendary creature chosen as the Commander card in a game of Commander.
Commander (format)
A Magic: The Gathering variant format which emphasizes social interactions,
interesting games, and creative deckbuilding. It can be played 1-on-1 but is typically
enjoyed as a multiplayer format.
Commander tax
An additional amount of colorless mana added to the mana cost of a Commander,
equal to two times the number of times it was cast from the Commander Zone in
excess of its first time.
Control
A style of play which emphasizes controlling the flow of a game with some
combination of counterspells and removal. Once the player has prevented other
players from winning he or she will go about assembling their own win condition.
Some control decks have win conditions that end the game quickly while some
others are famous for being excruciatingly slow.
Counter
Refers to two different but frequently used things in Magic; as a noun it refers to
a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics or interacts
with a rule or ability, such as a +1/+1 counter on a creature or a poison counter on a
player; as a verb it refers to cancelling a spell or ability so it doesn’t resolve and none
of its effects occur, most often in regards to casting a counterspell such as Cancel or
Force of Will.
Dual land
A cycle of lands printed in the original Magic: The Gathering Alpha, Beta, Unlimited
and Revised sets that are considered two basic land types and provided either color
mana with no drawbacks. For example, Bayou is both a Swamp and a Forest, comes
into play untapped and can be tapped to provide either green or black mana.
Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH)

The original and unofficial name for the Commander format, and many old-time
players still refer to it as such.
Enemy colors
The colors in Magic: The Gathering are presented in a wheel, and each color is
considered to have enemies in the colors that come directly across it in the color
wheel. For example, the color green’s enemies are black and blue.
Eternal
Magic: The Gathering formats that grow with each set that’s released rather than
rotating the most recent sets in and out. There are two sanctioned tournament formats
called Vintage and Legacy; Commander is considered an Eternal casual format.
General
What the Commander used to be referred to when the format was known as EDH,
and many old-time players still refer to it as such.
Griefer
A play style that tends to focus on inflicting “grief ” on the other players by making
it more difficult for them to play a typical game of Magic: The Gathering. It will
often involve restricting mana or otherwise making it hard to effectively play spells.
group hug
A play style that tends to focus more on helping one or more other players than
trying to actively win the game. Also referred to as care bear.
Guild
The 10 different 2-color combinations of Magic personified by the guilds introduced
in the original Ravnica block:
Azorius Izzet
Boros Orzhov
Dimir Rakdos
Golgari Simic
Gruul Selesnya
Mana flood
Drawing too many mana-producing lands and not enough spells.
Mana Rock
Mana-producing artifacts, commonly used in Commander to quickly ramp into
more powerful and expensive spells.
Mana screw
Not drawing enough lands to cast your spells, or not drawing lands that produce the
right colors of mana to cast your spells.
Mid-range
A style of play that tends to play flexible spells and larger creatures, and goes about
winning a bit slower than aggro decks but faster than control decks.
Milling
Used to refer to spells and effects that put cards from the top of a player’s library to
his or her graveyard.
Pain land
Cycle of 2-color mana-producing lands from Ice Age and Apocalypse that ping you for
1 when tapped for colored mana.
Ping
To deal 1 damage, typically from a repeatable source.
Sac land
A land that you sacrifice in order to search your deck for another land card and put
that land into play.
Shard
A 3-color combination that includes a central color and its 2 neighboring ally colors
on the color wheel. For instance, the shard of Esper includes the color white, and its
allies blue and black.
Shock land
A cycle of lands printed in the Ravnica and Return to Ravnica blocks that have 2 basic
land types. Like dual lands, they produce 2 colors of mana according to their basic
land types. Unlike dual lands, they come into play tapped unless you pay 2 life.
Swing
Another word for attack. Also referred to as bash, come in with the team, alpha strike,
and many other nicknames.
Tribal
Individual cards or decks that care about a particular creature type, such as Zombie
or Elf.
Tutor
A card or effect that searches your deck for a particular card, as exemplified in
Demonic Tutor.
Voltron
A strategy where you enhance one particular creature with spells, effects or
equipment to make it more powerful.
Wedge
A 3-color combination that includes a color and its 2 enemy colors. An example of a
color wedge is the color red in combination with its enemy colors blue and white.
Magic 101
Renee Hupp and Trevor Gulley
The Magic: The Gathering trading card game debuted in 1993 and has since steadily
become a cultural phenomenon with millions of players worldwide. Part of Magic’s
popularity comes from the flexibility within the rules to play games above and beyond
the typical 2-player duel. Commander is just one of many alternative ways to play.
Whether you have years of Magic under your belt or this is your first foray into the
game, Commander can be a deep and rewarding experience. Remember though that
Commander is a highly tuned version of normal Magic. All of the rules for the basic
game still apply.
Magic: The Gathering Gameplay Basics

