Commander Variants: Find New Ways to Play EDH! 

I don't think the 16 commander damage in Pauper EDH is random, its just half the starting life total + 1, just like regular commander

2:08 It's called Oathbreaker because it references the Oath of the Gatewach (not the set, but the actual oath the Gatewach took to protect the multiverse/planes). Now you're "breaking the Oath", making some of those Planeswalkers fight amongst each other.

We called “star” pentagram back in the day and you had to pick a different mono color and sit in order of color ally. It was actually very fun because of the politics of not wanting your allies to die but also not wanting to totally help them too much.

Lots of people are making great suggestions of formats you missed. 2HG, Emperor, Conquest, etc. Potentially/hopefully enough for a part 2 to this video 😊 really enjoyed this one

We play "star" (pentagram - much cooler name) quiet often, with one important aditional rule though! -> whenever your "wing" (non-opponent player on right or left) dies, you lose half of your life total. It speed's the game up and it also causes a very interesting political situation (you're highly incentivised to protect your wings, but you also have different goal in the game and you have to stop them from winning. You should try it Cherries, it actually makes sense and is really fun)

Canadian Highlander is pretty different from commander, it really has no relation at all except for the fact that it is singleton it's more similar to constructed Vintage cube. But thank you for spreading the word on the best Magic format :)

I play star, it's awesome! One of my favourite way to play. Also I like to add the ability to pass creatures to your allies by tapping them in your upkeep.

15:50 canadian highlander starts at 20 life. it mostly similar legacy cube where you can play jank and powerful cards together

Star is amazing format, big complexity because you have "allies" but you need to take care of them as well. Love it

Hey ❤🎉today is my birthday! Wow thanks guys! I appreciate the very personalized birthday wishes from one of my favourite mtg channels! You guys rock! 🤘

Been playing Oathbreaker pretty regularly since first hearing about it 4 years ago. Even played competitively at CommandFest. I have 6 decks (Sorin, Kaya, Ajani, Bolas, Tezzeret, and Domri) that I refuse to take apart. So happy WotC is recognizing the format!

My group plays star sometimes when we have 5 players; it definitely makes the game different and interesting. We play planechase sometimes when we have 3 players; it kind of acts as a 4th player.

Star is our go to 5 player format, very fun finding the line between ally and opponent

Emperor (6 players) and two-headed giant are my favorite formats! With commander decks, it's awesome. This video is great! There are a lot of new ideas for my play group. Thanks nerds! ❤

ive discovered pauper edh a few months ago and its so refreshing and probably the most fun ive had in years. and decks are soo affordable

I love Pauper Commander and I’m glad to see it get more exposure. It’s incredibly easy to get into and makes for a super fun play experience

I bought a full set of all Planechase cards printed so far (about $150 from TCGPlayer using the NN affiliate link) a month or so ago when I found out they were bringing it back in March of the Machines. Played it at my LGS and everyone had a blast. Was just doing normal Planechase but Blind Eternities Variant is super fun too.

I love a Star game! I used to play it back in the 90s. I've pitched it to my group but haven't gotten a commander game of it.

Canadian Highlander is a Competitive 1v1 format that is 20 life and there is no commander or color identity. It's much closer to a constructed vintage cube with restrictions. 20 life changes a lot on how deck construction works.

We played 60 card Star all the time when I first started playing. Star is a delight because of the tensions of trying to appease both of you your allies while trying to take out one of their allies. It works perfectly fine for commander too.

My pod recently started playing PauperEDH and it's super fun. The only thing we changed about the format for our pod is that uncommons can be included in the 99. It makes things move faster and allows for a wider range of synergies.

There’s an Italian spaghetti western card game called BANG! that I assume influenced Kingdoms. It has similar roles of Sheriff (the only public role), deputy, outlaw and renegade. You even pick a Vanguard like character at the beginning of the game. Highly recommend for something quicker than a full game of Kingdoms.

My Abomination of Llanowar Pauper EDH deck is siiiiiiiick. The format is so fun! Moxfield tracks your Canadian Highlander points automagically.

