Notes on the Commander Format

I was looking through some old emails and came across these notes. I thought I would share them here.

 

A couple of points on Commander:

1. Any of us can build a deck that stomps other decks into the ground. The point of the format is to do it with style. :)
2. Cards that are good in competitive formats are by-and-large good in this format, despite what you might read elsewhere.
3. Strategies that are good in competitive formats are by-and-large good in this format, except that synergies matter more and redundancy is harder to come by.
4. Several strategies that are unique to the format are available to you, including the availability of your Commander.

Design:

You may be surprised at how fragile creatures are. Speed matters. Land matters. Ramp really matters. Thrax costs 9 mana after he dies the first time. When will you hit 9? (Yes, you can dump him in the graveyard and reanimate him, but graveyard hate is all over the place.)

Personal notes:

I have a burning hatred for lands that come into play tapped or cause a bounce. Speed matters. And when your turn only comes around every 10 minutes, I hate dropping a land and saying "go."

I go overboard on land because the only thing worse than dropping a land and saying "go" is NOT dropping a land and saying "go." 

Bombs:

Bombs swing the game. Where are yours? 

I was playing EDH with Chris. I cast All Is Dust and wiped the board, then played a Demon. Chris was out of cards and I had it locked down. He top-decks Stormherd, counts his mana, casts it, and drops 42 tokens on the board. I don't draw an out the next turn, so I lose.

I lost in a similar fashion several times to Andrew when he took all my creatures and proceeded to kill me with them the turn before I would have killed him.

That's the real fun of EDH: winning or losing in a spectacular fashion! Your job is to create situations where those situations happen more often.