The game at its core is very simple. Draw cards, play lands, cast spells, and reduce
your opponent’s life total from 20 to 0 by attacking them with creatures, all while
they try to do the same to you.
For most Magic formats the deck constraints are a minimum of 60 cards with a limit
of 4 of each card, except for basic lands. In Commander, the deck size is set at 99
cards, plus your Commander, and you can only use 1 copy of each card other than
basic lands.
128 MAGIC 101

Magic Game Concepts
Color
At the core of Magic are the 5 colors. Each color has things it can and cannot do.
White is associated with order, selflessness, and light. Its strengths revolve
around playing a lot of smaller creatures with synergistic abilities. White
creatures are commonly Knights, Soldiers or Clerics. The color white
draws magical energy from Plains.
Blue is the color of logic, curiosity, and water. Its creatures are typically
evasive in some way and its spells work to control the game by preventing
attacks or countering spells. Typically blue creatures include Sphinxes,
Wizards and Merfolk. The color blue gets its power from Islands.
Black is the color of selfishness, ambition, and decay. Its creatures and
spells reflect this by having powerful effects that sometimes come at great
cost, such as the sacrifice of a creature. Black creatures are often Zombies,
Demons or Assassins. Black draws its mana from Swamps.
Red is the color of passion, creativity, and fire. Red’s creatures attack
fast and its spells often involve shooting lightning at your opponent or
generating chaos on the battlefield. Examples of red creatures include
Goblins, Dragons and Warriors. Mountains give power to red magic.
Green is the color growth, reality, and nature. Its creatures are big, its
spells make them bigger, and mana is abundant allowing for huge spells
to be played early and often. Elves, Beasts and Wurms are examples of
common green creatures. Green mages draw their mana from Forests.
Each of these colors represents not only a core ideal and range of specializations, but
also a key part of each card in Magic’s rules. All Magic cards, other than lands and
most artifacts, have a color (or colors), which is defined by the card’s mana cost.
Angelfire Crusader
requires at least 1 white
mana to summon,
therefore it is considered a
white creature.
The Crusader also has

an activated ability that
requires 1 red mana. It is
still only a white creature,
though it does count as
red in Commander.
Magic Card Types
Just what are these cards, anyway? What’s a spell? What’s a creature? Well, in practice
everything is a spell, it’s just when you can play it and if it sticks around or not that
makes each type of spell different. Spells that resolve and stay on the battlefield are
called permanents. Everything else is a non-permanent.
Land cards are the backbone of any Magic deck. They provide the mana you need
to cast all the other cards in your deck. You can tap a land once per turn cycle to
create mana.
Creature cards are the primary way of dealing damage to opponents. Creatures are
the only cards that have a power and toughness. Creatures deal damage equal to
their power in combat, and are destroyed once they receive damage equal to their
toughness. Many creatures have abilities that affect how they fight other creatures in
combat, enhance their own power and toughness or that of your other creatures, or
give them protection.
130 MAGIC 101

Sorcery spells can only be cast during the main phase and while the stack is empty.
Sorceries typically have powerful effects to make up for their timing restrictions.
Instants, on the other hand, can be cast any time you have priority. Many instants
are reactionary, like counterspells, but they can also do things like kill creatures,
damage your opponents, or draw cards.
Enchantment and Aura spells are typically very powerful and can change the way
the game is played or provide a persistent effect for one or many of your creatures.
Artifacts can also be creatures, but they’re typically items with abilities. The best
thing about artifacts is that except for a few exceptional cards, you can cast artifacts
using any color of mana, so every deck can play them.
Planeswalker cards represent powerful mages from the multiverse. Each has
numerous abilities that typically fall within their color alignment. Planeswalker
abilities can also only be used at sorcery speed, but their effects tend to be high-
impact.
All permanents (lands, enchantments, creatures, artifacts, and Planeswalkers) can

