My sister’s Commander. She gains life. A LOT of life.

My family has become pretty keen on the “newest” Magic: the Gathering format. I put the quotes around ‘newest’ because it’s a format that’s actually been around for a while, underground & independent. But like the rockers who have to trade in their hipster glasses for suits & ties because they have to meet with label people now, the format’s been picked up by the big name and now is getting mass-produced later this year. I’m speaking of what Magic calls Commander, but some folks still know it as Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH.

Instead of your typical constructed format, Commander has an interesting if somewhat quirky rule set that changes the pace and flavor of the game:

• Each player begins with 40 life.
• You may have 100 cards in your deck, one of which must be your Commander.
• Aside from basic lands, you are allowed 1 copy of each card in your deck.
• The Commander must be a legendary creature.
• Your Commander is not shuffled into your deck but remains in a special area out of play. You can summon it at any time for its mana cost.
• If your Commander would be destroyed, exiled or otherwise removed from play, instead of going to the graveyard or being exiled it returns to its area. It can be resummoned, but 2 colorless mana is added to its casting cost for each time it is sent back to its area in this way.
• The colors of the Commander define the colors of the deck. For example: if your Commander is red, blue and black, the cards in your deck cannot contain green or white.

Typically, the Commander also lends a theme to the deck, be it creature removal, life gain or straight-forward beat-down. I originally built a creature-enchantment deck around Razia, Boros Archangel, but since most of my father’s cards are red and white, he picked her up as well. So, I’ve gone back to the drawing board. I tried a red-black burn deck with Lyzolda, the Blood Witch as the Commander… it didn’t end well. Now that more or less I know what I’m facing, as my family has become my ‘local meta’, I’ve started on a few ideas.

Vorosh, the Hunter is the most viable, unique Commander I have currently, as Teneb is being fielded (quite effectively!) by my sister-in-law, Beth. I’m building a graft/infect deck around him. The more proliferation I can get into it, the better. Until then it’ll be using some of my more insidious control tricks, at least until I get some other decks up and running. While it might be some time before that happens, due to limited resources, a couple other ideas have popped into my head.

I like my dragon burn deck (and the others hate it due to Archenemy memories), and can probably beef it up a bit with a better Commander. Bladewing the Risen, perhaps. Or I can add some control elements with Crosis, the Purger, Lord of Tresserhorn or Sol’kanar the Swamp King.

The other big idea I had involves control and artifacts, two great tastes that taste great together. The latest block of expansions introduced a few really neat control devices reliant on artifacts, so I would need a Leonid Abunas to keep them safe. But what if he didn’t come out in time? And I still needed a Commander. A little searching, however, introduced me to Sharuum the Hegemon. Black allows for creature recursion (Abunas won’t stay dead!) and her ability for bringing artifacts back is not only good for when she gets sent packing back to her perch outside of the game, but also plays right into the hands of my favorite planeswalker – Venser the Sojourner.

So I have a few things to consider as I plan for my next encounter with my fellow planeswalkers. After all, in the end, there can be only one.

Cutest little cause for victory there ever was.

Magic: the Gathering is, like many nerdy diversions, something of an expensive hobby.

It’s also similar to things like MMORPGs in that the players are on the prowl for rare items to improve their performance, and that certain arrangements and combinations are ‘best’. In the formats for constructed decks, there tends to be a mentality following this general line of thinking: “If your deck doesn’t use X combination or feature card Y, you cannot and will not win.” And more often than not, those combos and that card are prohibitively expensive. We’re talking hundreds of dollars here, folks.

That’s why limited formats are appealing to those of us operating within the confines of a budget. Everybody starts on a relatively even field, using the same basic resources and their wits to assemble the best deck they can with what they have. In addition to being wallet-friendly, it rewards good analytical and on-the-spot thinking. Rather than walking into the event with a particular combination in mind guaranteed to win games, the player has to think on their feet and make smart decisions.

The ultimate expression of this format, to me, is the draft. Not only is it the least expensive and therefore the easiest to justify, it puts critical thinking skills front and center. It’s rather different from sealed deck events, and in my opinion you get more bang for your buck.

Instead of getting a set number of packs all to yourself, you sit at a table with other players and open each pack one at a time. When you open your pack, you pick one card from among the 15 viable possibilities, then pass the rest to the player on your left. You pick another card, pass, etc. Once that pack is done, you open the next, pick a card and pass to the right. So on and so forth.

By the time you’ve finished you have more than enough cards to build the 40-card minimum deck. But if you just pick the shiniest cards or make choices based solely on rarity, you might not do very well. As you make your choices and see the cards coming by, you need to decide what cards are going to yeild a viable deck despite the randomization based on color, casting cost and the mechanics of the expansions from which you’re choosing.

Let’s say you really like a particular color, or combination of colors. It can be tempting to expect to draft that color and play to your strengths. I can tell you from experience that doesn’t always work. You need to deal with what the military would call “the facts on the ground.” If the person to your right got a really sweet rare card in your preferred color, it’s highly likely he or she will be picking up that color’s more common (and useful) cards to build the foundation of their deck. It’s a preconception that needs to be overcome.

Likewise, if you do aspire to play or compete with those who have constructed decks, you may see a card that would be useful in one of your projects either in a pack you open or passing you by during the draft. As tempting as it can be to grab that card for later use, the competition at hand may have different demands that you need to fulfill, based on your earlier choices.

It was these challenges I needed to overcome in last night’s draft and, for the most part, I succeeded. Apart from some misfortune in the first round, a sleek little black deck carried me to victory in the end. It was a vastly different experience than my first draft, which didn’t net me a single win. I learned from my mistakes, changed my point of view, and found the experience much more rewardiing since my brain was engaged from minute one. I’d probably still feel this way even if I hadn’t done as well, mostly because I think an activity that rewards critical thinking as well as game-playing savvy is a healthy one, especially if it gets one out of the house.

It’s a nerd thing, I guess.