I’m trying to get my format some momentum It’s a doubleton (2 copies of a card) EDH variant. I call it Idol -Any legendary permanent can be your commander (Idol) - 60 card minimum (you can have more then 60) -No color identity restrictions - 20 life starting My goal for this format is to have the atmosphere of commander, but have the games be faster. I also don’t like dealing with 100 cards I prefer 60. Much easier shuffle and build decks. Sometimes I would like to play more than two games of Magic when I go to my friends house

I did not know that there were so many versions of Magic games. Oathbreaker is an interesting concept. Our group may try this format. By the way, I like the Blue Slime from the Dragon Quest games on your shelf. I'm a dinosaur but love playing the Japanese RPG and Zelda games. Thanks for the video Nitpicking Nerds.

Great video I was surprised you didn't mention two headed giant or tiny leaders

Its my birthday today and I’ve never felt that message you always do until today.

Thanks for making this video! One callout I'd make is that Canadian Highlander is a format where players start at 20 life, not 40.

Hey, thank you for the vid! In my pod we play a modality of commander which we called "Married Commander". It is very easy (basically the same rules as commander with an addendum). It resulted extremely politics and backstabbing heavy, and therefore reeeeeaaaaally fun: Married commander: Each player gains the following ability: ### Marriage: If you don't have a Marriage emblem, once per turn whenever you may play a sorcery you can pay (2) in any color combination and targetting an opponent, to get a Marriage emblem. A Marriage emblem estates that: "If you would win the game, target player would win the game as well. If at any moment you and the same target player are the only two players left alive, you win the game. The same target player is not considered as an opponent to you for the rest of the game. At any time you would be able to play a sorcery, you may pay (3) in any color combination to remove the Marriage emblem from the game." The targeted player may pay (1) of any color to counter this ability. ### I hope it may be of a liking for somebody else. Cheers!

My friend and I were literally just trying new formats today. We played pauper, Oathbreaker and planechase.

1:36 - Oathbreaker 5:16 - Star Commander 6:39 - Planechase 9:28 - Historic brawl ARENA ONLY (Honourable mention: Brawl but no one plays that trash cash grab format lol) 10:42 - Pauper Commander 13:50 - PreEDH 15:42 - Canadian Highlander 18:51 - French Commander 20:22 - Kingdoms

Love this video, thanks so much for making it! One similar to Pre-EDH that I've seen people do is set, block or plane-specific EDH, so you can only use cards from a given set, block, or plane. Definitely more awkward to build for, but is great for vorthos players and makes for fun lower-powered games. If doing a particular set/block rather than a whole plane, it can be reminiscent of the Standard environment at that time, which kindles that sweet nostalgia if you were playing then.

Recently played an OS/93-94 EDH game of Star. Really fun format. Have played Star in the past and am trying to get my regular casual group to rotate it in our sessions, especially since we are five players more often than not.

I love pauper commander. It's received a ton of support in recent years and games usually tend to run about an hour on average for 4 players. Pauper commander's of mine include Gary(featuring relentless rats), zada, evolution sage, a few background builds from baulders gate, and a couple partner decks. Rarity shifts can have big impacts to the decks when building but in general it's not uncommon to still see huge beaters or combos. Only noticable differences are the less efficient draw options and fewer board whipes.

I'm French and I wasn't offended by Cherry's "oui oui french commandeur"

I was really hoping you’d mention my favorite alternative format, Artisan Commander. Same rules and ban list as commander but no rares/mythics. There are so many great uncommon legends now and the board stalls aren’t nearly as hard as pauper commander. I play my artisan commander decks at normal commander tables

Oh, we've played Star. Sometimes you have a fifth. And Assassin is a fun one to toss into the mix.

We used to play a multiplayer format called Hunt. The idea is before the game every player has two copies of a card that represent them. They all put on in the middle face down and the other face up next to them. Shuffle the middle face down and give everyone a card. Whomever’s card they get is secret but the player with the card is the only one who can attack that player. Kill the player whose card you have and you get their hidden card and go after their target, rinse and repeat. If you got your own card back at the beginning you can attack anyone.

We play "Star" (but call it Penta) every now and then if we have 5 players. That happens often enough when a few people can't make it or need to leave early. It's really fun, you have your Allies but they're not your teammates so you can still prevent each other from winning or getting to far ahead etc.

