Commander is a fantastic format offering an avenue for both creative expression and collective storytelling, but sometimes you may want more out of your Commander games. A great way to do so is to try some other ways of playing. Whether it is changes to gameplay objectives, varied deck building restrictions, or introducing new elements, there's a wide variety of things you can do to spice up your next Commander night. Even better, all of these suggestions can be mixed together! Now let’s dive into how we can play Commander with some twists.
Alternative gameplay objectives for Commander
Have you always played Commander to be the last player standing? The first round of things to try are alternative gameplay objectives. Most of these variants we'll cover are best suited to groups of more than four players.
Kingdoms Variant
Kingdoms offers a more cooperative style of gameplay with players each having a role, with most being secret. This style of play is best suited for five plus players due to the nature of the hidden information. There are four distinct roles: the emperor, the knight, the assassin and the bandit.
Emperor (open - 1): Starts with 50 life and a maximum hand size of 8. Draws one extra card at the start of the game (alternative - starts with The Monarch). Wins if the assassins are eliminated.
Knight (secret - 1): Protects the emperor. Wins if the assassins are eliminated.
Assassin (secret - 2): Aims to eliminate the emperor. Wins if the emperor is eliminated, other players can be alive.
Bandit (secret - 1): Wants to be the last player standing, which requires the emperor and the last assassin be eliminated at the same time. The hardest role to play, but adds intrigue during gameplay. This role and its objectives are often tweaked to make the victory condition more attainable.
Emperor Variant
Not to be confused with the role in the Kingdoms variant, Emperor offers another way to play with more than four players. Players split up into two teams of 3, with an emperor sitting in the middle with a general on each side. Each team can openly discuss the cards they play. Players can only attack players immediately next to them, so the generals will be responsible for both attacking the other team and protecting their emperor.
Range of influence is used to allow for more interactivity, this simply means how many seats away a spell you cast can effect. Emperors have a range of influence of 2, meaning their spells can target and affect the board state of the opposing emperor. Generals have a range of influence of 1. Creatures can be “deployed” (aka tapped and given to an adjacent team mate) to help get defenses in the right places. A team wins the game when the opposing emperor is defeated.
Archenemy Variant
The Archenemy Commander variant can be supported with the product of the same name, offering Scheme cards which give the Archenemy an advantage. Schemes are flipped at the beginning of the Archenemy’s turn and take effect immediately, ending with the turn unless it is an Ongoing Scheme. Since these are hard to find, the advantage provided can be adjusted as you see fit but the Scheme cards add a very unique twist. The Archenemy starts with an additional 50% life (60 starting life, and 31 Commander damage) and takes the first turn. The players win if the Archenemy is defeated, and the Archenemy only wins when all opposing players are defeated.
If you can’t find a copy of the Scheme cards, some good alternatives to give the Archenemy an advantage are ways to balance the number of actions. You could allow the Archenemy to draw an additional 2 cards per turn, have their single target spells copy for each opponent or give them additional combat steps with untaps. If you want to take this concept to the next level, you could try to design a specific Archenemy deck that could be challenging for players to defeat. Of important note it should be challenging to play against but not completely lock opponents out of the game without having a pre-game discussion.
Using deck building restrictions in Commander
Introducing restrictions breeds creativity. Limiting the available cards you can use in a deck forces you to find new solutions to common problems. Many Commander players actively do this by playing a variant within Commander or through self-imposed restrictions. I’d highly recommend giving this approach a try as it’s a really great way to experience cards you may never play otherwise. You may even find your new favourite pet card this way!
Limited card pools and deck building modifiers
Thanks to a large community there are a vast array of limited card pools that can be used for deck building. Tiny Leaders, as an example, forces a restriction of a maximum mana value of 3. You could helm a deck with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death for a recurrable value engine of sorts. If that’s not your jam and you’d rather have a Planeswalker as a Commander, you could try out Oathbreaker where you also get to use a signature spell in the Command zone. There’s also Pauper EDH if you’re in for a real challenge or Artisan if you want a bit more flexibility (Artisan includes uncommons, giving a few more options for Commanders).
Pre-game discussions for some creative deck building
Another avenue that I’ve been personally exploring is slight bends to standard deck building rules with a pre-game discussion. I’ve built a swamp monsters deck with The Gitrog Monster and Grolnok, the Omnivore partnered, and I’m currently tuning a “Barrel of Monkeys” deck which features 35 Simian Sling that are allowed to break the singleton rule following from Shadowborn Apostle and Persistent Petitioners. With good communication about what exactly your deck is trying to do, I find it very rare that someone turns down an outside the rules deck.
Extreme themes to turn heads
Another way to add some variety while staying true to the rules as written for Commander is through the use of Themes. I don’t mean to the extent that you’d normally do so, but to the extreme. Forcing a deck to follow a very specific theme such as only having cards that start with certain letters (as done in Commander VS) or even down to specific art this can add a new lens for your next Scryfall search. If you can’t find any themes that really draw you in you could try to put more Themes into a deck. Bonus points if they’re completely unrelated and you can use another Theme as the glue.
Introducing new elements to Commander games
You may find your games are great just as they are, and they don’t need the significant overhaul offered by some of the previous examples. Even still you may want to offer some lighter variation by adding (or refining) gameplay elements. This could be in the form of house rules, or even an add-on experience such as Planechase. Either way, what you do or don’t do should be focused on making the game more enjoyable for those playing.
In my house, everyone plays Magic
House rules are a great way to level the playing field or to add that extra bit of oomph to your next Commander night. This could be as simple and straightforward as every player starting with a Sol Ring, or a bit more nuanced in having the player that goes last starting with the Monarch once they’ve taken their turn. Adding Monarch is a great way to keep the game moving as well, as everyone is incentivized to attack more, which ultimately means more games in a given session.
Another avenue to pursue is adding Treasures for doing certain things in a game, like owning a certain amount of Creatures with different types. You could even go as far as creating a Commander bingo card which is used over the course of several play sessions with some rewards for different patterns. One of my personal favourites is to add common actions that every player can take once per turn, such as discarding a card if they’ve missed two land drops in a row to create two Treasure tokens.
Planechase
If you have yet to experience Planechase, it’s another alternative I can’t recommend enough. It does add a noticeable amount of randomness to a game, so it’s not for everyone. In concept, it’s quite simple: you start on a Plane in the Magic multiverse and can progress to other Planes through the course of a game. After everyone takes their first turn, the group Planeswalks to a plane (by flipping a card of the Planechase deck).
Sometimes there will be random events that resolve but most of the time you’ll land on a Plane with a static ability that changes the decisions you’ll make. To move between Planes you can roll the Planar die (a d6) and Planeswalk to the next plane if you land on the Planeswalk symbol (a 1). There are four blank sides on this special die, but one additional: the Chaos symbol (a 6). If you happen to roll Chaos, the Chaos line of the Plane you’re on triggers. Sometimes this could be something as strong as taking an Extra Turn, other times it can be as small as giving your creatures +1/+1.
So what did you think of these additional ways to play? Did you find a new thing to try for your next Commander session? Either way, I hope you enjoyed this article and look forward to crossing paths in person at one of Chimera’s Commander nights in the future. If you can’t wait until Tuesday, you can try popping into the Chimera Discord where a few players self-organize for Spell Table games. If you have any thoughts about our content please let us know, and if you want to reach me directly, you can find me in the Discord or on Twitter. Happy shuffling and may your next Commander night be a fun one!
