We have arrived. Commander will now be a sanctionable Friday Night Magic format (along with nearly every other Magic format you can think of). If you
haven’t seen the announcement, here’s the video with Helene Bergeot.
What does this mean to us? First, it means I’m excited about the possibility of FNMing with the 100 card decks. Second, it means potentially more exposure
as people learn about the best Magic format ever. Today, I’ll take a look at some ideas (some I like very much, others quite a bit less so) for how
Commander FNM might shape up.
1v1
While long-time readers know that this isn’t my favorite instantiation of Commander, I recognize that there are others who love it. It certainly becomes an
FNM possibility. 1v1, or “French Rules,” is the easiest structurally for shops who are used to running two-player tournaments. From a rules standpoint,
it’s a little trickier. While we on the Commander Rules Committee (RC) are happy to let the French folks take care of the 1v1 list, they don’t enjoy the
same blanket recognition that we do. I know there are house rules in “normal” Commander. I have to imagine that there are even more pockets of unique 1v1
banned lists around the globe.
If you take away one thing from this, it’s that the Commander RC will not be getting into the business of creating separate 1v1 and multiplayer banned
lists. From our perspective, 1v1 is a viable variant and we’re happy that there are folks out there who are having fun with it, but there is a single,
unified banned list. We’re not going to change our philosophy, which heretofore has not addressed cards in light of their power or brokenness in 1v1.
Philosophically, we will proceed forward as we always have.
Cutthroat Pods
The simplest setup is the cutthroat pod. Players are randomly seated in four- or five-player pods (organizers will have to decide what to do with awkward
numbers of players, like 11 which is either a 5 and a 6 or two 4s and a 3), and then either the person with the most kills or the last player standing is
the winner. From a structural standpoint, this is the easiest for the shop running the event. All they need to do is post the seatings, collect the names
of the winners, and distribute prizes. Most FNMs can easily support running two Commander rounds, so the organizer might consider an escalating prize
structure. The winners from Round 1 are all seated at the same table in Round 2, where they play for the whole ball of wax.
The clear caution here is that we know the style of play that this will promote. In most of these pods, players will spend longer shuffling than actually
playing the game. Early “kill the table” combo decks will dominate. The silver lining here is that I suspect that these games will be so fast as to
potentially allow the shop to run three rounds in an evening.
A secondary caution is that given the relatively small number of pods, collusion will be a concern. Even randomly seated, there is a good chance that
co-conspirators will be in the same pod together. While this is less likely to be an issue in events of a similar size with a flat prize payout, when there
are serious prizes on the line, players are going to team up. It’s easy to see a large number of feel-bads coming out of this.
This setup is viable for a shop that has a large number of highly-competitive players who want to get their Commander on. I suspect that it is also the one
that will have the shortest shelf life. The Cutthroat Pods setup may be viable if the prize structure is flat. Without the lure of larger prizes, players
have less of an incentive to simply win and are more likely to explore interesting, thematic, and social avenues to express themselves.
