The Best Commander Variant Formats
It's time again for another list begging you to play something outside of traditional four-player free-for-all Commander. Commander is Magic's most popular format, and rightly so. It's the best way to personalize your Magic experience with cards and themes that you love from the entirety of Magic's history, and its free-for-all nature means that even lower-power level decks can hang at a semi-competitive table and still have a good time. It's Wizards' preferred entry format into paper Magic (if their precon release schedule is anything to go off of), and we'll probably never see another format as widespread as Commander.
You'd be forgiven if, like me, you're starting to burnout on Commander. The absolute onslaught of new cards and products relevant to the format is staggering and nearly impossible for the average Joe with a day job to keep track of. Instead of drowning in an ever-rising pool of new content, why not relax and unwind and get away from it all? Let's take this allegedly casual format and find even more casual ways to play it.
Don't worry, this time I'm sure you'll be able to convince your pod to play Emperor or Vanguard. Let's take a look at the best Commander format variants!
Two-Headed Giant
The classic multiplayer format, Two-Headed Giant is a 2v2 MTG format where teams share a single life total of 30, though Commander games increase this total to 60, typically. Teams take their turns simultaneously, advancing through phases and steps together. Teams do not share any resources other than life. For instance, any reference to "you" on a card still applies to the individual holder.
Effects that read "each opponent" or "each player", however, affect each team member separately. Players can block any creature(s) attacking them, their teammates, or planeswalkers their team controls.
Two-Headed Giant is a great way to spice up the traditional four-player Commander pod. I've found that if there's a power imbalance in the decks at the table, pairing the weaker decks with the stronger ones can level the playing field.
Kingdoms/Treachery
Kingdoms is a Mafia-like Commander variant that uses secret roles to determine players' allies, enemies, and win conditions. Kingdoms is best played with six players, but can be adapted to work with more or fewer.
To start a game of Kingdoms EDH, begin by distributing secret roles to each player. Robin Klaas (in the linked article) recommends using basics to determine the roles. Randomly shuffle 1 Plains, 1 Island, 1 Swamp, 2 Mountains, and 1 Forest together and deal them face down to all players. This is secret information until the game ends, with the exception of the Monarch (or King, or whatever moniker you'd like). The roles are:
- Plains - The Monarch: The Monarch is the only public role. The player dealt the Plains should immediately reveal it as soon as everyone's seen their card. The Monarch begins the game with 50 life and always goes first. The Monarch wins when every other player has been eliminated, or if the only player left besides them is the Knight. If the Knight is left with the Monarch, they can reveal their Forest and both players win the game.
- Forest - The Knight: The Knight's goal is to defeat every other player, or be left standing with the Monarch. Thus, the Knight must defend the Monarch, or at least harass the Bandits and Assassin.
- Mountain - The Bandits: The Bandits win if the Monarch is defeated. Once the Monarch's removed from the game, the Bandits reveal their cards and are declared winners.
- Swamp - The Assassin: This one is simple. The Assassin wins when all other players are eliminated.
- Island - The Usurper: The Usurper must deal the killing blow to the Monarch, whether by combat damage or some other means (for example, an effect the Usurper controls milling the Monarch out). When the Usurper defeats the Monarch, they become the new Monarch! Their life total is instantly set to 50, and the Monarch is left alive at 1 life. The two switch roles and the new Monarch (formerly Usurper) has the same victory conditions as the old Monarch and the Knight. To adjust for five players, this role is typically removed.
Kingdoms adds a layer of politics and bluffing on top of the already political and information-based Commander format. Changing player goals and influencing their alliances is one of the best ways to spice up a Commander game, and it encourages interaction in larger pods.
Treachery is a similar variant that takes inspiration from the board game BANG! and, by extension, Mafia. Treachery adds another layer to the role cards, giving each role personalized abilities to further complicate your alleged alliances at the table. Check out their site for a full PDF of their personalized Role cards, and maybe get inspired to make some yourself!
Planechase
Chances are you've heard of Planechase by now. March of the Machine featured the oversized Plane cards in its precon Commander decks, and before that two entire sets and one Anthology of Planechase cards were released for Constructed formats.
Planechase adds the flavor of setting to games of Commander. Instead of doing battle on a blank, playmat-colored world, you're now fighting for control of Feeding Grounds of Muraganda and Hedron Fields of Agadeem on Zendikar. Players can play with their own deck of 10 Plane cards, or draw from a communal deck to determine the locale of their battle. In addition, all players can roll the Planar die to either planeswalk the pod to a new Plane or trigger the Plane's ability. Players get one roll of the Planar die for free each turn, with each additional roll costing an amount of generic mana equal to the number of times you've rolled the die so far. Remember that the die can only be rolled at sorcery speed.
