Six House Rules I Love and Six I Hate

Commander is a social format first and foremost. It was never designed to play in tournaments, though we absolutely have created a competitive side. With that being said there are a lot of house rules I have come across as I have been playing and traveling around to various local game stores. Some rules I have absolutely loved, some I have hated. I am going over my top 6 most loved house rules and my top 6 most hated.

Let’s start things out with some positivity with the house rules that I have absolutely loved.


1) Cumulative commander damage. In short, rather than tracking commander damage off of each individual commander, it is all tracked together, so 21 total damage from commanders is enough to take someone out of the game. This is a positive for a couple of reasons. One, it forces players to be a bit more concerned about holding up blockers if the threat of commander damage is more severe, and two, it allows players that haven’t necessarily had a good game whether it is a card draw issue, mana problems, etc. to still be able to contribute to the game. The one bad side I have found with this is if your playgroup plays a lot of partner commanders. Since that can dramatically accelerate that commander damage.


2) Look at the top ten cards and keep seven. If your group is more casual, this drastically reduces the number of mulligans the groups will have to take. The odds of everyone having some ramp, card draw, of an appropriate number of lands is much higher than the traditional mulligan set. Granted, in more spikey playgroups that have a lot of fast mana everywhere, this could lead to more runaway games, but ultimately I like the idea of smoother games in which everyone gets a decent hand and can actually play.


3) Banning Fast Mana. Now before everyone grabs the torches and pitchforks, this is going to be for more casual groups. Lets face it, if everyone is playing pre-cons and someone gets the turn one sol ring, arcane signet and follow that up with their commander or something like a Rhystic Study, that isn’t a super enjoyable experience for the rest of the table. By eliminating the potential for those early explosive/runaway games, it is easier for everyone to ease into the game at a relaxed pace.


4) Winning Deck Rotates Out. Pretty straight forward, in pods in which people have multiple decks with them, if your deck wins, retire it for the night and play something else. This avoids a player that has one unbeatable deck from consistently pub stomping the rest of the table. Of course there are some issues with this, the biggest one being a rule zero problem. If you only have one deck around the power level of a precon which wins the game and the rest of your decks are much stronger… that is only going to make the problem worse if everyone is still playing that power level. The other issue that takes place is if players simply don’t have that many decks with them. Eventually you would run out. But I do like the premise as a whole.


5) Limits on the Quality of Tutors, or the Number of Tutors. Tutors might be the strongest part of EDH because in a singleton format, it allows you to effectively play your best card multiple times. I am not personally a fan of completely banning a full set of card types like tutors or land destruction as magic is designed as a rock paper scissors type of game. So by removing one of the options from the equation, it makes other strategies much more difficult to deal with. With that said, I like the idea of allowing tutors like grim tutor and diabolic tutor, but not demonic tutor and vampiric tutor to slow down those strategies a hair. You can still work to assemble a combo or find that essential piece of removal, it just doesn’t have to happen all on the same turn since it would require such little mana.


6) Every player starts with one basic land on the field tapped and skips their first untap step. The main premise of this is it allows players to not have to take as many mulligans and move past that turn 1 or 2 which players aren’t doing a lot. I think preventing the first untap step is really helpful and choosing your basic land really does help with color fixing if you have a 3+ color deck. But if you’re looking for games to get into the middle game faster, I would definitely recommend this one.

So we talked about the positives, now here comes a scoop of negativity with the five house rules I have seen that I personally think are too restrictive, too breakable, or simply just not a fun experience.


1) Commander Damage does not exist. Now, I get it. In EDH when you have three opponents that could hit you with commanders and having to keep track of the damage from each creature is a pain. It's even worse with partners. I can definitely see the appeal of not having to worry about it. But, by not giving players an outlet to take a player out with commander damage, it makes eliminating a life gain player or an infinite life combo nearly impossible. In addition, Voltron commanders already have a tough time playing in EDH due to the need to take three players out each game. By taking their primary win condition out of the equation, it makes voltron borderline unplayable.


2) No counter spells. Having one of your plans removed on the stack definitely sucks. There is no arguing that. But counter spells are removal spells just like anything else. They also provide accountability for more aggressive combo/big spell decks. If I was going to play a deck with expropriate, I would much rather play against decks that don’t run counter spells because I can comfortably cast my bomb spells and win.


3) Banning stax/ Mass Land Destruction. I don’t see a lot of play groups that actually are consistently playing stax or MLD, but even so I think there is a lot of hate that comes to stax and MLD in any capacity. Granted, when a friend plays Armageddon without any follow up is definitely frustrating, and certain commanders require a longer game and stax can help with that. By not allowing these types of cards, landfall decks and aggressive combo decks are going to run rampant throughout the entire format.


4) No infinite combos. Some playgroups hate the “I win out of nowhere” that infinites can provide. They can also be consistent. I would argue that not all infinite combos are created equal. A 5 card janky infinite combo is going to take a lot more preparation than a craterhoof behemoth will or a Godo/Helm of the Host combo would. But with that said a lot of this could be discussed in rule zero talks. I think outright banning strategies is never a good solution. For example, I have a Brago, King Eternal deck that relies on an infinite combo line as a finisher. If the deck is not allowed to win through a combo, it is a brutally painful deck to play against in a game that could closest be described as “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe in the effect that I have to chip away at your life total, removing everything and anything you play until I can take you out without having a lot of ways to buff their power. Sometimes, the Infinite way is the merciful way.


5) All planeswalkers are eligible as commanders. With obvious exceptions like Aminatou, Lord Windgrace, etc, planeswalkers were not designed with commander playability in mind by WOTC’s design team. There are a lot of planeswalkers that if permitted would be extremely problematic, such as Ugin as a consistent board wipe, Sorin Markov that can consistently set life totals to 10 making a lot of the game useless, and Tezzeret that can grab Chain veil by itself for a very quick and effective one card combo out of the command zone. There’s also thousands of legendary creatures that exist in EDH to pick from covering every strategy under the sun. We simply don’t need planeswalkers as commanders and I think it causes more issues than it resolves.


6) Life totals start at 30. Now this one is tricky because I think finding ways for more aggressive decks to find value in EDH is definitely important. I think that by setting life totals to 30, I think that it drastically alters how decks are built and how important early attacks and blocks are. If you have someone who wants to play with you and doesn’t have that rule in mind with their decks, that player is going to be at a disadvantage. In the same breath, if you have decks that are built with 30 life in mind, you would be at a disadvantage in that game of 40 life. Because of this, I don’t think that the rule is worth it.


At the end of the day, you can play this game however you would like to. If any of these house rules seem like a good time, try them out. If you have a house rule that you like that isn’t listed here, let us know at thoughtvesselshow@gmail.com. Just know there is a rules committee, commander advisory group, and wizards of the coast that is working to make commander balanced and as fair as possible, so be careful on what you want to make as a house rule, because with every house rule, there’s a way to break it.


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