Commander Rules Guide: Quick Start & FAQ

Last updated on July 31, 2025

Kenrith, the Returned King | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Welcome to the world of Commander! Whether you’ve been playing Magic for years or you’re completely new here, you’ve probably heard of this format. But what even is Commander, and how do you play it?

Let’s get into the rules and details of Magic’s most popular casual format, and my personal favorite!

Quick Start Guide to Commander

Many of the basic rules of commander are already covered in our Ultimate Guide to Commander, so let's get to the answers to your questions.

Psst… What's the Difference Between Commander and EDH?

EDH stands for Elder Dragon Highlander and is essentially equal to Commander. Of course, there's some history and more to unpack there, so we'll leave the discussion for why Commander is called EDH for next time, for today, think of them as the same thing.

Go to Your Local Game Store

This step can be tough, I get it. Trust your gaming community and go see some fellow players. I have yet to visit an LGS and find that no one plays Commander. It's the best way to get playing, and if you're polite and just starting out, you may be able to borrow a Commander deck, just remember to stay respectful, set aside the Commander before you shuffle, and learn.

Gather Your Commander Kit

Make it easy on yourself and put your favorite playmat, dice, and deckbox together with your Commander deck so it's one item, ready to pick up and play. I'm a fan of two 10-sided dice to count life as digits, and once you've played your deck enough, you'll know how many tokens and counters you need to track your corner of the table.

Keep It Casual and Speak Up

You need to feel comfortable speaking up about what you want to get from the upcoming game. Some people want to play fast and take all the shortcuts, but for new players this can be hard to follow and off-putting. Others may need to go slow and understand how cards work as you go. Be patient with each other and if something ends the game, shuffle up and play again. After all, you often learn more when playing three shorter games rather than one long one.

How Many Players Does a Commander Game Have?

Split the Party | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

Commander is a multiplayer format where most games have somewhere between four to six players. You can have duels with only two players, and you can have unending matches with more than seven or eight players. If you go with Wizards' official rulings then you have a limit of six players per table, which is pretty reasonable.

I think the ideal number for a game of Commander is somewhere between three to six players. More than six is a lot of players and Commander turns can be pretty lengthy, so three to six is the sweet spot.

How Many Cards Can You Have in Commander?

Hundred-Handed One | Illustration by Brad Rigney

Commander decks have a total of 100 cards. One of them is your commander, a legendary creature or certain planeswalker commanders that start in the command zone and determine your deck’s strategy and color identify. The other 99 are what constitute your actual deck.

In the case of commanders with the partner keyword, background, Friends forever (in Stranger Things), and Doctor's companion (from Doctor WHO), you have two cards in your command zone and 98 in your main deck.

Rules and Restrictions for Deckbuilding

Commander is a format with quite a few restrictions when you build your deck.

Number of Cards

First is the number of cards. Your deck must have a total of 100 cards. One of them is your commander and the other 99 make up the bulk of your deck. Commander is a singleton format, which means you can only have a single copy of any card that isn’t a basic land.

Color Identity

Your commander determines the colors that you’re allowed to play in your deck.

Every card has what's called a “color identity.” Since your commander is the one leading your build, all of the cards in your deck have to be within your commander’s color identity, or colorless cards.

Partner Commanders

The legendary creatures you use as your commander can have the partner ability. This particular ability allows you to use another card with the same ability as an additional commander.

You can either pair two creatures with the generic partner keyword (the most infamous, top tier of commanders is the pair: Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver) or you can use creatures that have the “partners with” ability, like Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever.

How Does Color Identity Work?

Color identity refers to all the colors present on your commander’s card. This includes casting costs, abilities, mana-generating abilities, and any other mana symbol you might find on a card. It's worth noting that a card’s color and its color identity aren't necessarily the same.

A few examples to illustrate this a little better:

Example 1: Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow

This commander has both black and blue mana symbols. They're present in its casting cost and its ninjutsu ability. In both cases the only symbols are for black and blue mana, so Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow’s color identity is black and blue. Cards in a Yuriko deck can’t use any color other than black and blue.

