Commander (2011)

Template:Expansion Nonblock Commander is the new official title for what was previously known as Elder Dragon Highlander, a casual fan-made and maintained format that has been around for many years. While the format will still be maintained and controlled by the players, Wizards will be releasing 5 Commander decks that will include some older commons and uncommons that, while not particularly valuable, are harder to find due to their age. In addition, 51 new Eternal format legal cards will be included among the 5 decks. The set will be released on June 17, 2011 and each deck will retail for $29.95.

Commander will continue Wizard's "Summer of Multiplayer" theme, following up on 2010's Archenemy and 2009's Planechase.

Set details

See also: Commander (format).

The Commander product consists of five decks, each 100 cards strong, that are ready-to-play Commander decks right out of the box, with the option of choosing one of the three legendary enemy-tri-colored creatures each deck includes as the commander. None of the decks contain any cards that contain mana symbols not found on these three cards. Additionally, each deck contains one enemy-colored legend, and each deck can easily be modified to use that card as the commander commander by replacing all cards that have mana symbols not on that legendary creature and replace them with other cards from the players collection that conform to the Commander rules.

Each deck will also come with oversized foil versions of each of the three wedge commanders.

Commander is the first deck-based retail product to contain new and previously unreleased cards. These cards will become legal in the sanctioned Eternal formats Vintage and Legacy, but not in Standard or Extended, upon the sets release. Many of these cards are multi-player themed and focus on the political interactions on the table, for example giving an effect to all opponents of a chosen player. As such, Commander also introduces a new ability word in Join forces which allows all players to get a similar effect at the same time.

An oddity about the commander set is the card numbering. While in normal magic sets where such cards are more prevalent, Hybrid cards are numbered to follow regular multi-colored cards. In Commander, Hybrid cards are numbered among multi-colored cards. The same is true for split cards, though Fire//Ice is the only representative of those in the set.

Preview Cards

With the annoucement of the reformatting of EDH, Wizards released images of 2 of the 51 new cards that will be spread among the 5 decks.

File:Karador,GhostChieftain.jpg File:DeathByDragons.jpg

Mechanics

The ability word Join Forces allows multiple players to pay mana to increase the effectiveness of the same card. Starting with the controller of the card with Join Forces, each player may pay any amount of mana. Then, an effect based on the total amount of mana paid by all players occurs.

Cycles

Commander has five cycles:

• Legendary Dragons: Each deck has a mythic rare legendary Dragon that was first printed in Planar Chaos. These dragons have flying, a triggered ability with a cost of 2C that triggers on dealing combat damage to a player, and power/toughness of 6/6 — Oros, the Avenger; Intet, the Dreamer; Teneb, the Harvester; Numot, the Devastator; and Vorosh, the Hunter.
• Tri-colour Legends: Each deck has two other three-colour 'wedge' legendary creatures — Kaalia of the Vast and Tariel, Reckoner of Souls; Riku of two Reflections and Animar, Soul of Elements; Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Ghave, Guru of Spores; Zedruu the Greathearted and Ruhan of the Fomori; and Damia, Sage of Stone and The Mimeoplasm.
• Enemy-Colour Legends: Each deck has one enemy-colour legendary creatures — Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter; Nin, the Pain Artist; Skullbriar, the Walking Grave; Basandra, Battle Seraph and Edric, Spymaster of Trest.
• Vows: Five auras that give a creature a power/toughness bonus, an evergreen keyword, and stops it from attacking the controller of the aura or a planeswalker that player controls. — Vow of Duty, Vow of Flight, Vow of Malice, Vow of Lightning, and Vow of Wildness.
• Join forces cards: All of these cards have the Join forces mechanic. With the exception of the Dragon, all of them cost 1 mana of their respective colors — Alliance of Arms, Mind's Aglow, Shared Trauma, Mana-Charged Dragon, and Collective Voyage

Commander also contains a number of reprinted cycles in lands and mana-producing artifacts, though cycles are not always complete. These cycles include Ravnica Karoo lands, Signets, Onslaught Cycling Lands, Lorwyn Vivid Lands, Time Spiral Storage Lands, Zendikar Refuges.

External links

• Commander product information page — Wizards of the Coast
• Magic: The Gathering Commander Card Image Gallery
• "Magic Arcana" (Wednesday, April 06, 2011). "Commander Decks". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• "Feature Article" (Thursday, December 02, 2010). "Commander Official Annoucement". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• "Magic Arcana" (Thursday, December 02, 2010). "Announcing Magic: The Gathering Commander". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Official Commander (Elder Dragon Highlander - EDH) Homepage