Magic the gathering commander guide
Ian HepworthShare
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MTG COMMANDER
WHY MOST CASUAL MTG PLAYERS END UP IN COMMANDER
I didn’t set out to stock specifically for Commander players when I started Vault of Cards. But when I look at what people are actually buying, Commander singles dominate. It’s not even close.
Commander is the format most casual Magic players gravitate towards, and once they’re in it, they tend to stay. Here’s a complete guide to how it works and how to approach it.
WHAT IS COMMANDER?
Commander — also called EDH, which stands for Elder Dragon Highlander, its original fan-made name before Wizards officially adopted it — is a multiplayer format typically played between four players. Each player builds a 100-card singleton deck, meaning one copy of each card only except basic lands, built around a legendary creature of their choice: their Commander.
The Commander’s colour identity determines which colours you can use in your deck. A red and green Commander means your 99 other cards can only include red, green, and colourless cards. This constraint is actually one of the format’s strengths — it forces creative deckbuilding within clear boundaries.
HOW COMMANDER PLAYS
Each player starts with 40 life. Your Commander begins in the Command Zone — a special separate area — and can be cast from there at any time.
If your Commander dies or gets exiled, you can return it to the Command Zone rather than losing it permanently, and cast it again. Each time it returns and is recast, it costs two additional generic mana — this is called Commander Tax. First cast: normal cost. Second cast: normal cost plus two. Third cast: normal cost plus four. Your Commander is always available, which makes it the consistent strategic anchor of your deck throughout the game.
You’re eliminated when your life total reaches zero, or when you’ve taken 21 or more combat damage from a single Commander. That second condition — Commander Damage — catches people off guard more often than you’d expect.
WHAT IS RULE 0?
Rule 0 is the conversation you have at the table before the game starts. It’s not an official rule — it’s a community norm, and it exists because Commander is a social format where matching power levels matters enormously.
Before playing, the table discusses deck power levels, whether proxies are permitted, any house rules, and anything else relevant. A highly optimised deck against a casual theme deck is a bad game for everyone. A brief honest conversation beforehand fixes this almost every time.
The quality of your Commander experience is largely determined by how well your table handles this conversation. Don’t skip it.
WHAT IS THE 75% RULE?
A community concept — not an official rule — suggesting the ideal Commander deck is built to roughly 75% of its theoretical maximum power. Competitive enough to win games and apply real pressure, but not so optimised that it removes agency and fun from the rest of the table.
In practice this means avoiding the most degenerate infinite combos and lock pieces, and building with some awareness of how your deck feels to play against. What 75% looks like varies by playgroup — a table of experienced players will have a higher baseline than a group of beginners. The point is the intent: build to compete, not to end the game before it’s started.
HOW MANY LANDS SHOULD YOU RUN?
The community consensus is 36 to 38 lands for most decks, plus additional mana acceleration — mana rocks like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, mana dorks which are creatures that tap for mana, and land ramp spells that fetch lands from your deck.
Is 27 lands enough? No. Running that few lands means consistently failing to hit your land drops. Your games will feel broken before they start.
Is 40 lands too many? For most decks, yes — unless your strategy specifically rewards playing lots of lands, like a Landfall build. Too many lands means not enough spells to actually do interesting things.
Start at 36 lands and 10 ramp pieces. Play games. Adjust based on what’s actually going wrong.
CAN PLANESWALKERS BE COMMANDERS?
Only specific ones. A Planeswalker can serve as your Commander only if the card itself explicitly says “this card can be your Commander.” Not all Planeswalkers have this text. Check the card before building a deck around one.
CAN YOU RUN 9 NAZGUL IN A COMMANDER DECK?
Yes — and it’s one of the best flavour decisions in recent rules design. Commander is a singleton format, but the Nazgul cards from the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set carry specific rules text permitting up to nine copies in one deck. The nine Ringwraiths, in card form. It’s a wonderful exception to the singleton rule.
Other examples that break the single card rule are cards like seven dwarve, hare apparent or relentless rats.
ARE THE POWER 9 BANNED IN COMMANDER?
All nine are banned. Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Timetwister, and the five Moxen are banned because the advantage they provide is too extreme for a social multiplayer format. Black Lotus producing three free mana on turn one would warp games irreparably.
The Commander banned list is maintained by the Commander Rules Committee. Always check the current list at mtgcommander.net before building, particularly if you’re buying expensive or older cards.
5-COLOUR COMMANDER DECKS
A 5-colour Commander uses a legendary creature whose colour identity spans all five colours — white, blue, black, red, and green — opening your deck to almost any card in the game.
Popular 5-colour options include Kenrith, the Returned King and Morophon, the Boundless, which is particularly good for tribal builds. The challenge is the mana base: consistently casting spells across five colours requires careful construction. It’s an advanced build but one of the most rewarding once it works.
Recent sets like Lorwyn Eclipsed and Teenage mutant ninja turtles have both had pre-con decks that are five colour and would be a good way to get started.
Browse Commander singles here: Commander singles
WARHAMMER 40K COMMANDER CARDS
The MTG x Warhammer 40,000 crossover produced four Commander decks — Forces of the Imperium, Necron Dynasties, The Ruinous Powers, and Tyranid Swarm — and several cards from those sets have become genuine Commander staples beyond their obvious home in 40K-themed builds. If you’re looking for specific 40K singles, search the full collection here: browse our full MTG singles collection
WHERE TO START WITH COMMANDER DECKBUILDING
The most common mistake is trying to build from nothing with no reference point. Start with a pre-built Commander precon from Wizards of the Coast — they work out of the box and give you a functional skeleton to improve from. Identify the weakest cards. Replace them with better singles. It’s your deck and you have got to enjoy playing with it. If you don’t like a particular card or mechanic then tweak it but remember that the commander sets the tone of the deck so be careful not to upset the balance of the deck.
That process of incremental improvement is how most experienced Commander players actually build. You rarely start from zero. You start from something functional and refine it over time. When you know which singles you need, find them here: Commander singles