Magic: The Gathering (often abbreviated MTG) is the oldest trading card game, dating back to August of 1993. I was oblivious at the time. I lived in rural Minnesota with conservative parents who looked askance at anything tinged with the occult. The only collectible game fad from that era I remember was POGs, which certainly did not last nearly as long.

I also collected baseball cards, but that was also suffering from the over-saturation of collector hype that plagued the comic book industry of the time. There weren't really any games you played with baseball cards, though. You put them in boxes and binders and handled them just enough to ruin any resale value. After all, that tattered Kent Hrbek card was gonna be the next Babe Ruth worth millions! Maybe I should see if I have anything worth a few bucks now. It's doubtful, though. Too many steroid scandals.

MTG was different, though. The cards you collected were meant to be used to build a custom deck, allowing you to take the role of a powerful wizard who could travel the multiverse, summoning spells and minions to battle rivals. Unlike POGs, the card market was not licensed to everyone under the sun. Instead, the parent company, Wizards of the Coast, began developing new cards after the first set scored such a success. This soon developed into a regular cycle of new releases, and the standard tournament rules retire old sets as new ones are released, requiring continual purchases for those who play regularly.

Their business model seems to be going strong, but a lot of us can't afford to keep up with that release cycle draining our hobby budget. Fortunately, "kitchen-table Magic" includes a variety of options for more casual gamers. Various rules dictate deck construction. Some players prefer opening the standard deck format to include older sets, while others like to explore new game formats and deck styles. I find myself drawn most to Commander.

A selection of sleeved cards from one of my decks

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Gameplay Basics

To start any MTG game, each player shuffles their deck, passes it to an opponent to cut, and draws a hand of seven cards. The remaining deck is placed face down in a draw pile called the library, and as play progresses, cards played or creatures slain are put in a discard pile called the graveyard. Cards may also be exiled from the game entirely.

If there are only two players, the first omits their first draw step. Otherwise, turns progress in a series of phases:

1. Upkeep - untap cards, resolve any "at start of turn" effects, and then draw a card from your library.
2. Pre-combat main Phase - play cards and activate card abilities.
3. Combat - choose creatures to attack one or more opponents, if desired.
4. Post-combat main phase - same as above.
5. End step - resolve any "end of turn" effects and discard as needed to reduce hand size to seven.

Each player typically begins the game with 20 life points, and is eliminated from the game if their life point pool is reduced to zero, they cannot draw any cards due to an empty library, or some alternate win condition is met depending on the cards in play.

However, other formats have differing life pools. In Commander, players begin with a doubled life total of 40.

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Deck Construction

In a Standard deck, there are at least 60 cards. Players are allowed unlimited basic land cards and up to four copies of any other card. Decks can be larger, but most players use that 60-card minimum plus a sideboard of 15 optional cards to swap in depending on an opponent's anticipated strengths and weaknesses.

In contrast, Commander uses a deck of exactly 100 cards, no more, no less. Other than basic lands, decks may only include a single copy of any given card. One Legendary Creature card is set aside as the commander, and is played from a command zone outside the hand and library. When slain, exiled, or otherwise removed from play, it can be returned to the command zone instead of going to the graveyard. It can also be re-summoned from the command zone with an additional 2 generic mana added to its casting cost for each cumulative re-summoning.

When this format was developed, the commanders were always Elder Dragons, and it was related to another format called Highlander, named for a certain film and television franchise since "there can be only one" of any card. This Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) format was eventually formally adopted by Wizards of the Coast as Commander, so any of these labels are effectively interchangeable.

The commander defines the color identity of the deck. Any mana symbols appearing anywhere on the commander card, including casting cost and ability text, define the allowable card colors. There are five colors in MTG: red (mountains), white (plains), green (forests), black (swamps), and blue (islands.) These are sometimes abbreviated R, W, G, B, & U, respectively. There are in-game names for the two- and three-color combinations, but the letters usually suffice. There are also cards without any color identity, primarily Artifact cards, which may be included in any deck.

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Commander Examples

Tasigur, the Golden Fang has a converted mana cost (CMC) of 6: five generic mana of any color, and one Swamp. However, his ability costs CMC 4 with two generic mana and two hybrid mana symbols combining green and blue, menaing either Island or Forest mana can be used for both of those slots. As such, his color identity includes all three colors, and he can be used to construct a BUG deck containing cards with all of them, but white and red are forbidden. Those symbols cannot even appear in hybrid mana symbols alongside one of the allowed colors.

Tasigur is also an example of a Commander one would play primarily as a support card for his color identity and ability. CMC 6 for a 4/5 creature without evasion is not the best minion to throw into combat. Instead, he allows a nasty combination of colors while playing strange graveyard shenanigans.

In contrast, some players might prefer a commander more focused on dealing direct damage.

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed is also CMC 6: four generic mana plus one red and one green. However, his power and toughness of 6/6 is more in line with his casting cost, and he also has the vigilance and reach abilities, meaning he can attack without being tapped, and he can block creatures with flying. On top of all that, he also passively pings anyone for 6 damage if they cast any non-creature spell, adding a major threat to everyone at the table. He does have one major downside, though: he must attack each turn, if able.

He has potential to trigger a special rule in Commander: any player taking 21 or more points of combat damage from any single commander loses the game regardless of their life total.

The commander thus dictates what kind of deck will work best, and suggests the kinds of cards which will support them. While Tasigur wants to sit back and plot, Ruric Thar wants to charge in and swing fists.

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Deck Design

The first step is amassing a mana base. I usually start with 36 or so land cards, primarily basic lands. Since there can only be a single example of any other given card, non-basic lands are both a blessing and a curse. They add versatility, but not reliably.

Then, spell cards must be chosen. On one hand, the singleton format means there are a lot of slots to fill with different cards. On the other hand, the possibilities to fill those slots can be overwhelming. There is a small ban list, but as I write this post, there are still nearly three decades of cards from which to choose, and almost everything is legal in the format.

How do you want to play? Ruric Thar suggests a simple strategy. He probably only wants creature cards. No sorceries, instants, or enchantments, and no non-creature artifacts. He likes red and green creatures, and he benefits from creatures with abilities which mimic those forbidden card types. Tasigur is a lot more complicated. He benefits from all sorts of graveyard interactions, and both blue and black offer lots of options to summon creatures from the graveyard or boost the effects of cards based on what has been discarded.

These are only two examples. Scores of Legendary Creatures with various casting costs, color identities, and abilities have been printed over the years. Deck construction is far too complicated to cover in any detail here, but suffice to say, choosing your commander and planning a play style is just the start to a major project. Any deck is probably a perpetual work in progress. There are always new ideas to try, new cards to add, and new interactions to discover. That is one of the main draws for this format in particular, and can lead to creative ideas not seen in any other format. For example, there is even a group hug style of deck which plays nice with everyone else at the table until a win condition can be assembled.

Regardless of your deck design, you will only know if it works by playing several games against several other different decks. What has synergy? What doesn't quite work? Do you need more lands, more non-land mana sources, or more spells? Only experience will tell, so get playing!

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Conclusion

What kinds of decks do you like? Some prefer to be aggressive like Ruric Thar. Others prefer synergy and subtle interaction to take control of the game, like Tasigur might suggest. Group Hug and other forms of player politics might be your style, or you might prefer Stax decks which lock down your opponents. Regardless of what you play, you can find a variety of fun Commander deck ideas just by browsing through your collection, or buying a pre-constructed deck from your friendly local game shop. Share your opinions and deck lists in the comments below!

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