only be cast during your main phase (see Taking a Turn).
132 MAGIC 101

Game Zones
You typically start a game of Magic with cards only in your hand and library. As
the game progresses, you’ll summon permanents onto the battlefield and cast
spells. When your permanents are destroyed, or your spells resolve, they’ll go to the
graveyard. Beyond those 4 zones there is the stack, a zone for exiled cards, and the
Command Zone. In practice, the zones you’re usually most concerned about are
your hand, the battlefield, and the stack.
Library
The library is your deck of cards during the game. This is the area where you draw
cards from.
Hand
Your hand is made up of the cards that you have the option to play, during the
appropriate part of a turn, if you have the mana available to cast them. Some cards
can affect your hand, such as by drawing cards in addition to your usual draw step at
the beginning of the turn. Some cards can attack your opponents’ hands, such as by
forcing them to discard cards before they’ve had a chance to cast them.
The Stack
The stack is the zone through which cards you cast leave your hand. Permanents
go to the battlefield from the stack if they resolve and non-permanents go to the
graveyard.
Battlefield
A resolved permanent lives on the battlefield. The effects and abilities of most
creatures, Planeswalkers, and enchantments are only usable while they’re in this
zone. Instants and sorceries are almost never put onto the battlefield.
Graveyard
The graveyard is where cards go when they are otherwise incapacitated. This includes
creatures that have died in combat and spells you have cast. The graveyard can be
accessed by a wide variety of spells and permanents.
Exile
The exiled zone means that the card is removed from game. Different cards have
effects that will put cards into exile or be able to access cards from there as well.
Command Zone
This is where your Commander resides. The Commander can be cast at any time
you can cast a sorcery unless otherwise noted on the card. Emblems created by
Planeswalkers reside here as well.
133 MAGIC 101

Playing a Game of Magic
Starting the Game
Before starting the game, randomly decide which player gets to go first. An easy way
to do this is by rolling a die. In a 2-player duel, you alternate turns. In a multiplayer
game, it’s easiest to keep track if turn order proceeds around the table in one
direction.
Draw your opening hand. Each player starts by drawing 7 cards. If you aren’t
happy with the cards you drew, you are permitted to mulligan that hand, or draw a
new 6 cards for the first time, then down to 5, and so forth. Make sure to verify this
with new playgroups as different people have different house rules! After both you
and your opponents are satisfied with their hands, the game begins.
Taking a Turn
Untap, Upkeep, Draw
These 3 phases are the beginning of your turn, where you can really start to make
Magic happen. First you untap all your permanents, making each resource available
to you again. No player can play spells or activate abilities during the untap phase.
During the upkeep phase, you resolve triggered abilities that start with “At the
beginning of your upkeep…” These range from drawing a card, to having to pay
mana to keep something untapped, to even taking damage (you can read more
about triggered abilities in the Advanced Gameplay Rules section below). You can play
instants and spells with flash during the upkeep. If you don’t play anything, your
opponents also have the same opportunity.
Finally you draw your card for the turn. Instants and spells with flash can be played
here by both you and opponents.
That’s it! Next you move to your main phase. These first 3 phases are probably the
simplest within the turn cycle.
Main Phase
The main phase is where much of the game is played. All spell types are playable
here, so long as another spell or ability isn’t being resolved—then you can only play
instants and spells with flash. This is because of how the stack works and we’ll go
over that in a bit.
134 MAGIC 101

Combat Phase
Combat is the most involved phase in the entire game, but don’t worry, it’s easy to
get the hang of hitting people with creatures! During combat, only instants and
spells with flash can be played.
Declare attackers step

In Magic, you attack your opponents with your creatures. During this step
of combat, you let whom you are attacking know what you’re sending their
way. In a multiplayer game, you can attack any number of players at the
same time.
Declare blockers step

The defending player decides if they want to put their own creatures in the
way of your attack. They can only block creatures attacking them.
First strike damage step

The first strike damage step doesn’t always happen, only when creatures with
first strike or double strike are declared as attackers or blockers. It allows
those creatures to do their damage first, but otherwise it functions just like
the normal combat damage step.
Combat damage step

If a creature is unblocked it does damage to the defending player. Damage
dealt to a player reduces that player’s life total. Attacking and blocking
creatures deal damage to each other.
Second Main Phase

If you declared attackers, you have a second phase in which you can play any spell
type so long as another spell or ability isn’t trying to resolve.
End Step
The end step is the second most complicated phase of the game, mostly because it
is the last opportunity for opponents to play spells on your turn. Triggered abilities
that start with “At the beginning of the next end step…” resolve at this point, but
spells that say “until end of turn” are still in effect.
Cleanup
If no player has anything to do during the end step, the cleanup phase
begins. “Until end of turn” effects end, creatures with marked damage heal
back to their full toughness, and if you have more than 7 cards, you discard
down to 7.
And that’s the turn! Pretty straightforward.
135 MAGIC 101

