Commander Variants

Barrins Codex Card Art

Magic has many formats—and ways to tweak them. Commander is one of the most popular formats, and today I look at two variants of it: Pauper and Peasant Commander.

"Pauper" and "Peasant" are terms used in Magic when players restrict the eligible card pool in a given format to cards printed at common (pauper) or uncommon (peasant) rarity. The goals are to 1) make it more affordable/accessible, and 2) force players to explore options by playing less powerful cards they would otherwise ignore. 

In regular Commander, you have:

- 1 legendary creature (any rarity) that is your Commander and sets the color identity for the deck

- 99 other cards (any rarities)

- 40 life

For peasant and pauper variants, there are no official rules so variations on the below exist, but I present common options here:

Peasant Commander:

- 1 legendary creature (any rarity) that is your Commander and sets the color identity for the deck

- 99 other cards (up to 15 uncommons; the rest commons)

- start with 40 life

Pauper Commander:

- 1 legendary creature (common or uncommon only) that is your Commander and sets the color identity for the deck

- 99 other cards (commons only)

- start with 30 life

I've blended the two to make my own variant (let's call it "Yeoman" Commander):

- 1 legendary creature (uncommon only) that is your Commander and sets the color identity for the deck

- 99 other cards (uncommons or commons only; no limit to uncommons)

- start with 40 life

- thematic (instead of functional) focus

A note on rarity: any card that was every printed at uncommon or common can be considered. Rarity shifts happen in Magic, so what is now (or once was) a rare may have changed.

My recent mission has been making two-color Yeoman Commander decks in all 10 color combinations. Restricting the card pool to commons and uncommons has been a fun experience. Here are the eligible commanders for each color combo, with numbers afterwards showing the current options as of this writing:

- WU (23)

- UB (30)

- BR (29)

- RG (27)

- WB (20)

- WR (23)

- WG (28)

- UR (20)

- UG (19)

- BG (18)

Check out this (and other) format variations—or dream up your own. Tweaking the game, even mildly, can have some unexpected and fun results.

Commander Brackets

How do you describe the potency (or power level) of a Magic Commander deck? And why does it matter? This post looks at this concept as defined by Wizards in the last few years.

Ever feel like you're out of your league? That you're competing against players who are fielding decks much stronger (or weaker) than yours? This game is most enjoyable when you compete against people on a level playing field (that's one reason draft and sealed formats are so much fun). Playing in Standard can require shelling out lots of cash to have the most competitive [and thus expensive] decks, and the problem only worsens with Commander (because it has a much wider card pool, meaning even more expensive cards can be needed to be competitive). What's one to do? Wizards is attempting to solve this problem through Commander Brackets.

Commander brackets is a five-tier system (see above illustration) to group decks according to their perceived power level. Wizards announced the concept in February 2025 and gave an update in October. From the latter article, it summarizes the brackets as follows:

• Bracket 1: Exhibition
• Players expect: Decks to prioritize a goal, theme, or idea over power
• Win conditions to be highly thematic or substandard
• Gameplay to be an opportunity to show off your creations
• You should expect to be able to play at least nine turns before you win or lose
• Bracket 2: Core
• Players expect: Decks to be unoptimized and straightforward, with some cards chosen to maximize creativity and/or entertainment
• Win conditions to be incremental, telegraphed on the board, and disruptable
• Gameplay to be low pressure with an emphasis on social interaction
• Gameplay to be proactive and considerate, letting each deck showcase its plan
• You should expect to be able to play at least eight turns before you win or lose.
• Bracket 3: Upgraded
• Players expect: Decks to be powered up with strong synergy and high card quality; they can effectively disrupt opponents
• Game Changers that are likely to be value engines and game-ending spells
• Win conditions that can be deployed in one big turn from hand, usually because of steadily accrued resources
• Gameplay to feature many proactive and reactive plays
• You should expect to be able to play at least six turns before you win or lose.
• Bracket 4: Optimized
• Players expect: Decks not to adhere to the cEDH metagame reserved for Bracket 5
• Decks to be lethal, consistent, and fast, designed to take people down as fast as possible
• Game Changers that are likely to be fast mana, snowballing resource engines, free disruption, and tutors
• Win conditions to vary but be efficient and instantaneous
• Gameplay to be explosive and powerful, featuring huge threats and efficient disruption to match
• You should expect to be able to play at least four turns before you win or lose.
• Bracket 5: cEDH
• Players expect:Decks that are meticulously designed to battle in the cEDH metagame, with the ability to win quickly or generate overwhelming resources; often built using existing cEDH knowledge, tools, and/or decklists
• Win conditions to be optimized for efficiency and consistency
• Gameplay to be intricate and advanced, with razor-thin margins for error; players prioritize victory over all else
• These games could end on any turn.

The latter article linked above explains more about "Game Changers" and lists the 51 cards there.

This is a great concept. Though judgment is always involved, having a tier system like this enables players to self-score their decks and find a playgroup running at that level. I look forward to seeing how this evolves.