While many of the Plane cards are reviled for their anti-interaction (like The Eon Fog), most "modern" Planes (the ones printed in March of the Machine and Doctor Who decks) were designed with Commander in mind.
Assembling a full Planar deck can be costly, with some of the rarer planes going for $25+. Don't let that discourage you! There are more than a few Planar randomizers online you can use to try out Planechase before you commit to a physical deck. I like humpheh's, but there are hundreds of others to choose from.
Vanguard
Vanguard was a proto-Commander style format where players have a single oversized Vanguard card, which can be chosen or assigned randomly. The Vanguard remains in the command zone for the entire game, and its effects are always "in play." Most Vanguard cards modify your starting hand and starting life total in addition to their other abilities.
The oversized Vanguard cards were released at events in 1997 as a casual variant to typical Constructed. Each Vanguard card represents a famous character from the Magic universe, with heroes like Squee and villains like Mishra.
The Vanguard cards vary wildly in power levels. Some, like Sliver Queen, Brood Mother, are entirely upside, increasing your starting life and giving you access to a repeatable useful effect (in a Slivers deck, at least). Others, like Selenia, are just an anthem for your creatures with a small buff to hand size and starting life (small compared to some of the other Vanguards, I should say).
Appending Vanguard to Commander can shake out in a couple different ways: you could simply run the Vanguard cards as additional commanders, hanging out in your command zone and synergizing with the rest of your deck. Or, you could forgo a traditional commander altogether, and simply build an entire deck using only the Vanguard as a commander. I have no idea how we'd limit the color identity of those decks; we're halfway to playing Canadian Highlander at this point.
Oathbreaker
Oathbreaker is a 60-card Singleton Commander variant that uses planeswalkers and a "signature spell" in the command zone. Players can cast their commander any time they would normally be allowed, but they can only cast their signature instant or sorcery spell while their planeswalker commander is on the field. After you cast the signature spell, you can return it to your command zone, where it can be recast after paying the appropriate Commander Tax.
Oathbreaker gives players the opportunity to build around their favorite main character from the Magic storyline, and to also set up some wacky play patterns with regular access to a specific spell. I've seen Chandra, the Firebrand decks with Lightning Bolt as their spell, Liliana of the Dark Realms Oathbreakers with Exsanguinate, and even Garruk, Apex Predator and Abrupt Decay decks to bully the table.
The best part about Oathbreaker is you can append any of the other variant Commander formats to it, and it should run fine! Want to play Kingdoms with your Oathbreaker decks? Go for it! Feel like declaring Ajani Vengeant as the Emperor? Let's do it! Want to play out the conflict between Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and the Gatewatch? Make him the Archenemy!
Star
Also known as Pentagram and Five-Point, Star is a five-player variant format where five mono-colored decks face off, with each color trying to destroy its two enemy colors. Players sit around a table in the same pentagon arrangement as the colors on the back of every Magic card. Each player can only win when their two enemy colors, those seated across from them, are defeated. This means there are situations where two players can win the game simultaneously; for example, if the white player defeats both red and black, and the green player defeats blue, then both green and white will be victorious.
Star is great for a larger Commander pod since it incentivizes attacking and interaction across the table. With two clearly defined enemies, the political math of forging and breaking alliances is greatly simplified.
Star can be played in a number of sub-variants, including decks built around allied color pairs, a 10-player format using all the pairs and mono colors, and a variant where the decks' color identities don't matter, and the players opposite you are simply your enemies. (I like this one the best, and it's the easiest to pitch to a five-player pod without specifically mono-colored decks).
Horde
Looking for something to do with those thousands of useless tokens you have lying around? Boy, do I have the format for you! Horde is a casual multiplayer format that emulates a "PvE" experience. Originally themed around an endless horde of Zombies bearing down on the players, Horde's been expanded to use any tokens you have on hand.
Horde games are divided into two teams: the Horde deck (which runs itself) and the Survivors (the players). The Horde wins if the Survivor's life total is reduced to zero, and the Survivors win if the Horde decks itself.
The first step to playing Horde is to build the Horde deck. To do so, assemble a 100-card deck; 60 of these should be creature tokens, and the remaining 40 should be regular Magic cards. Cards included in the deck should not require the Horde to make choices, since it pilots itself and randomly determining its answers to choices is time-consuming. Cards included in the deck should be thematic and flavorful as well for the best experience.
Survivors can use any decks they have on hand, making this variant easily appendable to any Constructed format you were already playing.
