The Commander Rules Committee recently announced that there were no changes to the banned list for the format. This annoyed some people who were hoping to see planeswalkers be added as possible commanders. The result wasn't surprising to anyone as the Rules Committee has said very clearly that they will not be making this change. In fact, they said it several times during the War of the Spark preview season, as there are so many planeswalkers in the new set and it was brought up again and again.

Oathbreaker

The push to make this happen has brought another Magic variant to the fore. Oathbreaker has been around for several years but was virtually unknown to most. In the last two months, it has seen a surge in popularity, primarily due to players pointing to it as a way to play planeswalkers as commanders.

The easiest way to describe Oathbreaker is to say it is just like Commander but:

• 60 card list, not 100
• Planeswalker as oathbreaker, not legendary creature as commander
• Separate list of banned cards
• 20 life starting total, not 40

The other change is the oathbreaker has a signature spell. It is an instant or sorcery that is also in the Command Zone, but can only be cast when the oathbreaker is on the battlefield. Like your commander, it also costs two more mana to cast it every time beyond the first.

So when you see a format like this, the first thing you do is decide if you want to play it and that is generally done by looking at how it is different from other similar formats. I did this, then did some research to see what the format was actually like. I was pleasantly surprised!

Combo-country

With a format that is only 60 cards, where two of them are available to be cast almost all the time, my thoughts turned to combo. Building a deck that combos with a planeswalker, an instant or sorcery that shares a color identity with the planeswalker, and another card doesn't sound too difficult. I generally avoid combos in my casual games since I don't enjoy them at all, and this is a format that should be rife with them, far more so than Commander.

It turns out, not so much! Combos are certainly there, but the restrictions limit how effective they are. Planeswalkers tend to act only at sorcery speed. Most planeswalkers have only two options when you first cast them, so that is also limited. Since you can only cast your Oathbreaker Signature Spell when the planeswalker is on the battlefield, you need a lot of mana to cast them both on the same turn, or your opponents need to have left the planeswalker alive. Now you just need to cast your Oathbreaker Signature Spell, that everyone can see that you have, activate your planeswalker, and possibly another card. Suddenly the restrictions become very real.

Another reason combo isn't seen all that often is the social contract. In situations where the combo can be done easily, the players tend to police themselves and not do it. The whole point is to create fun games, and they are trying to achieve that with the Oathbreaker rules and the social contract!

Fast and loose

I wasn't completely sure what to expect as far as the time for games. A format with only twenty life should play out pretty quickly. I often play 60-card casual games with a starting life total of 20. While the games can go long, they generally wrap up in an hour or so while Commander games with the larger life totals tend to run at least an hour and sometimes two or three hours! However, planeswalkers can often slow games down as players are forced to move the damage they deal from the player to the planeswalker. In a format where you can easily recast a planeswalker, games may go longer.

In the end, games weren't particularly short or long, offering up pretty much the same variety of game length as Commander.

Limited decks

Oathbreaker is a format with only 141 options, before War of the Spark, for your oathbreaker. While Commander players like to say that Commander is a deck-builder's format, most of the legends either aren't very good or are linear and offer only one way to build a decent deck. Variety in Commander is very dependent on the volume of legendary creatures. Now, picture a format with only 178 current options. And how many of those options are valid? Now consider a 60-card deck. With fewer cards, deck-builders are far more likely to use the same cards, since you really only need to use the best cards available.

This wasn't close to true either. Something I hadn't considered was the relatively small number of people playing the format. This means you are far less likely to run into people playing the same decks. The format is mostly unexplored, so the best decks aren't really determined. There is no EDHRec amalgamator to tell you want everyone else is playing, or to suggest what cards are best with your oathbreaker. If the format does grow into something big, this may become an issue, but for now, it is a deck-builder's paradise!

Variants

What variation of Commander would I do?

60 card singleton.

Something I love about Commander is the one copy of the card rule. I like the idea that if you can deal with the card once, you won't have to deal with it again. I know that realistically that isn't the case, but the idea is there and it is something that initially drew me into Commander.

What I do want to change is the 100 card aspect. Shuffling 60 is just far more easy. Shuffling 100 is perpetually awkward for those without big hands and/or the dexterously challenged. I find myself shuffling half a deck, then half a deck, then mixing them and doing it again. Just give me the 60 cards and I can go from there.

While you would give up some variation, I don't think it would be all that much. In fact, with a couple of the other rules coming up, I think the variation in the meta would go way up!

No commander

A commander sets the limits of what cards you can use, and restrictions breed creativity. That sounds good, but the practical reality of the situation says otherwise. Choosing a commander is oftentimes just announcing what the deck does. When you sit down with the Atraxa deck, the Meren deck, and Jodah deck, you have a really good sense of what you are going to run into. Sure, there are some players who have different Atraxa decks, but for almost everyone else, you know you are getting superfriends.

Even without the one deck per legend that we tend to see for most legendary creatures as commanders, players want to build around their commander! This means that if you run into a commander you haven't seen, you can probably guess many of the cards in the deck, simply because it makes sense with that commander. Now take away the commander, and you get a blank slate. The only limitation is whether you really want to run multiple colors!

All cards with the word "search" in the Oracle text are banned

Without a commander, the format would undoubtedly bend toward combo. With only 60 cards, you can find one card by drawing and just search for the other. Add in some ramp and that should be a piece of cake! This rule brings all of that to a grinding halt. This format doesn't allow for any tutoring. If you want to find a particular card, you are going to have to draw into it.

The other thing this goes after is Green ramp. Green decks have long had it far too easy when it comes to getting mana on the battlefield. A Green deck that doesn't have five lands on the battlefield by the end of turn three just isn't even trying. This rule just forces Green to use small creatures that tap for mana, and/or artifact mana like everyone else. Green will still be getting the extra benefit of mana from many of its creatures, but the risk of losing that to removal will definitely be there.

No search also means a good level of randomness, which is something I love! Chaos is a good friend to many casual players.

20 life starting life total

As someone who plays a lot of 60-card casual games, starting with twenty life is just fine. There is still plenty of time to get to play the big expensive spells, but games tend to be just a little shorter, simply due to the smaller life total. Having games consistently end between an hour and hour and a half is what I'm looking for from my gaming nights. And while most of my Commander games end in that range, I still have plenty that go far beyond.

Is my format broken? Probably, but no more so than Commander. What Commander really tapped into was the idea that Magic games should be fun. Rather than try and create a rules set that eliminates all ways to create unfun scenarios, they created a format they thought would be fun, and encouraged the player base to play fun decks! Oathbreaker might be broken. My format might be broken. The format you come up with might be broken. The key to these variants is to create a structure that is fun, and encourage the players to make that happen! When players have fun, they want to play again! If Oathbreaker or any other variant takes off, it will be because the players who have played it love it and share it with others who love it.

Try variants with your group of friends. It spices up the night, and can force people to think beyond their standard decklists. Embrace the variety!

Bruce

@manaburned