Advanced Gameplay Rules
What exactly is a mana pool?
Your mana pool is filled when you tap lands, creatures, or artifacts to produce mana.
When you cast spells, they draw from that pool. Typically you just tap as you cast spells,
but for some decks careful management of the mana pool is their whole game plan.
It should be noted that mana pools empty at the end of each step. If you play a
Burning-Tree Emissary, for example, the RG she adds to your pool when she enters
the battlefield will go away if you move to combat and won’t be available to use for
combat tricks.
Just what is this ‘Stack’ thing?

The stack is what keeps spells, triggers, and abilities organized and it is where most
of Magic’s complexity comes from. The first such item added to the stack is the
last thing to resolve, which means that any time you play a spell, have to resolve a
trigger, or activate an ability, your opponent could respond with an instant or a spell
with flash. That ability or spell goes on top of the one you played. Once all players
are done adding spells and abilities to the stack, they resolve from top to bottom.
So long as the stack is empty and it’s your turn, you can cast creature, sorcery,
Planeswalker, and enchantment spells. Once the stack has something on it however,
those cards have to wait until the stack is open again.
136 MAGIC 101

Just what are ‘Activated Abilities’?
Many of your permanents have spell-like abilities which allow them to do things that you
might cast an instant or sorcery for. Unless otherwise noted, you can activate abilities on
your permanents whenever you have priority.
So what is a ‘Triggered Ability’ then?

A triggered ability is an effect that is placed on the stack when certain conditions are met. In
most friendly games, other players may help you remember your triggers, but they are your
responsibility. You can forget a trigger and lose that effect if you’re not careful.
The following are some common examples of triggered abilities.

“When ___ enters the battlefield…”
This happens when a creature or other permanent resolves. The trigger goes on the stack
immediately, meaning that even if the creature is killed, the triggered ability will still go on
the stack and likely have an effect on the game.
“When you cast…”
In contrast, this trigger happens whenever you place a spell that meets the trigger’s
criteria on the stack. Abilities with this trigger go onto the stack on top of the spell that
triggered them, meaning the ability will resolve before the spell that triggered it. The
These triggered abilities remain even if the spell you cast is countered.
“When __ dies” (printed on older cards as “When __ is put into a graveyard from the battlefield”)
Keep in mind this trigger only happens if the permanent would go to the graveyard. If it
would be exiled instead, the trigger is not put on the stack.
“When ___ deals damage”
There are a whole host of triggers around damage. Most require a creature deal combat
damage, typically to a player, but other effects can be less stringent on their requirements.
“At the beginning of your upkeep…”
Some cards will require you do things in your upkeep. This could be as simple as paying
mana to leave something in play or discarding a random card only to get it back if it
meets certain conditions.
137 MAGIC 101

Get out there and play!
This is in no way an exhaustive discussion of these items, just an overview to let you
know the basics and get you started in playing. In many cases, your play group or
local game shop (LGS) can help you with the finer points. The best way to learn to
play is to actually play, so get out there and find some fellow mages to battle!
Learn to Play Resources

If you want to see a game in action before going to play, Wizards has some videos on
their tutorial site about how to conduct a turn, the different things that can happen,
and even more information on the colors! While the cards are a little dated, the
premise is still the same and completely intact.
You can find all of the Wizards’ learn to play information here.
Social media has changed the way people are learning and interacting with Magic.
If you have Facebook, chances are you can find a local group that has a schedule
of events. With Twitter there is endless access to pros, casual players, and judges
alike, many of whom are willing to point you in the right direction with questions
you may have. There are also many Magic communities on reddit, specifically
magicTCG, but also for each format. Have fun, and good luck in your travels (and
battles) across the Multiverse!
Appendix: Commander Staples
A lot of Commander players find the idea of Commander “staples” to be contrary
to the spirit of fun and card diversity that makes the format so enjoyable, so I’m
not going to suggest that the cards listed below are cards that should go in every
Commander deck they can. Rather, these are cards that tend to be strong or flexible
in games of Commander so if you’ve got some holes in your decklist I hope this list
will help you fill them!
land
Bojuka Bog Maze of Ith Strip Mine
Command Tower Moorland Haunt Temple of the False God
Desolate Lighthouse Opal Palace Thespian’s Stage
Exotic Orchard Reflecting Pool Transguild Promenade
Gavony Township Reliquary Tower Vault of the Archangel
Homeward Path Rogue’s Passage Vesuva
Inkmoth Nexus Rupture Spire Winding Canyons
Kessig Wolf Run Slayer’s Stronghold
ARTIFACTS OR COLORLESS
0-1 Converted Mana Cost 4 Converted Mana Cost
Basilisk Collar Deathrender
Elixir of Immortality Eye of Doom
Everflowing Chalice Grafted Exoskeleton
Expedition Map Jester’s Cap
Glaring Spotlight Nevinyrral’s Disk
Sensei’s Divining Top Solemn Simulacrum
Skullclamp Vedalken Orrery
Sol Ring Witchbane Orb
2 Converted Mana Cost 5 Converted Mana Cost