The card's color is also black and blue because those are the colors in its casting cost. This is relevant if a player uses any spells or abilities that need to check for specific colors like Display of Dominance.

Example 2: Kenrith, the Returned King

This is an example of a commander that has a different color and color identity. Kenrith, the Returned King’s casting cost is and it has five abilities. Each of these abilities requires one mana of each of the five colors in the color pie. This means that Kenrith’s color identity is 5-colored. Decks that use Kenrith as the commander can have cards from any of the five mana colors.

But Kenrith’s color isn't 5-colored. The card's casting cost is specifically white. To repeat my example, Display of Dominance wouldn’t affect Kenrith at all. This is a clear example of the difference between color and color identity.

Example 3: Ramos, Dragon Engine

Ramos, Dragon Engine is a colorless card. Its mana cost is , which can be paid with any type of mana.

This is also a 5-color commander thanks to its last ability. Since Ramos’ mana generating ability uses the five mana symbols, its color identity is all five colors.

Partner Commanders and Double-Faced Cards

The color identity of a deck that uses two partner commanders is the combined color identity of those two creatures. So a Thrasios, Triton Hero and Vial Smasher the Fierce deck has a color identity of red , black , blue , and green . The cards you play can be within any combination of those four colors.

In the case of double-faced cards, the color identity for your deck is a combination of both faces if the front and back have different colors in their abilities or casting costs. A Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor deck has a color identity of black and red even if the front face of the card is mono-black.

Some partners like Jacob Frye and Evie Frye are exclusive and only have one other card they can be paired with in the command zone, so this pair counts as a Dimir commander.

Color Identity in the 99

I’ve established that your commander's color identity determines what other 99 cards can go into your deck. This means that the cards’ color identities also need to be the same as your commander's.

To use one of my previous examples, you can play any card that has black or blue in its color identity if you play Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow as your commander. This means that mono-blue cards, mono-black cards, Dimir () cards, and colorless cards are all good. Since you need to check for color identity and not just a card’s color, cards that are blue or black and have other mana symbols in their effects can’t be played in a Yuriko deck.

For example, if you wanted to play Mythos of Nethroi in your deck at the cost of foregoing the extra effect, you wouldn’t be able to use it. The card has a green and a white mana symbol in its text, making its color identity green, white, and black. That makes it incompatible with a black and blue commander.

Another thing that needs to be considered is hybrid mana. A card like Jund Hackblade is considered a 3-colored card. Both its color and color identity are green, red, and black. This means that it can’t be played in decks that use only two of those three colors.

The good thing about hybrid mana cards is that your playgroup might let you run some even if they don’t technically fit your deck’s color identity, especially in mono-colored decks. Maybe you’re building a mono-black horror tribal deck but you’re lacking some cards. You can talk to your group and see if they'll let you play something like Cryptborn Horror. You can’t play it at any official games, but your group might let it slide at a kitchen table match.

Can Any Card be a Commander?

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death | Illustration by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

No, not any card can be your commander. The first thing to keep in mind is that your commander must be a legendary creature. One instance where this rule bends is in the case of certain planeswalkers that can be your commander, like Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. Another exception are legendary vehicles and spacecraft (as long as they have a power and toughness) which can command an EDH deck.

With various double-faced cards existing, you can “cheat” different cards into your command zone. The Magic Origins set lets you have creatures as your commander that turn into planeswalkers under certain circumstances. We got something even more original in Strixhaven with the modal double-faced card (MDFC), Extus, Oriq Overlord and on the flipside it is Awaken the Blood Avatar, a sorcery that can be cast from the command zone.

The Command Zone and Commander Tax

Banishing Light | Illustration by Willian Murai

I’ve mentioned that a Commander deck consists of 99 cards and a commander (or two) that gets its own special zone. This is the command zone. Your commander begins the game in this zone and you can cast it from here as if it was in your hand. But keep in mind that you’re not actually casting it from your hand, a distinction that could be important when certain cards are in play, like Drannith Magistrate.