This system also reveals what designers feel makes the game powerful. Study the image above. You'll see things like land denial, extra turns, 2-card infinite combos, game changers, and tutors [cards that let you search your deck for a card and put it into your hand]. Those aspects, apparently, are what set decks apart from each other.

Looks like most of my decks are Bracket 1 and 2 . . . I might dabble in Bracket 3, but I've never won a Commander game in six turns. 

Until next time . . . keep exploring.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtle Team-Up

Today, I look at another way to play Magic: a new cooperative format called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtle Team-Up. For 2-4 players, it takes 40 minutes or more.

Overview

Shredder, Krang, and other baddies are determined to take down the turtles and rule New York. Can you and your friends team up to stop them?

Turtle Team-Up is a cooperative form of Magic. 

- Each of you (2-4 players) has a preconstructed deck of 60 cards, each of which is based on a different turtle. Your team starts with a shared pool of life (20 for 2 players, 30 for 3, 40 for 4).

- Your 'opponent' is a series of Boss and Event cards. There are three stages of Bosses to overcome. 

- For each boss stage, your opponent starts with 20 life. Reduce them to zero to overcome that boss and move to the next. The first stage has one boss, the second two, and the third three. 

- Bosses are like enchantments: they have some effect that is true so long as they are on the battlefield. Once you get a boss stage to zero life, all bosses in that stage are discarded.

Turns:

On your turn, like regular Magic, you will draw a card and follow normal turn structure—except that you are all playing your turns simultaneously. Your opponent has no creatures who can block, so any attacks you launch will help you reduce your opponent's life.

On your opponent's turn, they draw a series of event cards (1-3, depending on the number of players) and resolve their effects. Event cards can be creatures (that cannot block) or effects (like "destroy all creatures"). Creatures on your opponent's side must attack if they can (following normal rules). One player chooses who they attack. You can choose to block them or let them decrement your life total . . . but sometimes that has other bad effects (depending on the boss(es) in play at the time).

Other game contents:

Tokens and four booster packs. After playing a few games with the preconstructed decks, use the boosters to strengthen your decks and improve your odds.

See the official site for more information (decklists, contents, etc.).

Review

My boys and I enjoyed this format. Cooperative games are always fun, and I like the "one vs. many" concept. That said, this product feels like 'boom or bust': you either win handedly or get destroyed. The Event cards feature enough board wipes or similar effects to make victory difficult—if they come out late in the game. (They are not spells that can be countered.) But if you get them early, before you have good board presence, you may be able to weather the storm. 

This is the first Magic product I've purchased where I found the rulebook lacking. Normally they do a good job of concisely explaining the rules, but this time, I had to fill in the gaps with my experience and hope I was interpreting things correctly.

Having the opponent's creatures unable to block diminishes some of the interaction, but is understandable for gameplay. In hindsight, I wonder if it wouldn't have been more fun to have one player control the bad guys and alter the card abilities to spice things up. Overall, though, this is fun.

Rating: B+

Ravnica: Clue Edition

Today I look at a different way to play Magic. It's time to explore Ravnica: Clue Edition. For 3-4 players, it takes 40-90 minutes.

Overview

Remember the board game Clue? Do you know Magic: Jumpstart? This game basically mixes the two.

- As in Clue, your goal is to figure out "whodunnit" by correctly guessing the suspect, room, and weapon that was secretly chosen and placed in the case file at the game's start. There are 21 cards (6 suspects, 10 locations, and 5 weapons). Examples:

image from here

- As in Jumpstart, you will open two 20-card themed packs (eight are included in the box; each is a two-color theme aligned to Ravnica guilds), shuffle them together to make your deck, set your life counter to 20, and play a normal game of Magic.

You can win one of two ways:

1) you reduce all opponents' life to zero (as in normal Magic)

2) you correctly guess the person, room, and weapon

For the second, your opponents each hold some people, rooms, and weapons (they were dealt randomly at the game's start). On a turn when you do damage to your opponent, you make guess one of each, and if that opponent has one of the guessed cards, they must reveal it to you. That opponent then creates a clue token (which can help them draw cards).

Review

I enjoyed this variation of Magic. Its fun that the 21 "Clue" cards are actual Magic cards (I've since built a Commander deck with one). Jumpstart is a great concept, too, so that is satisfying. And they did a good job of mixing reprints from Ravnica sets with brand new cards.

Here's what I did not enjoy: this comes with eight randomized boosters (there are 20 possible, two for each guild; see the official page for all of them). It is possible to get more than one copy of the same pack, and since there are ten Ravnica guilds (which equate to color combinations), there is no possible way you can get all ten guilds in one box. You must buy two (or more, if your luck is poor) to collect at least one of each guild, and purchase more still to have any hope of getting all 20 possible packs. Does that matter for gameplay? No. Would it have been nice to include ten boosters, for one of each guild? Yes.

The price was another downer; initially listed at $80, it wasn't worth near that, even with the included randomized shock land (I picked up one for $50, when they went on clearance).

Overall, this is a decent product that could have been great.

Rating: B