Armillary Sphere Cauldron of Souls
Fellwar Stone Mind’s Eye
Illusionist’s Bracers Mirari
Journeyer’s Kite Venser’s Journal
Mind Stone
Nim Deathmantle
Scroll Rack
Duplicant
Strionic Resonator Staff of Nin
Sun Droplet Wurmcoil Engine
Swiftfoot Boots

Myr Battlesphere
Chromatic Lantern Spine of Ish Sah
Crystal Ball
Darksteel Ingot
Druidic Satchel 8+ or X Converted Mana Cost
Fireshrieker Artisan of Kozilek
Loxodon Warhammer
Mimic Vat
Oblivion Stone
Rings of Brighthearth
Scuttlemutt
Temple Bell
Thousand-Year Elixir
Whispersilk Cloak
green
Elvish Skysweeper Acidic Slime
Rancor Doubling Season
Ulvenwald Tracker Primal Vigor
Seedborn Muse
2 Converted Mana Cost Silklash Spider
Fauna Shaman
Fertile Ground 6 Converted Mana Cost
Gyre Sage Bane of Progress
Riftsweeper Deadwood Treefolk
Sakura-Tribe Elder Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
Sylvan Library Lurking Predators
Tribute to the Wild
Wall of Roots 7 Converted Mana Cost
Avenger of Zendikar
Hornet Queen
Beast Within Krosan Tusker
Curse of Predation Tornado Elemental
Eternal Witness
Farhaven Elf
Krosan Grip
8+ or X Converted Mana Cost
Genesis Wave
Yavimaya Elder Verdant Force

Chameleon Colossus
Forgotten Ancient
Greater Good
Harmonize
Parallel Evolution
Spike Weaver
Tempt with Discovery
white
Land Tax Congregate
Path to Exile Cradle of Vitality
Soul Warden Day of Judgment
Swords to Plowshares Windborn Muse
Wrath of God
Ajani’s Pridemate 5 Converted Mana Cost
Allay Archon of Justice
Darksteel Mutation Karmic Guide
Serene Master Rout
Wall of Omens Stonehewer Giant

Act of Authority Akroma’s Vengeance
Devout Witness Austere Command
Frontline Medic Kirtar’s Wrath
Ghostly Prison Sun Titan
Moonlit Wake
Rootborn Defenses
Spear of Heliod
Arbiter of Knollridge
Stonecloaker Eternal Dragon
Serra Avatar

Unexpectedly Absent
blue red
Whispers of the Muse Brand
Soothsaying Slumbering Dragon
Spikeshot Elder
2 Converted Mana Cost Winds of Change
Arcane Denial
Remand 2 Converted Mana Cost
Vision Skeins Dragon Breath
Goblin Bombardment
3 Converted Mana Cost Mogg Maniac
Price of Progress
Curse of Inertia
Hinder Shattering Pulse
Propaganda
Rhystic Study 3 Converted Mana Cost
Spell Crumple Aggravated Assault
Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Converted Mana Cost Reiterate
Taurean Mauler
Cryptic Command
Fact or Fiction
Phyrexian Metamorph 4 Converted Mana Cost
Reins of Power Anger
Rite of Replication From the Ashes
Wash Out Pyrohemia
Wonder Wild Ricochet

Bribery Mana Geyser
Diviner Spirit Mass Mutiny
Mulldrifter Word of Seizing
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
Inferno Titan
Consecrated Sphinx Warstorm Surge
Djinn of Infinite Deceits
Time Stop 7 Converted Mana Cost
Inferno
Stalking Vengeance
Colossal Whale
Diluvian Primordial 8+ or X Converted Mana Cost
Blasphemous Act
8+ X or Converted Mana Cost
Insurrection
Blue Sun’s Zenith Sudden Demise
black
Darkness Black Market
Executioner’s Capsule Shriekmaw
Nihil Spellbomb Syphon Flesh
Phyrexian Reclamation Tempt with Immortality

