Commander rules

What Commander is

Commander (also called EDH) is a casual multiplayer format built around one legendary card. You pick a commander, build a 100-card singleton deck that matches its colours, and sit down with three other people. It is by far the most popular way to play Magic, and it started as a fan-made variant — Wizards of the Coast later adopted it into the official rules.

The default game is a four-player free-for-all where you can attack any opponent, everyone starts at 40 life, and the last player standing wins.

Comprehensive Rules 903.1, 903.2

Building the deck

Four rules do almost all the work, and they're what make Commander decks feel different from every other format: exactly 100 cards, one of each, all inside your commander's colours, no sideboard.

• Exactly 100 cards, counting your commander. Not “at least” 100 — 100 is both the minimum and the maximum.
• Singleton: no two cards may share an English name. Basic lands are the exception, and so is any card that says otherwise in its own text (Relentless Rats, Shadowborn Apostle, Persistent Petitioners and friends).
• Every card must fit inside your commander's colour identity — see below, it's stricter than “the same colours”.
• Lands with a basic land type are restricted too: you can only run one if every colour of mana it makes is in your commander's identity. That's what stops a mono-red commander running Steam Vents.
• No sideboard. Nothing is brought in from outside the game.

Comprehensive Rules 903.5a, 903.5b, 903.5c, 903.5d, 903.5e, 903.11

What can be your commander

A commander must be a legendary card that is a creature, a Vehicle, or a Spacecraft with a power/toughness box. That's the general rule — and it's the part most often misremembered, because planeswalkers are not on that list.

Separately, some cards carry an ability that reads “[this card] can be your commander”. That ability changes deck-building rules before the game starts, which is how a handful of planeswalkers (and a few stranger cards) legally lead a deck. If the card doesn't say it, it can't.

Being a commander is a property of the physical card, not of the permanent it becomes. Turn it face down, have it copy something else, exile it — it's still your commander.

Comprehensive Rules 903.3, 903.3a

Partners, Backgrounds and two-commander decks

Some legendary cards let you run two commanders instead of one. The deck is still exactly 100 cards including both of them, and both start in the command zone. Your colour identity becomes the two identities combined, which is the real reason these decks get built.

The variants can't be mixed and matched: two cards only pair up if their abilities match each other's requirements. “Partner” pairs with any other “partner”. “Partner with [name]” only pairs with the card it names. “Partner—Friends forever” (and the other “partner—[text]” flavours) only pairs with the same text. “Choose a Background” pairs only with a legendary Background enchantment. “Doctor's companion” pairs only with a legendary Time Lord Doctor.

Apart from sharing a colour identity, the two run independently — each pays its own commander tax, and each tracks its own 21 commander damage.

Comprehensive Rules 702.124a, 702.124b, 702.124c, 702.124d

Colour identity

Colour identity is the rule newcomers trip over, because it is broader than a card's colour. A card's identity is every colour of mana symbol in its mana cost and in its rules text, plus any colour from a colour indicator or a characteristic-defining ability.

So a colourless artifact with “{R}: deals 1 damage” has a red identity and can't go in your mono-blue deck. Hybrid symbols count as both colours. The card's frame and its flavour text are irrelevant.

• Reminder text is ignored — the italic explanation in parentheses never adds a colour.
• For a double-faced card, the back face counts too. Blue front, red back means the card is blue-red.
• Alternative characteristics count, so an Adventure's cost is part of the identity.
• Identity is fixed before the game begins and never changes during play.

Comprehensive Rules 903.4, 903.4a, 903.4c, 903.4d, 903.4e

Starting the game

Each player puts their commander face up into the command zone, then shuffles the other 99 cards into their library. Once the starting player is decided, everyone sets their life to 40 and draws seven.

Mulligans use the normal London rule — shuffle back, draw seven again, then put cards on the bottom equal to the number of mulligans you've taken. Because Commander is a multiplayer game, your first mulligan is free: it costs you no cards and doesn't count toward the total.

Comprehensive Rules 903.6, 903.7, 103.5, 103.5c

The command zone and commander tax

You can cast your commander straight from the command zone, whenever you could normally cast it. Each time you do, it costs {2} more than the last time — that surcharge is the commander tax.

The exact wording matters when things get killed a lot: the tax counts how many times you have previously cast it from the command zone this game, not how many times it has died or how many times you've cast it in total. Casting it from your hand or graveyard doesn't raise the tax.

The extra cost is generic, so it can be paid with any mana, and cost reducers apply to it normally.

Comprehensive Rules 903.8

When your commander changes zones

A commander that goes somewhere else can come back to the command zone — but how depends on which zone, and it is always the owner's choice.

If it lands in a graveyard or in exile, its owner may move it to the command zone as a state-based action, the next time those are checked. If it would go to its owner's hand or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead — that one is a replacement effect, so the card never arrives in the other zone at all.

Both are optional every time. Leaving your commander in the graveyard so you can reanimate it, or letting it be tucked so you can draw it, are legitimate choices.

Comprehensive Rules 903.9, 903.9a, 903.9b

21 commander damage

A player who has been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses, regardless of their life total. It's a state-based action, so it happens the moment the threshold is met.

The two words doing the work are “combat” and “same”. Non-combat damage from a commander never counts, and the tally is per commander — being hit for 15 by one and 15 by another is 30 damage to your life total and nothing at all to the 21 rule. Tallies also don't reset when a commander dies and comes back.

Comprehensive Rules 903.10a, 702.124d

Ban list, brackets and table talk

Commander has its own banned list, maintained separately from other formats — about forty cards banned for power level, plus whole categories (conspiracies, ante cards, dexterity cards) that can't work in the format at all.

Beyond legality, the bigger question is whether decks are aimed at the same game. Wizards' Bracket system (1 to 5, from precon-level up to cEDH) exists to have that conversation before shuffling rather than after somebody's turn three win. It's a description, not a rule — nothing enforces it but the four of you agreeing.

Comprehensive Rules 903.11, 903.11a

Keep reading

The Commander banned list → — what's banned and why, grouped so the power-level bans aren't buried among the conspiracies.

Tough rulings → — the plays that start arguments, including the Commander-specific ones.

Mechanics encyclopedia → — individual keywords and where they get confusing.

Card Finder → — browse the pool by what cards actually do once you know what you're building.