EDH/Commander League

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Commander/EDH League
Winter Season 2011/2012

As this is our first attempt at an EDH League, all rules are subject to change.

Season begins December 15th, 2011
Season ends on January 26th, 2012

Entry Fee: $25

Prize Support: ALL entry fees will be put into a prize pool, which will be awarded as store credit at the end of the season to top finishers; the number of top finishers awarded prizes is based on the number of players in the league.

Rules:

  •  Players must choose a legendary creature as the “Commander” for their deck.
  •  A card’s color identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card’s rules text. A card’s color identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.
  •  The Commander’s color identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck
  •  A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards, including the Commander.
  • With the exception of basic lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same English name.
  • Commander is played with vintage legal cards, with some exceptions.

League Rules

Players will follow the COMMANDER rules as provided in this packet.

League Members will choose 1 general to lead their COMMANDER decks upon registration.  An additional two generals will be listed as alternatives/back ups.

The league will not be using sideboards. Decks may be updated at any time after a match.

Mulligans – The first mulligan is free, additional mulligans will cost one card per mulligan. Players will mulligan simultaneously beginning with the first player. If you opt not to mulligan, you cannot mulligan in a later mulligan round.

A match will consist of:
1v1
3-player & 4-player Free For All

The person who wins the die roll will go first and it will proceed to go clockwise from them.

 

Matches may be played at any time during shop hours.

Players may play in up to FOUR matches per week for points. Each player’s THREE highest match records per week will be counted towards their league points for a given week, however there are exceptions to this rule:

1) Players may play in more than 5 matches each week. NOTE – ONLY THE FIRST FIVE MATCHES IN A GIVEN WEEK WILL COUNT TOWARDS YOUR POINTS, ADDITIONAL GAMES WILL BE PLAYED TO ALLOW OTHER PLAYERS TO GET POINTS (unless you kill them all and win; then all they get is participation points and maybe some first blood pity points).

2) Additional matches played beyond the first five in any given week will be applied on a first available basis to a week in which the player played in less than three matches. This will count as one of their make-up games for that week, make-up game points will be applied until make-up games are no longer available to a player

League points will be awarded as follows:

Participation points 1 point will be awarded per opponent in the match. (P)
First player to deal damage to an opponent receives 5 points. (FB)
A player who eliminates an opponent will receive 5 points. (PK)
The last man standing will receive 5 points for each opponent at the start of the match. (LM)
The first player to cast their general for the second time will receive 5 points. (G)

Scooping:
1) Scooping – if a player scoops they will lose 3 points. When a player scoops the player to their immediate left and right each receive 1 point.
2) Last Man Standing – will receive 2 additional points for each player who scooped.

1v1 Matches – Bonus Points
First player to have 100 or more life at the beginning of their upkeep will receive a once per match bonus of 5 points. (LIFE)
First player to have 20 or more cards in hand after discard step will receive a once per match bonus of 5 points. (HAND)
Win by milling your opponent to death will receive a once per match bonus of 10 points. (MILL)
A player who deals 21 points of general damage in a single turn will receive a once per match bonus of 10 points. (GD)

3-player or more matches – Bonus points
First player to be eliminated from a match will receive a bonus of 3 points. (PP)
First player to eliminate two opponents during the same combat step will receive 10 points. (TS)
The player who eliminates the first opponent of a match will receive 10 points. (EFO)

 

Official MTG:Commander Rules
(aka EDH – Elder Dragon Highlander)

Commander is designed to promote social games of magic.

It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman’s agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game.

House rules or “fair play” exceptions are always encouraged if they result in more fun for the local community.

Commander is played with vintage legal cards, with some exceptions:

  • Cards are legal as of their set’s prerelease
  • Shahrazad is legal for play in EDH
  • The following cards are officially banned list for the commander league:
  1. Ancestral Recall
  2. Balance
  3. Biorhythm
  4. Black Lotus
  5. Coalition Victory
  6. Channel
  7. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
  8. Fastbond
  9. Gifts Ungiven
  10. Kokusho, the Evening Star
  11. Karakas
  12. Library of Alexandria
  13. Limited Resources
  14. Lion’s Eye Diamond
  15. Metalworker
  16. Mox Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, Emerald and Jet
  17. Painter’s Servant
  18. Panoptic Mirror
  19. Protean Hulk
  20. Recurring Nightmare
  21. Staff of Domination
  22. Sway of the Stars
  23. Time Vault
  24. Time Walk
  25. Tinker
  26. Tolarian Academy
  27. Upheaval
  28. Yawgmoth’s Bargain

Details
Players must choose a legendary creature as the “Commander” for their deck.