Cranial Plating Dark Hatchling
Doom Blade Life’s Finale
Go for the Throat Massacre Wurm
Reassembling Skeleton
Sign in Blood 7 Converted Mana Cost
Butcher of Malakir
3 Converted Mana Cost Rune-Scarred Demon
Bone Shredder
Curse of Shallow Graves
Seal of Doom
Avatar of Woe
Spoils of Evil Baleful Force
Sudden Spoiling Decree of Pain
Vampire Nighthawk

Filth
Greed
Mortivore
Slaughter
Syphon Mind
azorius boros
Judge’s Familiar Figure of Destiny

Azorius Charm Boros Charm
Azorius Guildmage Boros Talisman
Azorius Talisman Boros Guildmage
Mistmeadow Witch Legion’s Initiative

Azorius Keyrune Boros Keyrune
Daxos of Meletis Orim’s Thunder
Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer Duergar Hedge-Mage
Steel of the Godhead
4 Converted Mana Cost Brion Stoutarm
Aethermage’s Touch Master Warcraft
Cloud Cover Spitemare
Mirrorweave
Supreme Verdict 5 Converted Mana Cost
Reflect Damage
Waves of Aggression
Isperia the Inscrutable
Teferi’s Moat 6 Converted Mana Cost
Firemane Angel
Isperia, Supreme Judge
Medomai the Ageless
Boros Battleshaper
7 Converted Mana Cost 8+ or X Converted Mana Cost

Drogskol Reaver Aurelia’s Fury

Sphinx’s Revelation
dimir golgari
Dream Salvage Golgari Charm
Golgari Guildmage
2 Converted Mana Cost Golgari Talisman
Korozda Guildmage
Baleful Strix
Dimir Talisman Necrogenesis
Duskmantle Guildmage
Inkfathom Witch 3 Converted Mana Cost
Lim-Dûl’s Vault Golgari Germination
Shadow of Doubt Golgari Keyrune
Plague Boiler
3 Converted Mana Cost Putrefy
Dimir Keyrune
Mind Funeral 4 Converted Mana Cost
Shadowmage Infiltrator Corpsejack Menace
Soul Manipulation Jarad’s Orders
Reaper of the Wilds
Evil Twin 5 Converted Mana Cost
Memory Plunder Lord of Extinction
Notion Thief Vulturous Zombie

Consuming Aberration Deadbridge Chant
Deny Reality Gleancrawler
Havengul Lich
6 Converted Mana Cost Doomgape
Spinal Embrace
Wrexial, the Risen Deep 8+ or X Converted Mana Cost
Gaze of Granite
Soulquake

Mind Grind
gruul izzet
Guttural Response Goblin Electromancer
Izzet Talisman
2 Converted Mana Cost Nin, the Pain Artist
Nivix Guildmage
Artifact Mutation
Gruul Talisman
Hull Breach 3 Converted Mana Cost
Pit Fight Cerebral Vortex
Tattermunge Witch Counterflux
Vexing Shusher Goblin Flectomancer
Izzet Keyrune
3 Converted Mana Cost Spellheart Chimera
Fires of Yavimaya
Gruul Keyrune 4 Converted Mana Cost
Mage Slayer Essence Backlash
Wilderness Elemental Steam Augury

Bloodbraid Elf Dominus of Fealty
Ghor-Clan Rampager Izzet Chronarch
Spellbreaker Behemoth
5 Converted Mana Cost Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Deus of Calamity Nucklavee
Runes of the Deus
Djinn Illuminatus
Dragonlair Spider
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed 8+ or X Converted Mana Cost
Epic Experiment
Gruul Ragebeast

Borborygmos Enraged
Savage Twister
orzhov rakdos
Batwing Brume Manaforge Cinder
Cauldron Haze
Orzhov Talisman
Vizkopa Guildmage
Dreadbore
Rakdos Charm
3 Converted Mana Cost Rakdos Talisman
Mortify Sootstoke Kindler
Necrotic Sliver Terminate
Orzhov Keyrune
Unmake 3 Converted Mana Cost
Anathamancer
Rakdos Keyrune
Alms Beast
Ghost Council of Orzhova
Purgatory
Olivia Voldaren
Triad of Fates Wrecking Ball