Brainstorming new variants just for fun: Battle Commander: There is a deck of sleeved Battle cards. At the beginning of the game, each player reveals battles until they have a total of 35 or more defense counters on their battles. Those battles serve as the player's life total. You have to defend them, and anytime someone defeats one, they get the flip side. If that feels too swingy, just keep the battles you defeat in a stack as your points. Turbo Commander: Everyone starts with Command Tower, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Commander Sphere in play. Just get straight into the action, and don't have any games where a player starts out mana screwed. Yeah, there are side effects like artifact removal being even better, and instants being better as you can cast them before your first turn (and may need to in order to defend yourself from players going before you). That said neither of those is as extreme a negative to the play experience as players being mana screwed out of a game. Titles: There are a small deck of title cards, one of which is the Monarch. At the beginning of your end step, you may trigger one title that you control. When a player is dealt combat damage the attacking player can take ownership of one title from them. Shuffle them up and give one to each player to start the game. Could also give each one an initiative score to determine play order. Monarch: Draw a Card. Treasurer: Make a Treasure token. Chef: Make a Food token. Inquisitor: Make a Clue token. Knight: Make a 1/2 white squire creature token. Bishop: Make an enchantment aura token with "Enchanted Creature gets +1/+1." Jester: Fateseal 2. Soothsayer: Scry 3. Undertaker: Put up to 3 cards from graveyards on the bottom of their owners libraries. Advisor: Put two loyalty counters on a planeswalker you control. Enchanted World: Have a deck of non-aura enchantments. A random quick search gives all these that could be interesting options: Stranglehold, True Conviction, Rhythm of the Wild, Burgeoning, Hardened Scales, Root Maze, Sigarda's Aid, Bitterblossom, Cryptolith Rite, curses, Goblin Bombardment, Heartless Summoning, Oversold Cemetery, Prismatic Omen, Rain of Gore, Training Grounds. But really just whatever enchantments you want to toss together. Spice up the game with that. You can have a global enchantment like planechase and have all players affected by the enchantment as if they or one of their opponents controlled it. Or give each player a random one, and anytime they take damage, their enchantment is discarded and replaced with a new random one. You can have a central market, and flip over 3 enchantments, and let people cast them from the market as if they were in their hand and paying mana as if it was of any color, and flip over a replacement one any time one is cast.

Nitpicking the nerds. Historic Brawl starts at 25 life.

I played star recently at my LGS when there were five players and we did not want to exclude one. I think the play experience is better than in a regular five player free for all.

My playgroup plays star and I really like the way it changes the politics. Another great way to play with five is Kingdom. Randomly choose a King, a Knight, an Assassin, and 2 Bandits. Only the king reveals their role to the rest of the group. The rest of the group must keep their role a secret so nobody knows who the others are until the end. King starts with 50 life and gets to go first. The knight's job is to protect the king. If the king wins then the knight wins. The 2 bandits have to kill the king. If one of the bandits kills the king both the bandits win. The assassin has to kill the king last. If you have 6 you can make them a usurper. If the usurper is alive when the king dies then the usurper becomes the king.

I remember the original plane chase decks that came out back in the day. My homies and I picked them up and had so much fun. Still have the original planar deck and dice and bust it out while playing homebrews!

I hope oathbreaker makes a comeback, I'd love make some deck techs out of my old decks. Keep up the good work guys!

I love playing Planes Chase Commander. We add all the planes that we can get our hands on, place them in the middle of the battle field, and everyone gets the field effect, and or tries to planewalk if they don't want to stay. Side note: Planar Chaos is one of my favorite enchantments. 😆

Star is probably one of my favorites to play when I'm at my LGS and we have a mystery 5th player show, also nice to not have 4 people beating on you and only 2 lmao

I have finally convinced my playgroup to play Star whenever we have 5 people. We call it Five Point though.

Juste to be precise, the starting life total is 25 in historic brawl and 30 in dual commander (french) . and historicly 5 star was an constructed varaint with only mono colors deck glad to see it still exist in another form ^^

I used to play star games waaaay back in like 1999. We always played 5 players with each player sitting in the color pie with a deck of only that color. But the rule of Allie’s to either side was still the case

Beezy now being the Nyxbloom ancient of birthdays!

In college my pod had a format called ‘usurper’ it was a five or more person format that had one “king” a knight two assassins and a usurper as roles that were secretly determined at the start of the game. The king is the only role publicly known and they can only win when all assassins and the usurper are dead. The knight wins if the king wins regardless if they are alive at the end. However if the knight does an I win combo then they technically lose since it results in the king losing. The assassins win if the king loses. Finally the usurper is special since it can only win if it is the last one standing, however if it kills the king then instead of the king losing the usurper and the king swap roles setting the new king to 50 life and the new usurper to 1 life. It’s a very fun style of play that very heavily leans in on politics with a town of Salem vibe

I'm a little disappointed that the Oathbreaker ban list isn't more robust. Just feels like there are too many easy Planeswalker + Instant/ Sorcery win combos you can have access to every game. Jace Wielder of Mysteries + Enter the Infinite, Jared Carthalion + Coalition Victory (yes, it's not banned), Narset + Windfall, etc.

STAR Format ROCKS!!!!! LOVE Star!!! It's Magic in it's truly flavorful form, if all 5 players have color coordinated enemy/ally decks (all mono, or all 2-color, or all 3-color wedge, or all 3-color arc, or all 4-color), all seated in appropriate ally/enemy seating order.

I love the "cuts to think"

18:56 French Commander also has a Partner Errata. Now you can only cast 1 of the 2 partners you have per match. This was done since having 2 commanders in a 1v1 format was problematic, so they made you have to commit more to the commabders you choose to cast

I play Kingdoms and I even printed out the Roles as cards as Beezy said. I feel validated.

My group play a version of pauper commander that immediately isn’t pauper but we allow up to rare in the command zone and both common and uncommon rarity in the 99. We also struggled with board stakes and this has been a sweet solution.

10:18 I'm literally playing Historic Brawl (Bant Shanna Superfriends) while watching this!

I've played star with each player playing a mono-color deck, which was neat

There's 2 way to play planechaise. 1) where each player has there own stack of 10 planechaise cards. 2) 1 deck that have 10 cards per player. No bigger than 40 cards and no more than 2 phenomenons. There's another plane that's OP. The chaos that let's you take an extra turn. 1 player ends up just taking turn after turn.

Canadian Highlander starts at 20 life total. And it's arthritis best format for purists. There are so many options. My play group plays Advanced Kingdoms every week and it's the best for 5 or more group meet ups. Very inclusive

Star can be a lot of fun, and some of the semi-group-hug cards are often better because you give your "opponent" a benefit and it not hurt you as much as it would in a normal game, like Secret Rendezvous or Wishclaw Talisman. It also depends on how you setup the game--some people prefer that allies mean that the "opponent" text on cards doesn't hit them, while some people prefer the other way.

Call me a crusty ole boomer, but after tinkering in the old school 93/94 format, I figured why not try something similar with commander brews. I have been having a blast brewing up commander decks with 1 additional rule: Old Frame only! So Alpha -> Scourge + all additional reprints of cards in the old frame. It gives off original EDH vibes due to reduced card pool and has been great at getting some of my friends into the game since the majority of cards don't suffer from the text bloat of more recent products.

30 life and 15 poison, 1st player doesnt draw but scry's 1 instead is the best imo

I like harrow since it ramps you and lets you put a land in the yard.

Me and my friends have played star for like over 10 years. ;) Always fun when you are 5 five players.

Thank you for the super duper extra birthday wishes 😊

Dude…star is awesome! Been playing it off and on for years

Do you guys ever play Horde Magic? Its an alternate format where the players (a pod of 3 or 4) play cooperatively agains an automated (or semi-automated/ partially piloted) horde of zombies or goblins or rats or some other tribe with lots of tokens and strong synergies. The fun is in the cooperative play as the survivors (the non-horde players) take their turns together, share a life total, etc. in their face-off with the horde. I have a killer 200 card goblin horde thats both a blast and terrifying to play against!

Shuffle up and play: regular commander but shuffle every deck into one big deck, then like in poker deal each player 99 cards keeping the commander brought to the game. Lands tap for any color in addition to any other effects. 😉

Used to play a bit of star back in the day.... of course this was way back in the day & we were playing casual 60 card kitchen table decks instead of Commander. (We used to get 5 players quite often & it's imo a better way to do 5 than a free for all. Also helps less experienced players manage multiplayer since they only have to "worry" about 2 opponents.) 2 things though: I did notice that games can tend down similar paths, particularly when people are used to the format. Because of the victory conditions, when one player looks like they are in trouble a lot of heat down on other players in the game so that people can cement their win conditions for when the inevitable happens & the weak player is defeated. You might think that the victory conditions would subdue the politics somewhat; it doesn't. The other thing is that you gotta be ready to seat players. What I mean by that is you can't really just let players occupy a seat (especially if you plan on doing multiple star games). Regular commander, people can just sit in their spot. But for star you have to mix up the ally/enemy situation between games, preferably by some kind of randomised assigned seating. So unfortunately for this format, people need to get up & relocate occasionally.