Players may choose any legendary creature as their Commander, although some choices may be met with disapproval by other players. Two players in the same game may choose the same Commander, and other players may include that card in their Deck even if it’s not their Commander. Commanders are subject to the Legend rule just like any other legendary creature; multiple copies of the same creature (whether Commander and non-Commander) will all be put into the graveyard (or command zone) as a state based effect.

The Commander is the principle around which the deck is built. It is more easily available than other cards in the deck, and decks will ususally want to leverage their Commander’s strengths in their plans. It is not, however, guarenteed to be available at every point in the game so EDH decks should be able to function without it for a time.

A deck’s commander is also known as its “General” for historical reasons.

A card’s color identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card’s rules text. A card’s color identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.
The Commander’s color identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck.

  • Cards in a deck may not have any colors in their identity which are not shared with the commander of the deck. (The identity of each card in the deck must be a subset of the General’s)
  • Lands whose type includes swamp, island, plains, forest and/or mountain (e.g.: basic lands, shocklands, dual lands, Shadowmoor special-basics, etc) DO contain the corresponding mana symbol(s) as per CR 305.6. As such, while they are “colorless” they do have a color identity and may not appear in a deck unless the Commander is of the appropriate identity.
  • While hybrid mana symbols may be played with either color mana, they contribute both colors to the card’s color identity. Therefore they may only be played with a Commander whose identity includes ALL of the hybrid symbols’ colors.
  • Basic land words (swamp, forest, etc) in the text box of a card do NOT represent a colored mana symbol. They are not restricted to Commander of the same color identity.
  • Reminder text is not included in the color identity of a card.

An Example of what cards are/aren’t allowed in a three color deck.

A deck with Phelddagrif (Casting cost 1UWG) as the Commander may not contain any cards whose color identity includes red or black.

  • These cards would all be illegal in a Phelddagrif deck:
  • Goblin Piker (Its mana cost contains a red mana symbol)
  • Elves of Deep Shadow (Its ability contains a black mana symbol)
  • Talisman of Dominance (All sorts of verbotten mana symbols)
  • Life//Death (Three shall be the number of the colors)
  • Degavolver (… right out)
  • Our Phelddagrif couldn’t use any of these lands:
  • Underground River (Obvious, see above)
  • Godless Shrine
  • Badlands
  • Leechridden Swamp, etc)
  • Phelddagrif may not call upon Boros Guildmage for help
  • Phelddagrif IS allowed to use:
  • Esper Panorama
  • Shard Convergence
  • A deck may not generate mana outside its colors. If an effect would generate mana of an illegal color, it generates colorless mana instead.
  • A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards, including the Commander.
  • With the exception of basic lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same English name.

 

Play rules
The start of game procedure for Commander is as follows:

Players announce their choice of Commander and move that card to the command zone.

Each player draws a hand of seven cards.

Players may mulligan, using the normal mulligan rule.

Being a Commander is not a characteristic[MTG CR109.3], it is a property of the card. As such, “Commander-ness” cannot be copied or overwritten by continuous effects, and does not change with control of the card.

If a player has been dealt 21 points of combat damage by a particular Commander during the game, that player loses a game.

While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast. As an additional cost to cast a Commander from the command zone, its owner must pay {2} for each time it was previously cast from the command zone. (ie: it costs 6WW to cast for the third time.)

A Commander is still subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting creatures (unless it has Flash or some other affect allows it to be played at another time, such as Vedalken Orrery)

If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead.

A commander which is face down in exile must be moved by any player to the command zone, face up.

This is a replacement effect; the creature never goes to the graveyard and will not trigger such abilities.

Commander will move to the library or hand as normal; only transitions to Exile or the Graveyard may be replaced.

It is possible for a commander to be moved to exile while face down, such that its owner does not possess the knowledge required to apply the aforementioned replacement effect. All players have an equal responsibility to move the commander to exile as soon as possible; knowingly failing to do so is cheating.

Players begin the game with 40 life.

Commander are subject to the Legend rule; they will be put into the graveyard or command zone at the same time as any other Legendary creatures with the same name.

Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma’ruf) do not function.