Culling Sun Kulrath Knight
Divinity of Pride Lightning Reaver
Master of Cruelties
Merciless Eviction
Treasury Thrull
Deathbringer Thoctar
Sire of Insanity
Angel of Despair 7 Converted Mana Cost
Kaervek the Merciless
8+ X or Converted Mana Cost
Tsabo Tavoc
Death Grasp
Rakdos’s Return
selesnya simic
Dryad Militant Slippery Bogle

Aura Mutation Coiling Oracle
Qasali Pridemage Simic Charm
Ray of Revelation Simic Signet
Selesnya Charm Zameck Guildmage
Selesnya Signet
Selesyna Guildmage 3 Converted Mana Cost
Bred for the Hunt
3 Converted Mana Cost Simic Keyrune
Aura Shards Trygon Predator
Behemoth Sledge Voidslime
Dauntless Escort
Selesnya Keyrune
Shield of the Oversoul
Fathom Mage
Master Biomancer
4 Converted Mana Cost Mystic Snake
Captain Sisay Plasm Capture
Glare of Subdual
Loxodon Hierarch 5 Converted Mana Cost
Murkfiend Liege
5 Converted Mana Cost Prophet of Kruphix
Fracturing Gust Urban Evolution
Juniper Order Ranger
6 Converted Mana Cost Progenitor Mimic
Indrik Umbra Spitting Image
Tolsimir Wolfblood
7 Converted Mana Cost Simic Sky Swallower
Gabriel Angelfire
8+ or X Converted Mana Cost Biomass Mutation
Novablast Wurm
Vitalizing Cascade
credits
bennie smith - author
Bennie has been playing Magic since Unlimited was the latest Magic set on the shelves;
in other words, he’s been playing since the beginning of time. He’s also been writing
about Magic nearly as long, first on Usenet, then a few times on The Magic Dojo be-
fore getting scooped up to write for a new website called Starcitygames.com, which
has turned into the largest retailer of Magic singles and provider of strategic Magic
content on the internet. He’s been writing there ever since, and along the way he’s
written for Scrye magazine, Beckett Magic magazine and Wizards of the Coast’s own
Magicthegathering.com. When he’s not battling with one of the half-dozen Com-
mander decks he has on hand, or playing in the occasional Magic tournament, Ben-
nie’s raising two kids and living the life in Richmond, Virginia.
MJ Scott - editor & Producer
A mage’s soul is forged in the crucible of the magic.” - Antimodes of the White Robes,
from The Soulforge by Margaret Weis
MJ Scott is an entertainment columnist for GatheringMagic.com and a dedicated

fan fiction writer at moxymtg.com. She’s been deeply in love with Magic and her
husband since Conflux, and considers herself the Mother of Dragon Whelp(s). With
past lives including craft bartender, actress, and Ernst & Young auditor, MJ is now
strictly a fantasy advocate and storyteller; which, of course, is strictly better for every-
one involved. She wishes you good adventures, and hopes Magic will be your sword/
shield/staff/mirror in all the battles to come.
Eliott Scott - assistant editor

Elliot has been playing Magic since Fourth Edition. At age 13, he wrote a passionate
letter to Wizards R&D asking them to reverse the Sixth Edition rules update and keep
the Interrupt card type, then subsequently quit the game in protest. He returned to
Magic during Conflux and has no plans to leave again soon.
James Arnold - design & layout

Born and raised in New York, James has spent many happy days sitting cross-legged
on his bedroom floor with a pair of headphones and a stack of Magic cards. He was
inspired by the amazing artists whose vision bought fantastic stories to life. James now
seeks to tell his own stories through art; trying, creating, learning, and loving every
minute of it.
John Dale Beety
John Dale Beety is a columnist for StarCityGames.com specializing in the Vorthos
side of the game.
Renee Hupp and Trevor Gulley

