Cards That Confuse New Commander Players

There's one constant among all Magic players. 

It doesn't matter if you've been playing this game for 30 years or 30 minutes. It doesn't matter if you exclusively play Commander, or have dabbled in every sanctioned and kitchen-table format from here to Ice Age Sealed. It doesn't matter if you have unlimited resources to play any card you want, or if your land base features an Island with the word "tropical" written above it in ball point pen. 

No, the one constant among all of us is that at one point, we had no idea what the hell we were doing. 

No one's born with the knowledge of a three-decades-old card game ingrained in their brain. And, it seems, this particular card game is pretty complicated.

We all had to start somewhere. Whether you're reading this with the comfort of years of institutional knowledge stemming from your experience playing hundreds of games of Magic, or you're reading this because your friends' nagging at you to give Magic a try is starting to really grate on your patience, this will serve you as a reminder that at one point, we were all little nascent caterpillars. Some have already blossomed into Magic butterflies, and some are yet to form their chrysalides. 

Consider this article an open discussion about your experience of building your first deck or of drawing your first hand of Magic cards. Think back decades, or think back days. What sticks out? Was it a particular moment in game? A feeling you had, good or bad? What made you go back for that second game? 

Today, we're going to talk about one aspect of that introductory experience; in particular, specific cards that trip new Commander players up. We who have played for many years may not recall individual cards that we misread, misinterpreted or misremembered, but I guarantee you they were there. I'll list a few that I've seen terrorize novice deckbuilders and players, but I behoove you to include your own beginner bugaboos below. 

Crypt Ghast

Why is it a problem?

When you're first learning to play Commander, one of the format's core tenets requires a solid understanding of color identity. If your commander is Sliver Hivelord, you don't need to think about it much, but if your commander is Tinybones, Trinket Thief, that restriction becomes much more relevant. 

We're taught that very specific indicators are used to denote a card's color identity. Those are:

• Mana symbols in the casting cost
• Mana symbols in the rules text, like the aforementioned Tinybones's activated ability
• Color indicator, if present; think Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh's little red dot on the type line
• The back face of a double-faced card, like Garruk Relentless

Like nearly everything in Magic, there's no simple answer to the question of color identity. It's this, but also this and this, and don't forget this. Consider that when encountering new players, much like encountering people for whom English is a second language. It's hard enough to remember the rules of anything when you're learning from scratch, but when those rules are dependent on understanding of multiple axes of interconnected other rules, it's a miracle that any of us know what's going on.

But back to Crypt Ghast. Why, specifically, is our black-mana-doubling ghost friend such a problem for new players? That's because new players might not have been briefed on the difference between rules text and reminder text. Crypt Ghast isn't the only offender, but as arguably the most popular card in Commander featuring extort (with Blind Obedience a close second), it's the face of the franchise, as it were. 

While color identity certainly cares about any mana symbols in the rules text, the reminder text is there simply to remind you. It's not really part of the whole deal. Therefore, Crypt Ghast can be freely played in decks that do not feature white, despite that little black/white hybrid symbol right there in the text box. 

If we look at later reprints of the card, the reminder text is omitted, solving the problem for new players if that is the copy they have. 

But if you happen to have acquired a copy from Gatecrash, you're out of luck. But at least you won't forget what extort does. 

And let's say that one of the tools you're using to learn the game happens to be AI. Let's say you type into ChatGPT "can I play Crypt Ghast in a mono-black deck?" Well, if you do that, you'll be lied to:

"Crypt Ghast is a black card with a white-black hybrid mana symbol in its Extort ability. For Commander, this means it has a color identity of black-white rather than just black. New players might expect it to be usable in mono-black decks only, which can cause confusion if they aren't familiar with the rules about color identity."

Take this as a lesson on the fallibility of AI. 

Fetchlands

Why are they a problem?

This is similar to the Crypt Ghast issue, but through a slightly different approach. 

New players often conflate "color" with "land." Forests are green, Mountains are red, et cetera. And to be fair, that's perfectly logical. Unfortunately, Magic is old enough and complicated enough that logic isn't always the premier determination of why certain things are the way they are. Think of it like a really old car. If it doesn't start one morning, there's likely a perfectly logical reason behind that failure -- alternator's dead, you've got a bad belt, or maybe you just straight up forgot to put gas in it -- but it might also be the case that it simply just doesn't want to start. 

That is not logical, or even technically possible. But maybe on this morning, the machine spirit who lives in your carburetor called in sick. That's kind of how Magic rules work, too. 

Lands do not have an inherent color. Most lands do have a color identity due to the fact that they tap for a colored mana, and that colored mana symbol is part of the rules text and thus used to determine color identity. But most is not all. 