Didn't realize it was called star, my playgroup calls it pentagram, and it's my fav way to play 😂 usually play with 4 people, but when we have 5 I love it.

I played planechase once but the person who invited me to play, customized the planechase cards to include a mini drinking game during the game of EDH. We played 2 games I think... LoL I can't remember

Planechase is my favorite Commander variant. We start with the Fractured Powerstone in the command zone along with your commander. Can't wait to play this with the Doctor Who decks.

If y'all ever wanna try an Oathbreaker game feel free to reach out! Oathbreaker enthusiast here in the Rochester area :)

Planeschase is the shit. I'm glad it's coming back. I hope they reprint the sets. But I didn't know you had to cultivate it. Lol

I like pentagram (star), and planechase when we've got a big group. Not really fussed about oathbreaker, it looks very easy to break but i suppose it might get some interesting planeswalker commander options when wotc inevitibly flood the market.

Normally I don't pay attention to commander alternatives, because there are too many formats to keep track of, but my friends and I made Oathbreaker decks the other day. As far as deck building it brings interesting new options, though I feel like it'll lose its novelty quickly. Your win con is pretty telegraphed, and it makes a bunch of cEDH level combos easier. We only plan to play them when we have an odd number of people while we are waiting for the rest of the playgroup to get there, so hopefully it stays fun.

We just played that starformat back in late 90's

Duel commander is such a pulid format every ban card and the playability in a 1 vs 1 without cheat rocks such a blast!

6:39 Planechase I’ve always just used the full deck and we flip through that for commander, but everyone is required to use their free roll during their turn.

good / useful homebrew rules seems like it would be a good video to follow this: i.e. your havoc festival rule to make sure the game actually ends

We alternate between Star and Secret Partners if we have 5 people, at 6 you can start doing teams of 2 Headed Giant.

Thanks yall.

We often play star when we have 5. Helps speed up the game.

Oathbreaker my pods played oathbreaker enjoyed the format. I found it was better as a 1v1 format personally but look forward to you feedback.

As a French, don't worry "oui oui" isn't offensive You could've also said the "baguette commander"

Oh I have played star commander! It's pretty cool

We used to play casual star games before commander. Always attack the ally of your strongest ally. It's much faster at 5. We used to play assassin also

pauper comander nowadays is really awesome! there's even some busted cards (Kardur...), but its an awesome format

I went to speech therapy for about 11 years for my stutter. It really helps!

I really enjoy Emperor if we have six people. It's really simple. Two teams of three, the perosn sat in the middle of their team is the Emperor and if the emperor dies then the whole team loses. You can only attack players adjacent to you, so to attack the other team's emperor the defending people have to go through each other first so a game can only requires 2 people to be taken out to end if anyone is taken out. Usually when we play we set up so that our emperors are combo decks and the outside defenders are better at handling a head-to-head fight. We also decided to go crazy one day and play three headed giant. It was a nightmare. Very confusing. But entertaining when one of my teammates and I realized our two decks combined could go infinite (and we still lost.)

In our Playgroup when we are 5 we play Sheriff, very political 😅 Sheriff has to reveal the Role (the other 4 Roles are hidden) and gets 60 Life, he wins if the last Bandit dies by he Source he or the Deputy controls. Deputy wins when Sheriff wins and loses when Sheriff loses. The Renegade becomes the Sheriff when he kills the Sheriff or wins if the Deputy and one Bandit loses the Game (can't win the same Time the Sheriff does). 2×Bandits They both win if the Sheriff dies from a Source they control. If one Player is out of Game he reveals his Role.

As a french speaker, "Ouioui" commander is very funny 😂 does sounds like "weewee" for non-french speakers tho

Pauper commander is really fun in that the restrictions make deck brewing more interesting. board state stalls are definitely an issue and it can get stupid lopsided quickly if someone gets a really strong board state. There are also some very strong commanders that make it generally unfun like syr konrad. That said, it's fun overall as a way to play something a little different.

Woah woah woah! Buffalo? What's where I live! I would love to play with you guys

No mention of Horde magic? Multiplayer Co-Op is so fun, I've currently built 9 Horde decks for our playgroup, its super fun!

I've played star a few times and it's pretty good if you have to play 5 player.

My playgroup plays "Star" and calls it Enemies and Allies. We do it with 5+ players. Same basic rules. The two next to you are Allies and everyone else at the table is your Enemy.