Magic’s Commander format is changing. Here’s what you need to know

Ever since it emerged on Magic: The Gathering’s professional tour in the early 2000s, the Commander format has been lovingly embraced by the game’s massive global community. So much so that today the publisher considers it to be the game’s most popular format. Walking the halls of MagicCon Chicago last month, the state of Commander was on just about everyone’s lips — but not for the reasons that Wizards of the Coast game designers might have liked it to be. Big moves are being made within the beloved format, and fans inside the frigid McCormick Place Convention Center were among the first to grapple with those changes at scale. 

To mark the occasion, Polygon sat down with principal Magic designer Gavin Verhey to learn more about Commander Brackets, a new system for categorizing decks of cards, and to inquire about where the format is headed in the future.

From its humble beginnings in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the back rooms of Magic’s highest-stakes tournaments and beyond, Commander — a singleton format where players create 100-card decks around a central character — has become the ultimate expression of a player’s dedication to the game. People get really attached to their decks, and for more than a decade a group of volunteers called the Commander Rules Committee kept things relatively balanced between them all, making rule changes and the occasional ban of a troublesome card. But in September of last year, following the ban of several high-powered and expensive cards, members of the Commander RC began to receive violent harassment, including death threats. That’s when the all-volunteer committee decided they wanted out.

“At the end of last year,” Verhey said, “the Commander Rules Committee handed the Commander format over to us. They trust us with it, [and] this is a great honor.”

The reason for that transition is fairly pragmatic: Wizards and its employees, part of multibillion-dollar game and toy manufacturer Hasbro, are much more hardened against modern-day forms of harassment than a small group of volunteers. But according to Verhey, the incident was also a sign that Wizards needed a different way to communicate with its audience. And, in turn, that audience needed better ways to communicate with each other.

“I know that Wizards has our backs […] in these kind of situations,” Verhey said, “but I also think that creating a better framework for what people can expect in the future will help temper a lot of that.”

The solution, now in beta after a lengthy blog post, is to divide Commander decks into one of five brackets and to encourage players to stay within that bracket when setting up friendly multiplayer games.

Most decks you’d pick up on a store shelf can be found in bracket two, the Core bracket. The decks most players are likely to create on their own will fall into the first two brackets, which also include store-bought preconstructed Commander decks and even more exotic decks that you cobble together from just a few boxes of cards. According to Verhey, these are the brackets that will continue to make up most players’ experiences going forward. It’s in the other three brackets — Upgraded, Optimized, and CEDH — where the sparks will really begin to fly.

To help categorize decks within these three categories, and to help players communicate how powerful their decks truly are, Wizards concocted the Game Changers list. Also in beta alongside Commander Brackets, the Game Changers list comprises a subset of cards that dramatically impact Commander decks in significant ways. That includes decks whereby players can create infinite combos and runaway resource-building engines; deploy cards that can entirely block another player’s turn; or utilize abilities that allow the player to search through their deck at will. Among their number you’ll find classics like Rhystic Study and Gaea’s Cradle, but also newer cards like The One Ring. Bracket three, Upgraded decks, can have up to three of these cards, while brackets four and five are by and large unrestricted.

Ideally, Verhey said, the cards banned at the end of last year would have first shown up on the Game Changers list — not merely banned outright.

“Part of the idea [is that the] Game Changer [could serve as] a watch list,” Verhey said. “These are just some cards that could potentially be targets in the future for a ban, where people would get riled up.”

The plan for now is to monitor player feedback and see how the Game Changers list as written stands up to brewers making their own decks at home. Later on, once things stabilize, Verhey thinks that some banned cards could even be reintroduced — but he’s not making any promises.

“We’re going to come back in late April with feedback from the beta,” Verhey said. “[That’s when we could] make any tweaks to the system, or launch it out of beta. And potentially, at that point, we could be unbanning cards if we chose to.”

Just as in creating a good Commander deck, Verhey stressed, intent is important. And that’s why this period of testing and collaboration is so key. 

“I think good communication with the community is important,” Verhey said. “We want to set up regular check-ins […] maybe every quarter, maybe twice a year. […] So even if a decision is made you don’t agree with, you don’t feel like it’s out of left field.”

Of course, doesn’t the introduction of Commander Brackets also open up the design space for Wizards to create new kinds of preconstructed decks for retail? Verhey said it could, but that it’s not the true intent of creating the framework.

“I call it a stretch goal, I guess,” Verhey said. “If [Commander Brackets are] adopted and really loved by the community, we could start doing stuff on the product side.” Imagine a set, like the upcoming Edge of Eternities, launching with a slate of bracket one or two decks that rely on classic science fiction tropes. Then, perhaps later in the year, something like the upcoming Final Fantasy set might launch with more powerful bracket four or bracket five decks. That won’t be happening, Verhey said, since those sets were literally designed years ago at this point. But the potential is there.

“I could […] imagine a world where, in the future [we’re saying], ‘Hey, these are bracket level four decks. These are really strong precons. These are going to hit really hard,’” Verhey mused. “It’s something a little different, [and] potentially, we could do that.”

But right now the goal is to bring back stability, and to show that Wizards has a calm hand on the rudder of the beloved, fan-created format. Only later, once the dust has settled and more sets enter preproduction, will the team consider exercising any stretch goals they have in mind. For more details on how Commander Brackets work in practice, see the official Magic: The Gathering website and look out for the next big blog post in April — right around the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm.