Your Commander Motivation and How It Shapes Your Magic Games

Before I begin, I wanted to say this up front:  Magic means lots of things to lots of people, and everyone has their own unique reasons why they enjoy the game. The goal with this article is to draw upon my lengthy time and experiences playing Commander to convey some wisdom I’ve learned along the way when it comes to the decisions you make when constructing your Commander deck and how you play the cards in a Commander pod. Some of you may disagree with what I suggest here, and that’s totally fine. There’s room in the game for everyone’s approach.

To begin, I’d like to quote the Commander philosophy document, which you can find in its entirety here.  The parts that are most relevant to my thoughts today are the first few paragraphs and the closing sentence:

The Philosophy Of Commander

The philosophy “statement” has changed over time, but the gist has been consistent from the very beginning of Elder Dragon Highlander: build and play your deck with “we” in the front of your mind, rather than “me.”

Motivation

Today I really wanted to talk about motivation. To me, this is the true key to finding enjoyable Commander pods to play in—find players with similar motives. Power level discussions are helpful for setting baseline expectations, but Rule 0 conversations should really be about a lot more than that. People can – and should – put powerful cards in their decks because they’re a lot of fun, but they can become problematic if coupled with a competitive motivation that’s out of line with what the rest of the pod is looking for. On the flip side of the coin, if a player has constructed their deck and makes play decisions based on having a laid-back, interactive, and chill game, those powerful cards are most likely not going to spoil the mood. 

I’ve been playing Magic for 28 years, and my collection of cards is quite vast—I own a lot of “power” cards and enjoy playing them. But the vast majority of my decks are designed for games that take at least an hour to resolve; few have combos that end the game on the spot, and my intention is to win through damage, most often combat damage.  To my mind, this approach allows each game that I play in room to breathe, where everyone gets the opportunity for their deck to do something cool and interesting and maximizes the chance that everyone walks away from the game having had fun.

But each person is different, and it’s up to each of us to consider what our motives are for playing a game of Commander. What is the game experience you want everyone at your table to have?  Once you’ve got the answer to this question in mind, you can make better choices when figuring out what cards you want to put into your deck.