The Horde deck pilots itself during the game. Each turn, you reveal cards from the top of the Horde deck until a nontoken card is revealed. All revealed tokens are then cast, then the revealed nontoken is cast. Then, if applicable, the Horde casts any cards from its graveyard or hand (if it has one). The Horde is assumed to have infinite mana at all times.
Creatures controlled by the Horde have haste and must attack each turn if able.
Finally, the Horde has no life total. Damage dealt to the Horde causes it to mill that many cards.
The Survivors, on the other hand, share a life total, similar to Two-Headed Giant. Each Survivor contributes 20 life to their starting total, so a three-player game would see the Survivors starting with 60 total life. The Survivors have three turns to set up and prepare for the Horde deck before it begins taking turns.
Horde is a fun way to take a break from the competitiveness of player-versus-player games, and instead lets you experiment with crafting a Horde deck that'll be challenging, but not unbeatable.
Archenemy
Archenemy is another oversized card format built around a 3v1 pod. The single player faces off against a team of three, but has access to a Scheme deck, a set of oversized cards with powerful effects to help level the playing field. The Scheme cards are truly villainous, and the Archenemy reveals and activates one on each of their turns for free. Schemes like All in Good Time are amazingly powerful, Time Walking the Archenemy for basically free. Many others have effects specially designed to handle three players at once; Into the Earthen Maw and Mortal Flesh Is Weak, for example.
Secret Partners
Secret Partners is a simpler version of Kingdoms and Treachery where players are assigned roles randomly, and then secretly reveal their partner. Teams win when every player on the opposing team is defeated. This adds a little bit of incentive to interact in a larger pod, and is easy to set up. Just deal out pairs of basics face down randomly, and have players close their eyes and reveal their partners to each other one by one. Besides that, Secret Partners play out like a typical game of EDH.
Planar Chaos
I had to do some real digging to find this one, but I think it sounds really cool! Pushing the Planechase concept even farther, Planar Chaos adds an element of movement and range to the Plane cards.
To begin, you'll need Commander decks, the Plane cards and Planar die, and game pieces of some kind to denote each player's location (I imagine I'd pull from my collection of D&D minis to keep the theme). Set out a grid of 12 Planes face down on the table to create a "Multiverse." Each team chooses a Plane at random, reveals it, and places their game piece on top of it (any "when you planeswalk to..." triggers are ignored in this pre-game action).
Planar Chaos adds an additional phase called the "Planeswalk" phase. The Planeswalk phase occurs after the beginning phase (Untap, Upkeep, and Draw) and before the Pre-Combat Main Phase. On the "Planeswalk" phase:
- Each active player may choose to planeswalk to another Plane.
- Players who choose to Planeswalk must skip either their Combat Phase or All Main Phases of their turn.
- Once players have decided, each player who chose to Planeswalk rolls the Planar Die.
- If a player rolls a "Chaos" then they've become lost in the Blind Eternities and end up in the wrong location. Place that player on a Plane chosen at random.
- If a player rolls a "Planeswalk" or "Empty" result, they successfully planeswalk to the target Plane.
- Flip any face-down planes that are now occupied by a player's game piece.
- Resolve any triggered abilities caused by players Planeswalking to or away from Planes.
The planeswalk phase, like all other phases, has a priority pass when transitioning to and from. This means that if someone planeswalks to your Plane successfully, you may cast instants or activate an ability before they enter their main phase.
Identical to Planechase, players may attempt to activate a Plane's Chaos ability by rolling the Planar Die, with rerolls costing an additional generic mana. When a player rolls the Planeswalk symbol on the Planar die, that player is Planeswalks to a Plane chosen at random.
Finally, Planar Chaos is a Range of Influence game. The Range of a player's influence includes all players on the same Plane. Range of influence rules are covered by Rule 801 of the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules. Here are some of the most relevant notes, as well as some of our rulings due to the unique circumstance of being in ROI without an opponent:
- Players cannot target opponents or permanents outside of their ROI.
- Players cannot attack opponents outside of their ROI.
- Players do not get priority during opponent's turns if there are no opponents in their ROI.
- If a card requires an opponent to take action (i.e. Fact or Fiction) and there are no opponents in your ROI, that card cannot be played.
- If a card would say "Any opponent may..." (i.e. Sin Prodder) and there are no opponents in your ROI, then resolve the card as if opponents chose to not act.
- If a player were to "Win the Game", all opponents in their ROI lose the game instead.
Planar Chaos adds a lot to the typical Commander game, bringing it closer to a TTRPG than a TCG sometimes.