Take Arid Mesa, for example. It says "Plains" and "Mountain" right on it, and the text box even has a nice little color gradient going from red on the left into cream on the right (oh, and by the way, new players, nothing in Magic that is considered "white" is actually, like, white, but rather off-white). 

None of that means jack in terms of color identity. You can play an Arid Mesa in your Simic deck. That's probably not wise, but there ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball. 

For new players, there are other issues with fetchlands as well, largely in the realm of strategy. You've probably heard asked, or have asked yourself, why on earth anyone would want to put a land in their deck that does nothing but go get a land that does do something. And you've got to pay a life to do it. I'm not a strategy guy, however, so I'll let you get into that whole debate via writers here on Commander's Herald who are much smarter than I am when it comes to deckbuilding.

In terms of color identity, though, any fetchlands can go in any deck, just like lands like City of Brass can go in a mono-colored deck despite technically tapping for any color. 

Phantasmal Image

Why is this a problem?

To target, or not to target. That's a question that many a new player struggle with. What even is targeting, anyway?

Phantasmal Image is a good example of this issue since it both does not target, and also dies to targeting. 

First things first. Phantasmal Image is a "clone effect," and most clone effects do not target the card they're cloning. That's a mind-melting situation for many new players, as we're all taught that if you're playing a card that cares about another card, that's targeting. Doom Blade targets. Rancor targets. But Clone? Doesn't target. 

Cloning is not an "enters-the-battlefield" ability. When you play a clone effect like our buddy Phantasmal Image, it becomes its clone before it even breathes its first battlefield breath. In other words, it's a "replacement effect." So if you want to make Phantasmal Image your very own copy of Progenitus, "protection from everything" is something of a misnomer. And make sure you're cloning someone else's Progenitus, otherwise you'll run afoul of the Legend Rule. 

Oh, and explaining to new players that Progenitus's "protection from everything" clause doesn't actually mean everything can be a bit of a speed bump. 

One shorthand way of explaining targeting is to simply ask a new player if the card says the word "target." That doesn't work for mutate or Auras, but it works pretty much all the other times. So you can clone a Phantasmal Image that's a clone of something else and Phantasmal Image wouldn't die from its own ability, but if you try to slap an Armadillo Cloak on that bad boy, then it's curtains.

Just remember that what seems obvious to you might not be so obvious for people you're playing with, and it's not a matter of just "learning the rules." Have you seen the comprehensive rules to this damn game? It straight up says it is NOT meant to be read beginning to end. And that all-caps "not" is in all caps because that's how Wizards of the Coast wrote it. Emphasis theirs, in other words. 

So if there's ever a situation when you're playing a game and someone does something "wrong" that frustrates you, consider that a teachable moment, not a chance to lord your marginally better proficiency over others. 

Textless Cryptic Command

Why is this a problem?

I'm including this one in here mainly as a gag, but it actually helps illustrate an issue that new players frequently have when playing Commander. 

We often forget that Commander is not and was never intended to be the entry point format for new players. Commander was invented by judges, arguably the most invested players there are, and has been around for a very long time. It can probably be argued that Commander, in its "truest" form, is probably the least beginner-friendly format in Magic, in terms of deckbuilding and strategy. To return to my language analogy, it'd be like trying to bolster that English learner's studies by handing them House of Leaves. 

We're seeing in recent years an explosion in the popularity of the format, and a lot of that is driven by new players who are jumping into Commander as their first experience with the game. And that's great, new players are always welcome in Commander. While it's a very complicated way to play a very complicated game, one key aspect of the format is its emphasis on inclusion. But that can also cause friction when enfranchised players show their frustration with players who might not be as knowledgeable as they are.

And that's why I bring up the textless Cryptic Command. I've been playing since Tempest, and I think I can name at least three of the four modes of Cryptic Command without looking it up (I always forget the "tap all opponents' creatures" part). No one knows everything about Magic. And the older I get, the less I seem to know. But there's no metric by which I can be considered a new player. 

So if you're sitting down to play Commander at your LGS, don't assume that everyone's on the same level of familiarity that you are, regardless of how long they've been playing. Just remember the spirit of the format:

"There is no age at which you stop learning."

Don't forget to add onto this with your own experiences below, whether they be from your formative years or from interactions you might have had with new players. Consider this a safe harbor in the raging seas of a relentless release schedule and increasingly complex cards. We may not strictly long for a simpler time of Lightning Bolts and Grey Ogres, but there was something special about that time, wasn't there?

New players don't care about Grey Ogres, though. Take it from me. You sound like a crazy old man. 

Until next time!