Friday, December 9, 2011

Starting the Fire

The gaming group I run with started exploring the Commander format a few months ago. If you are unfamiliar, Commander is a different way of playing Magic the Gathering. It involves 100-card decks, single copies of cards, and a Legendary Creature to act as your "commander" during the game.

The rules and a brief explanation of the format are available, here: http://mtgcommander.net/

The format is refreshing in that a lot of cards that are mediocre or even terrible in other formats are great in Commander. It also gives me an excuse to use single copies of cards I've always liked but never had "room" for in other decks.

The biggest thing about the format is that playing the game is more like playing a puzzle. The lines of play aren't as well defined as in other formats with more streamlined decks. This leads to complicated interactions and a greater degree of variability from game to game. It's fun, often funny, heroic, and epic Magic. Start feeling like a Planeswalker again, with Commander!