An important rule is that you can put your commander back in the command zone if it would be sent to the graveyard, to your hand, to your library, or into exile. And you can simply play it again the next chance you get once it’s there.

This would be broken if not for a little thing called commander tax. Every time you cast your commander, the next time costs you an extra . If your commander has a converted mana cost of three, casting it a second time will cost a total of five mana, and then seven, and so on.

You don’t have to put it back into the command zone. If you want (or need) your commander to go into the graveyard, your library, or your hand, you can allow it. Keep in mind that the commander tax only applies when casting it from your command zone. So potentially you send your commander back into your hand or let it go to the graveyard so you can replay it with no tax.

The Commander Damage Rule

Piru, the Volatile | Illustration by Greg Staples

The commander damage rule (some call it rule 10) is specific to the Commander format and states that if a player has been dealt a total of 21 or more damage by the same commander over the course of the game, that player loses the game. This damage is counted as a separate state-based effect. This means that gaining life doesn’t change the damage received from commanders.

The origin of this rule goes back to when EDH was first invented. All of the elder dragons that made up the first possible commanders were 7/7. The idea was that even though players had way more life than in regular games, three hits from one of these dragons should be enough to defeat any player.

Can I Lose to Commander Damage From My Own Commander?

Yes, you can lose to your own commander's damage. If your commander keeps getting stolen by your opponents and they hit you with it enough to deal the necessary 21 points of damage, you lose. The same goes if you use your opponents’ commanders to attack them. The only condition is that the 21 damage is dealt by the same commander.

Olivia Voldaren | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

Who Goes First and Does that Player Draw in Commander?

The player that goes first draws a card. There are no official rules regarding who goes first in Commander. Most groups have each player roll a die and whoever gets the highest number is either forced to go first or gets to choose if they want to start. Regardless of who plays first, the turns proceed clockwise.

Another method that’s used is to have each player cut their deck and show the bottom card. Whoever shows the card with the highest mana value goes first.

In all multiplayer formats, the starting player gets to draw a card on turn 1. It’s pretty common to have players drawing during the end step of their first turn instead of during the draw step since most players are used to 1v1 Magic where the starting player doesn't draw on their first turn.

How Do Mulligans Work in Commander?

Windfall | Illustration by Scott Murphy

Commander follows the same mulligan rules as regular multiplayer formats do. This means using the standardized London mulligan rule which has players draw seven cards and then put one card in the bottom of their library for each time they mulligan-ed. The first mulligan is generally “free,” meaning that the first time you mulligan you don’t have to put cards on the bottom of your library. After that, you lose cards for each mulligan as normal.

Commander is also fond of two other types of mulligans in casual games. The first of these is the partial Paris mulligan in which you set aside all the cards you don’t want and then draw that many cards minus one. You can repeat this process as many times as you want until you’re either satisfied with your cards or have reduced your hand to zero cards. Once you settle for a hand you like, all the cards you set aside are shuffled back into your library.

Another type of mulligan is called Gabriel Special Surprise Mulligan, or GSS Mull. This style allows you to draw a first hand of 10 cards and then select three to shuffle back into your library.

Does EDH Have a Sideboard?

The short answer is no, Commander doesn't have a sideboard. Since EDH is a mostly casual format and it’s not played in matches of more than one game there aren’t really any rules about sideboards. Some playgroups might allow it, some might not. It ultimately depends on what everyone agrees on. But as far as official rules go, sideboards generally aren't allowed in Commander.

What is the Rule on Wish Cards in EDH?

The rules for Commander on wish cards, or cards that are outside of your deck, are not affected by cards like Wish or Fae of Wishes. If you must play with outside cards, discuss it with your group.

Can You Control Two Commanders?

Yes, you’re allowed to have two legendary creatures in your command zone as long as both commanders have text that allows it. If you happen to gain control of an opponent’s commander, that card also counts as a commander while under your control.

