Commander: a beginner's guide to Magic's favorite casual format
Commander is the most popular casual way to play Magic: The Gathering. It is built for multiplayer games, usually four players, and it rewards big plays and table talk more than tight tournament strategy. Many stores run Commander nights alongside Friday Night Magic.
The core rules
- Your deck has exactly 100 cards, including your commander.
- It is singleton: only one copy of each card, except basic lands.
- Your commander is a legendary creature, or a card that says it can be your commander.
- Every card must match your commander's color identity.
- Each player starts at 40 life.
- The commander starts in the command zone and can be cast from there. Each time you cast it again it costs 2 more; this is called commander tax.
- A player who takes 21 or more combat damage from a single commander loses the game.
Who runs the format
For years a volunteer Rules Committee managed Commander. It dissolved on September 30, 2024, and Wizards of the Coast took over the format, setting up a Commander Format Panel of advisors in October 2024.
The bracket system
In February 2025 Wizards introduced brackets to help players agree on how powerful their decks are before a game: 1 Exhibition, 2 Core, 3 Upgraded, 4 Optimized and 5 cEDH. A list of Game Changers cards limits the strongest cards by bracket. Telling the table your bracket before you shuffle up keeps games fun for everyone.
How to start
- Buy a preconstructed Commander deck; it is legal out of the box and balanced against other precons.
- Sleeve it: 100-card decks get shuffled a lot.
- Bring plenty of dice and tokens, because Commander games create many creatures and counters.
