Tiny Leaders: Like Commander, Only Smaller

A game of Commander can take a while.

I am lucky enough to have a core group of gaming friends that will test out new formats, so when I came across Tiny Leaders I knew we needed to give it a try.

You can read all about the Tiny Leaders format here, but basically take everything in Commander and slash it in half. Decks are 50 cards instead of 100. Life totals are 25 instead of 40. Well, that part isn't quite half. There's no special Commander damage. Oh, one more thing. This is the big one. No spell in your deck can cost more than 3.

In other words, everything is smaller. Tiny, even.

The format is intended to be played one-on-one, best two out of three. But, we like multiplayer, so we decided to test it out in a group game.



Chris cut down his existing Ezuri deck, turning it into a formidable elf steamroller. I was worried about this from the get go and considered building a black deck with lots of removal as a counter-strategy, but ended up building a different mono-green deck to get some use out of cards that I typically don't play. Darren swapped Oloro out for Sydri from the preconstruct and sliced the deck down to size.

We played two quick games, back-to-back. They played out thus:

Ezuri, when left unchecked, is a savage beating.

I mean, Ezuri is strong in the larger Commander format if left unchecked. It's no surprise that he is good - and possibly better - in a format where nothing costs more than 3 mana. Chris was in double-overrun territory both games. I won the second game only because I was able to put enough power on my forestwalking Mirri to deal the last point of damage before the turn where I would have been elf steamrolled.



Based on our limited testing, the good part about the format is that the games can be much quicker than in Commander. If you don't have time for a full Commander game, this format is an option that captures some of the feel of Commander, only smaller. The other cool thing is that different cards become "the best," requiring new deckbuilding strategies.

But it wasn't all roses.

Granted, we didn't play the format the way it was intended in one-on-one battles, so take all of this with a grain of salt. It felt like the 3 mana limit made things too tiny. Not only does this cut off a lot of cool Legendary Creatures that could be used as your "tiny leader," but it also makes the cards available for deckbuilding feel too limited. Once I pulled all my good green cards that fit the limit, I had pretty much used up all my good green cards. Between the smaller "leader" pool, the limited casting costs, and the small deck size, it feels like many of the best decks build themselves.

But don't let that stop you. Go Tiny Leaders!

Trying new formats is a great way to test your deckbuilding skills and to breath some new life into your collection. The limits we place on the format are usually what makes the experience interesting. Would Commander be as cool if you could play 4 copies of a card in your deck instead of just 1? Probably not. If you already have a Commander deck, you might be surprised how easy it is to chop it down to size and give Tiny Leaders a try.