Can You Steal Someone Else’s Commander?

You can absolutely steal another player's commander. There are entire decks that rely on controlling opponents’ creatures, including their commanders. Both Mind Control– and Act of Treason-type effects work on commanders.

Damage you deal to an opponent with their commander counts as commander damage.

Do You Control Your Commander in the Command Zone?

You do not control your commander in your command zone. As long as your commander is in the command zone, it’s kind of like it's in your hand. Abilities that have effects on creatures you control don’t have any effect on a commander that’s in the command zone. Your commander's activated and static abilities also don't work while it's in the command zone.

There are a few exceptions to this. The Commander 2017 precon decks all had commanders with the eminence ability. This static ability is active as long as that creature is either on the battlefield or in your command zone. It was eminence that got Edgar Markov banned in the Duel Commander format.

Can You Put Your Commander in the Graveyard?

Yes, any time your commander would be sent to the graveyard from anywhere, you get to choose whether you let it actually go into the graveyard or have it go back to the command zone. Most decks have the commander return to the command zone so they can play it again as soon as possible. But there are plenty of graveyard-focused commanders that find it advantageous to put their own commanders in the graveyard.

Can You Sacrifice a Commander?

You can absolutely sacrifice a commander. A cheap commander can be ideal sacrifice fodder that's relatively easy to cast again.

You can also sacrifice force your opponent to sacrifice a commander through an edict, or perhaps you gained control of your opponents’ commander. Grist, Voracious Larva is an example of a commander that wants to go to the graveyard. Sigarda, Host of Herons is an excellent protector of voltron commanders, the most vulnerable commanders to edicts.

Can You Reanimate a Commander?

Yes, you can reanimate a commander. If you play a reanimation-heavy kind of deck, reanimating your commander is not only possible but even encouraged. Bring a reanimator commander back from the graveyard to avoid commander taxes and still get to recast your commander over and over.

What Happens if My Commander is Shuffled into My Deck?

You always have the option to put your Commander back into your command zone instead of the library. It will cost you additional commander tax, but that's the price of always having it available. If you've already shuffled your Commander into your library, sucks to be you… no seriously, it's a casual format and chances are your opponents will let you pull your Commander out and require a shuffle. One trick to avoid this is to put a different color or hard card sleeve on your Commander.

Can Double-Sided Cards Be Your Commander?

Double-sided cards can be commanders as long as their front face is a legendary creature. That means you can cast the Kaldheim gods as creatures or you can cast them as their legendary artifact or enchantment counterparts, depending on what you need the most.

Double-sided cards also open up strong possibilities with Blex, Vexing Pest since you can cast it for its reverse side, Search for Blex. Esika, God of the Tree and The Prismatic Bridge is an example of a commander card that is often played only for it's enchantment side.

Can Adventure Cards Be Your Commander?

Legendary creatures with an adventure can be commanders. You can cast either the Adventure or the creature from the command zone and the commander tax only applies when the card is cast from the zone. So if you paid a commander tax for Seek Thrills on your opponent's end step, you could then cast the giant noble Beluna Grandsquall for on your turn.

Does Infect/Poison Work Differently in Commander?

Blighted Agent | Illustration by Anthony Francisco

No, poison counters work the same in Commander. Since the official text on poison states that any player with 10 poison counters loses the game, there’s no reason for this to work any differently in Commander. A lot of groups change this to 15 or even 20 counters in an attempt to balance it, but additional players are usually enough.

I do not pilot poison and stick to 10 since most infect creatures and toxic enablers aren't exactly overpowered, and having such an aggro strategy paints a giant target on your head in a multiplayer game. You need to be able to take your opponents out quickly for the strategy to make any sense.

Are Infinite Combos Banned in EDH?

Not even close. Infinite combos are arguably a huge part of EDH as a whole and not banned. The entire point of EDH is allowing for decks to be more personal, wilder, and to win in unconventional ways.