One part comic geek and one part RPG nerd, Re-
nee and Trevor have, respectively, each been gam-
ing for over a decade. Fans of just about any Magic
format, you can typically find either of them look-
ing though the dollar bins and good stuff binders
at any large event on the East Coast. They currently
reside in the DC area, with their three cats, and will
play just about any game you put in front of them.
A.E. Marling
A.E. Marling has been playing Magic since Dark Rituals summoned Juzam Djinns on
turn two. He encourages everyone to touch the sky of human imagination and read
fantasy. Discover his fantasy-appreciation blog at: aemarling.com.
Sheldon Menery
Judge Emeritus Sheldon Menery is one of the most influential figures in the history of
Magic. From popularizing online Magic rules Q&A to founding EDH/Commander
to helping redefine fair play at the Pro Tour level to being a member of the Official Pro
Tour Coverage Team, he has had his fingers on the pulse of the game since its earliest
days. He currently resides, with his wife Gretchyn, in Tampa, Florida, where he stud-
ies Creative Writing at the University of South Florida.
Andy Rogers
Andy Rogers likes to write fiction, non-fiction, and emails that are just a bit too long.
He has played Magic since Zendikar and is a contributor to GatheringMagic.com.
Andy is married, a father, and lives in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. Andy blogs
at TellBetterStories.Wordpress.com and tweets @ALRStories.
Robby Rothe
Robby Rothe is the writer of the Magic design blog mtgcolorpie.com and finished in
the top 101 of the Great Designer Search 2. Robby was a Commander columnist for
GatheringMagic.com and continues to write about the casual format. You can find
Robby actively on Twitter with the name @mtgcolorpie.
Adam Styborski
Adam “Stybs” Styborski is a Commander player and Limited addict living outside
Washington, DC. In addition to serving as Content Manager for GatheringMagic.
com and coverage reporter at Grand Prix and Pro Tours, Adam writes the weekly series
Command Tower for DailyMTG.com where he shares all the aspects of Commander
through the voices of the community playing it. He’s also a happily married father-
twice-over that jealously protects his collection from tiny hands.
Ant Tessitore
Ant Tessitore is a whirlwind of creative energy. Whether he is writing fiction or world
building for game campaigns on his blog at anthroplasm909.blogspot.com, Ant is
always flexing his creative brain meat. Ant enjoys traveling with his fiancee, listening to
NPR, and releasing his inner Rakdos. Follow Ant on Twitter @ANThroplasm.
Natahlia Lysse Zaring

Natahlia Lysse Zaring has been writing fiction and playing MTG for more than a
decade. She graduated in 2011 from the University of Missouri-Columbia with de-
grees in Fiction Writing and Theatre, but her day job involves providing assistance
to persons with developmental disabilities. For questions, comments, requests, and
commissions, find her on Facebook (/nmzaring) or Twitter (@transpective).
the story doesn’t end here.
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What is the purpose of the book?

What is the purpose of the book?

What are some of the features covered in the book?

What are some of the features covered in the book?

the

Designed for lovers of casual multiplayer game experiences, The Complete

The Complete Commander: An Unofficial Guide began as an email between two

To future haymakers and tales worth the telling,

11 On Community: An Introduction to The Complete Commander

15 Chapter 1: Why Play Commander?

24 Chapter 2: The Rules

34 Chapter 3: Choosing Your Commander

60 Chapter 5: Full deck brewing walkthrough

74 Chapter 6: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

87 Chapter 7: Tariel, Reckoner of Souls

111 Chapter 9: Conclusion

117 designing commander

139 Appendix: Commander Staples

Commander is the greatest example in Magic—maybe in the entirety of gaming—of

10 the spirit of commander

magic is much more than just a

Even at the height of my competitiveness nothing compared to the feeling of playing

But Commander is more than just self-expression.

The flavor of the game resonates among Commander players.

you’ve been warned.

14 the spirit of commander

It was time to make a move.

16 why play commander?

17 why play commander?

THE GENIUS OF SINGLETON MAGIC

THE JOYS OF MULTIPLAYER MAGIC

18 why play commander?

EMBRACE THE CHAOS!

19 why play commander?

20 why play commander?

Black, Red, Green:

22 the spirit of commander

23 the spirit of commander

Official Commander Rules on mtgcommander.net

A deck’s Commander is also known as its “General” for historical reasons.

4. A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards,

6. Commander is played with Vintage legal cards, with some exceptions.

9. If a player has been dealt 21 points of combat damage by a particular

A Commander is still subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting

11. If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exiled from anywhere,

Commanders will move to the library or hand as normal; only transitions

12. Players begin the game with 40 life.

Commander is designed to promote social games of magic. It is

Partial Paris Mulligan rule

IF YOU PLAY FIRST

Ancestral Recall Limited Resources

Black Lotus Sway of the Stars

Braids, Cabal Minion

1. Players may bring a 10 card sideboard in addition to their 99 cards and 1

So why play with sideboards?

should be strongly considered as a necessary defense against brokenness and degenera-

“What does it do?”

“And it puts it on the bottom of your library!”

33 the spirit of commander

THE FIRST STEP