Adventures
Commander Adventures is a flavor-focused Commander variant where players compete to complete quests (goals of varying difficulty) to earn bounties (small boons and bonuses) or become the Archenemy (with very powerful abilities). Adventures is a huge variant format, with 100 quests and bounties in the main set, and six additional expansions. There's so much to do with Commander Adventures I couldn't possibly cover it all here and not go over word count, so I'll thank you for clicking through to their Tapped Out link and giving them your traffic and upvotes or Youtube likes or whatever.
Brawl
Paper Brawl decks died pretty quickly, but they live on in MTG Arena, where it has become the preferred Commander variant. Brawl is a Standard-legal Commander variant where any legendary creature or planeswalker can be used as your Commander. Decks are typically 60 cards, except in Historic Brawl, where the game is basically the same as Commander except only with access to the Arena card pool. To be honest? Not a fan of Brawl, personally. I had a fun time that first night after they released the Throne of Eldraine Brawl decks back in 2019, but almost immediately disassembled my Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale deck in favor of an actual Commander deck instead.
Tiny Leaders
I'm a big fan of "small ball" Magic. Games without huge haymakers where victory or defeat comes down to player skill and luck. Tiny Leaders is a Commander variant that uses 50-card decks consisting of only cards with a converted mana cost of three or less. Other than that, the decks are built similarly to Commander, with a general being chosen and a deck matching its color identity built around it. Decks may include a 10-card sideboard. Finally, players start at 20 life, and their opening hand is determined by eight minus the number of cards in their command zone (so a single commander deck would start with seven, and decks with two partners start with six).
Tiny leaders pretty much removes all the game-ending haymaker spells from the game, making battles between players much more granular. With such a small library and selection of small cards, weighing your options on your turn is drastically different from your typical Commander game. Suddenly, a 2/3 Elvish Warrior is an effective turn-two play, and Hua Tuo, Honored Physician is one of the best Commanders in the format.
Pauper Commander (PDH)
Pauper Commander, also known as PDH, is a 100-card singleton format where you choose a single uncommon creature to be your commander, then build a deck of entirely commons around it. Other Pauper heads will recognize the patrician nature of this format; reducing the overall power level of the card pool forces you to become a better player when you can't lean on your Deadeye Navigator/Peregrine Drake combo to generate infinite mana.
Some of the best PDH commanders include Izzet Guildmage, Ley Weaver, Lore Weaver, and Tatyova, Benthic Druid (no surprises there).
Emperor
God, I love Emperor. Maybe it's just because I have a lot of friends and a dining room table with a leaf extension, but I frequently find myself with five or more players at my apartment for Commander night. Adding an extra player to the typical four-player free-for-all pod slows the game down exponentially; suddenly there are four full turns before the round comes back to you. That's, like, thirty minutes of gameplay happening on the far side of the table where the glare off the card sleeves makes it impossible for you to tell what's going on. No, we need a more eloquent way to play Commander with a large group. That's where Emperor steps in.
Emperor is a six-player format where two teams of three face off. Each team elects one player to be their "Emperor," and they are seated between their two "guards" (or "captains" or "generals" or "lieutenants" or whatever moniker you'd like to use). Teams win when the enemy Emperor loses, and only lose if their own Emperor loses the game.
Players take their turns individually, but they can collaborate with their teammates. To speed up this process, my playgroup allows each team to take their turn simultaneously, similar to Two-Headed Giant, but there are definitely instances where you'll want to play with the traditional rule.
As is traditional in large games, players use the range of influence rules. Typically, this means their spells and abilities can only affect players within one seat of them. However, each team's Emperor has a range of two, meaning they can attack the opposing generals from the start. Finally, each creature gains the Deploy ability: ": Target teammate gains control of this creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery." This lets the Emperor deploy blockers to their general's boards to protect themselves.
You don't need EDH decks to play Emperor, but those are the most readily available casual-multiplayer decks amongst most play groups; however, I've found there are some fun Constructed decks you can build for this, too! For example, check out this Geyadrone Dihada-based deck built around stealing creatures and then deploying them to your General's battlefields, permanently!
Geyadrone Emperor Deck
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Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
View this decklist on Archidekt
Also, shameless plug here: I'm the moderator over at r/EmperorMTG. Come on down if you're interested in discussion!
Casually Competitive
I don't mean to brag, but I think this might be one of the more complete lists of Commander Variant formats on the web. I'm sad to say that I rarely see any of these formats played in real life at LGSs, but I hope that this article has inspired you to give a few of these a try!
If these formats interest you, I can't recommend Robin Klaas's Uncompetitive Spirit series enough. Robin goes into great detail on a handful of Commander variants, touching on Planechase Commander and Secret Partners all the way back in 2018!
Thanks for reading!