Some groups are more receptive to infinite combos than others. It’s good to mention if your deck has an infinite combo beforehand to give your opponents a chance to choose what they want to play or even open up the discussion of whether or not infinite combos are allowed.

I don’t mind playing against infinite combos, but that’s as long as it takes the player some effort and time to bring them together. There’s nothing more boring than combo decks that only have to do one or two things for the combo to trigger. It doesn’t feel like the player earned that win with protection spells for their permanents and building a perfect line of effects that allows them to win. It just feels like they cheated and ended the game for no reason.

Brawl and Commander

Magic Arena has 100-card Brawl which opens the card pool to any nearly all the cards available on Arena, notably anthologies and remaster sets. In a paper-to-digital innovation, Wizards showed their support for both Brawl and Commander players by offering an Arena copy of a Commander precon. Some commanders are made available for wildcard crafting in Arena despite otherwise only getting a paper printing, such as Y'shtola, Night's Blessed.

Standard Brawl vs Commander Rules

Standard Brawl is recognized as an official format, unlike many variants of Commander. But the format's rules are pretty different.

For starters, Standard Brawl is only sanctioned for MTGO and Arena play. The format is also more like Standard than Commander in a lot of ways. These decks consist of 60 cards (59 and a commander) and can only use Standard-legal cards with some exceptions. In the 1v1, single game matches, players’ life total starts at 25 and the deck can have any one of your favorite planeswalkers as the commander.

Popular Commander House Rules

Prosperous Innkeeper | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

EDH started as a homebrew format. It's grown massively with time and is now an official Magic format, but that homebrew spirit is still alive in the format and its players. This brought about the Commander power brackets which take many of these rules into account and help clarify the power level in a given game.

No group of players play Commander the exact same way. Some rules are unwritten, changed, or modified, others are completely taken away, and others are created in an attempt to improve the format.

Rule 0

This rule essentially incentivizes pre- and post-game talk between players. Commander should be a format that focuses on the player experience above all other things. But it’s also a format with the capability to turn into an incredible display of power with combos and insanely powerful decks.

Players should gather before playing and talk about their decks, what they do, what things they’d rather not play against because they may make the game boring, and set up a series of core rules so that everyone gets to have fun. And after the match, everyone should, what they enjoyed most, what they found fun or boring about the game, and anything else that may improve their experience for the next game.

I consider rule 0 extremely important. It reminds me a lot of session 0 in Dungeons & Dragons games. It makes sure that everyone is on board and helps ensure that everyone has fun.

Magic is still a game underneath all the competitiveness and tournaments. It’s meant to be fun and enjoyable, and Commander is a format that rejects Magic’s turn towards less fun interactions and puts enjoyment at the forefront of the experience.

So sit with your friends or fellow players and talk. After all, Magic is and always will be a social game.

No Mass Land Destruction

Commander is a format focused on fun. Land destruction is not fun. Mass land destruction is the opposite of fun. A lot of game groups impose their personal bans on different strategies, combos, or specific cards to make sure no one makes the game boring for everyone else.

I used to have an EDH deck that used mass land destruction as a win condition. It basically consisted of playing an absurd amount of planeswalkers and enchantments. Once I had a reasonable board set, I’d play Jokulhaups and get rid of everything except for planeswalkers and enchantments. Immediately after that, my friends would simply concede and we’d start a new game.

If you board wipe every mana generator on the table and your deck still functions, it is extremely boring and I stopped playing it that way. It’s no fun seeing other players get bored, frustrated, or concede because you essentially ruined the game.

No Infinite Combos

Similar to the land destruction rule, a lot of groups find infinite combos annoying, boring, or otherwise unfun to play against. How many cards the combo requires to go infinite is key.

Plenty of groups allow decks that can go into infinite combos as long as it’s not the deck's entire purpose. Sometimes there are just four or five cards that interact so well with each other that they end up making an infinite combo.

