Commander Sealed 2024 Raises $40,000 for Charities

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK -- Hundreds of Magic: The Gathering players came together for a unique tournament experience called Commander Sealed. Hosted at the RIT Inn and Conference Center by Just Games of Rochester, New York, the event isn't just an opportunity to jam some games in an unusual format. It's also impactful as a charity.

Commander Sealed, as an event to raise money for worthwhile causes occurring every mid-September, was created by Dean Gootee in 2019, and any profits from the main event beyond the cost of holding the event this year were donated to the dual charities of The Trevor Project and Trans Lifeline. Last year's event raised $44,000 through the event's annual silent auction, in-house donations and matching bids from participants. Last weekend's event raised an additional $39,200, and that's before any matching bids have been calculated and added to the total.

Every year, Commander Sealed seems to build on the previous year's success, noted Matt Vercant of Just Games. "It's grown enormously...I believe the first year's main event hosted 32 players, [last year was] over 300," he said. "Our goal is to grow the event and the fundraising annually, but I think we envisioned maybe a 10-year trajectory to get where we are after [just four]. We are for sure a team that is still learning, and the entire event has been very much a grassroots effort to help a cause that matters to us, but also to our entire community."

What is Commander Sealed?

In short, the name "Commander Sealed" describes exactly what the format's about: it's Commander, but with elements of Sealed incorporated into it. Each player receives a sealed pool consisting of 14 packs, drawn from the last few years of Magic releases. This year, those packs included two of Bloomburrow, Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, Commander Legends: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, and Ravnica Remastered. An additional single pack of Modern Horizons 3 and five random packs from sets ranging from Strixhaven to Murders at Karlov Manor were also opened by players.

Players are positioned in pods of four for the deckbuilding segment. In those pods, players will have 75 minutes to open their pools, trade with podmates and construct a Commander deck. It's that trading aspect, said players, that really sets the experience apart from a typical Limited event. Because the gameplay generally follows the rules of the Commander format, including adhering to the color identity of the deck's commander, trading isn't just an interesting wrinkle, it can be a necessity to make a playable deck. Legendary creatures used as commanders have to be opened from among the sealed packs, like the rest of the deck.

After deckbuilding, players compete in Commander games by round. Additionally, if a game exceeds the allotted time for that round, Commander Sealed organizers led by Head Judge Seth Arar devised a unique way of speeding things along:

That's a custom "dungeon" in Arar's hand, with rooms providing set effects for games that run over the time limit, beginning with "each player loses half their life rounded up." According to Vercant, the exact mechanics of the dungeon have been tinkered with for the last few years and seems to work very well as a way to resolve long games with a winner while keeping with the casual, "for fun" nature of Commander Sealed as an event. 

Going to Commander Sealed

Outside of the main event, one of the primary draws of Commander Sealed is the ever-growing line-up of artists in attendance, ready to sign cards and offer prints and artist proofs all weekend long. This year, the line-up of artists was impressive:

• Rope Arrow (Tyler Day, who also provides much of the visual design for Commander Sealed)
• Alex Dos Diaz
• Sarah Finnigan
• Serena Malyon
• Andrew Mar
• Nana Qi
• Drew Tucker
• Quintin Gleim
• Steve Ellis

Artists, in addition to operating their tables, are also very generous with providing items to the event's yearly charity auction. Some even paint unique pieces that can only be acquired via the event's auction. "Commander Sealed has really drawn some national interest," said Vercant. "From Wizards of the Coast's donations, to the vast community of artists like Kaja Foglio and Magali Villeneuve painting original pieces for last year's event, specifically, the trust and support this event is getting is really, really an incredibly powerful thing."

All weekend long, Commander Sealed as an event features more than just the primary draw of the tournament. Several side events were planned for 2024, from smaller Limited events to Cube Drafts, Creator Clashes, and an open-door Dungeons & Dragons room.

The event space also includes a number of unique vendors, like the custom 3D-printed merch of Toasty Tech to the dry erase InfiniTokens.

And that's not all: Commander's Herald's own Am I the Bolcast? provided a live podcast recording on Sunday for audiences in attendance:

Players find Commander Sealed as an eventful weekend, but a welcome change from the more hectic, Wizards-organized Magic Cons. At its core, Commander Sealed is a way for Magic players to come to the aid of causes they support while doing what they do best: playing Magic. "Magic players are good people. The game has grown up a lot with its playerbase, and the folks who were playing in 1993 now have kids, and care about making the world around them a better place," said Vercant. "That all lines up with a community that is ready to make big waves in the fundraising space, while having a great time doing it. The team at Just Games feels very strongly that local business has a call to be more than just selling the next game; we have to put our weight behind the causes our players care about."