Comprehending Competitive - Three Things To Look For In cEDH Commanders

Thrasios, Triton Hero

by Josu Hernaiz

What makes a commander good enough for cEDH? What draws competitive players to one new legendary creature while another is ignored? Why are casual nightmares, like Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

Any deck can throw a two-card combo and a fistful of fast mana in the 99 and call it a day, but without an appropriate commander, I'd hesitate to call it cEDH. 

What Makes A Deck cEDH?

Your commander is everything.

Color identity is half the battle, but that's an article for the new year. For now, I want to look at three traits a legendary creature can have that make it appropriate for cEDH. The more of these traits they have, the more likely it is to be viable. 

Whether it's having more cards, more mana, or reliable access to a combo, each trait helps with one thing: consistency.

How To Tell If A Card Is cEDH Competitive:

Card Advantage

If you already play EDH, or have even a passing familiarity with Magic, you know how important card advantage is, but cEDH demands that the card advantage you have access to is reliable and efficient.

Tymna, the Weaver

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Card "advantage" also comes in the form of filtering. Take Anje Falkenrath

Virtual card advantage is also available via effects that let you cast cards from other zones. Kess, Dissident Mage

The other type of card advantage we see in cEDH is commanders that can tutor. Commanders like Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Ultimately, if the card in your command zone represents access to even more cards, there's a good chance it has competitive potential.

Other Examples: Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Mana Acceleration

Anyone familiar with EDH or Magic at large understands just how important mana is. Being able to produce more of it than your opponents - or cheat on costs in the first place - is crucial in cEDH, and like card advantage, mana acceleration comes in many different flavors, all of them viable in their own right.

The most obvious form is outright mana production. Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

Likewise, cards like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Commanders that produce or amplify mana are the most obvious form of acceleration, but I put legends like Winota, Joiner of Forces

While they don't make any mana of their own, if you can execute the gameplan they demand, you won't be paying full price to cast your spells. Cheating on costs is one of the most broken things you can do, as the infamous Phyrexian mana mechanic illustrates.

Mana acceleration can even come in abstract ways. You wouldn't know it from looking, but oddly enough Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh

But like card advantage, mana acceleration is worse the more hoops you have to jump through. Svella, Ice Shaper

Other Examples: Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Combo Potential

This is the real meat of the format. Efficient combos are often frowned upon in traditional EDH, but they're the bread and butter of cEDH. While combat damage, soft locks, or grinding your opponent out are fine as backup plans, the vast majority of decks look to infinite combos as their primary goal. In a format that revolves around combos, it's no wonder that having a piece in the command zone is coveted. This often overlaps with commanders capable of tutoring.

This means combo potential is the most common justification for a cEDH commander. With enough setup, nearly any commander can be part of a combo, but to cut it in cEDH, that setup has to be lean, clean, and as mean as possible. A cute interaction isn't enough; it has to be something that wins you the game, or at least puts you within spitting distance.

The more common occurrence is that a new commander is spoiled, and bright-eyed brewers scour Scryfall and Commander's Spellbook looking for the missing piece. As someone who loves to brew cEDH decks, the hunt for new commander combos is one of the thrills of spoiler season.

These combos range from the painfully simple - pair Malcolm with Glint-Horn Buccaneer

Unfortunately, this also means that combo-centric commanders are difficult to recognise. While a commander that draws cards will say so on the face of the card, you need an incredible amount of game knowledge to look at Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

The most common style of combo potential a prospective cEDH commander can have is an outlet. Infinite mana is all too easy to produce in this format, which means that any commander with an infinitely activatable ability can immediately present a win. Look no further than format staple Thrasios, Triton Hero

Other Examples: The First Sliver

But What About...?

Admittedly, there are a few decks on the cEDH decklist database and currently being brewed that don't neatly fit any of these categories. While I would call most of these fringe, they're still valid and viable. What these rogue commanders tend to have in common is helming stax decks. 

Commanders like Nath, Lavinia, and Ruric Thar exist in cEDH as decks poised to attack the meta. While they don't fit the above criteria, they nullify or mitigate the abilities of the commanders that do.  They are a small minority, and despite their unique effects, the strongest commanders for the stax archetype - Winota, Heliod, Kenrith - also provide advantage or associated combos.

As far as identifying new commanders for cEDH viability, I'd argue that stax is by far the hardest to assess. Without an in-depth knowledge of the cEDH meta, it's hard to know which stax effects are up to scratch.

Not The Whole Picture

You'll have noticed by now that a lot of commanders have overlapping traits. Kinnan gives you mana and is a combo piece. Winota is both card and mana advantage. Selvala even manages to tick all three boxes. This isn't to say that any commander capable of ticking multiple boxes is necessarily better, but it's a good rule of thumb to steer by, at least when assessing new cards.

I should also note that this article only covers the broadest features and facets of cEDH commanders. It is by no means all there is to commander assessment at the competitive level. Every cEDH commander has its own strengths and weaknesses, not to mention unique appeals.

Take the recently spoiled Toxrill, the Corrosive