I once had my Yawgmoth, Thran Physician deck go infinite by accident. A deck built to give its pilot what amounts to infinite turns is a horse of another color, and there’s a huge difference between the two decks.

Modified Ban Lists

The Commander ban list is kind of “elastic.” While most playgroups respect whatever is in the list (most of the bans make sense anyway), some groups remove some cards to allow specific decks to work better. Other groups add cards to the list because they find the interactions boring, annoying, or excessively hard to deal with. The game changer list is a helpful tool for players to moderate their deckbuilding and limit the number of powerful cards according to the bracket for the deck.

What is the 75% Rule in Magic's Commander Format?

The 75% rule is an old theory that you intentionally do not fully optimize your Commander deck. This was developed before the brackets. For a deck that is 100% optimized you'd likely call it bracket 5 and meant for cEDH. Take to the comments if you think 75% optimization means anything other than bracket 3.

Modified Mulligans

Playgroups can modify the way they mulligan for EDH. Some groups have specific rules that vary from allowing players with no lands on their second mulligan to show their hand and draw seven cards again to simply having everyone mulligan if some of the players don’t have any lands so that everyone starts on relatively equal footing.

If you play with a new group, make sure you know what form of mulligan to use before you finish shuffling up, and after you discuss your favorite ways to count life.

No Commander Damage

The commander damage rule can be simply taken out of the game if your playgroup agrees to it. Sometimes your commander isn’t there to do damage but to allow the rest of your deck to work. Sometimes no one in the group really wants to keep track of how much damage they’ve taken from each commander.

This allows for fairer matches between low-attack commanders and stronger commanders. After all, getting hit for commander damage by something like Quintorius, Field Historian is very different than getting hit by The Ur-Dragon.

15 or 20 Poison Counters

A lot of people feel like dying to 10 poison counters in Commander is too unfair. Your life total is 40 instead of 20 after all.

I don’t care for this rule since toxic, infect and poison aren’t really all that good in Commander. You’re the instant archenemy of the table and the first to go if you play anything with infect, so keeping it at 10 counters at least gives you a chance to fight. Check in with your group before you build that hyper-aggressive infect deck, just to be on the safe side.

Rule 0 (Again)

I want to re-emphasize Rule 0. The truth is that any and all Commander rules (official or not) can be modified. Especially when you play with your friends, whether it be at a kitchen table or at a store. The main goal of this format is to have fun and make sure everyone else does, too. It’s a casual social gathering way more than a competition.

This makes Commander games a safe environment for testing out new decks or having decks that do fun things even if they’re not all too powerful.

There’s no stressing enough how important it is to talk to your fellow players before and after each match.

Who Makes the EDH Rules?

The rules for EDH are made by Wizards of the Coast. The company that makes Magic guides the massive boat that is the Commander format and it was not always this way.

For a long time, Commander rules came from the Commander Rules Committee which was made of a group of players and fans of the format. As of September 2024, the Commander Rules Committee elected to pass on the management of the format to Wizards. WotC takes help and advice from the Commander Format Panel which includes many members of the former Commander Advisory Group and Rules Committee which are both dissolved.

These people are all deeply involved in Commander in one way or another. This allows Wizards to have a variety of opinions on what’s good for the format from people who are involved either as developers of the game or as players.

Commanding Conclusion

Dromoka's Command | Illustration by James Ryman

Well, this was a long one! Commander is by far one of my favorite formats in Magic. I've played it for about 10 years and I hope to play it for many more. It takes some time to learn how to properly play since it's pretty different from more traditional formats like Modern or Standard. I love that it’s a multiplayer-centric format. It gives me the same satisfaction that Dungeons & Dragons or board games give me of being able to gather a bunch of my friends and do something fun together.

What do you think about Commander? Are there any rules that are still confusing? Do you have any interesting house rules you think everyone should know about? Feel free to leave a comment and don't forget to check out our blog for more content like this, Draft may be in our name, but we love Commander too.

That’s all from me for now. Have a good one, and don’t forget to try one of the most fun commanders to play against if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it!