Created and popularized by fans, the Commander variant will be played in casual Free-for-All multiplayer games.

Each player starts at 40 life, and each player's deck is headed by a legendary creature designated as that deck's commander. A player's choice of commander determines which other cards can be played in the deck (while except for basic lands, each card in the deck must have a different name).

 

The banned list for the Commander format is maintained by the rules committee at:

MTGCommander.net

(This is not maintained by Wizards of the Coast. On Magic Online, the Commander format follows that banned list)

 

The Commander format is named after the legendary creature that's leading your team, your commander works differently from other cards in the game.

 

Before the game begins, each player sets his or her commander aside in a special zone, the command zone. You may play your commander from the command zone for its normal costs plus an additional for each previous time it has been played this way.

 

If your commander would go to a graveyard, hand, library or exile from anywhere, you may instead put it in the command zone; this is a replacement effect.

 

In addition to the normal Magic loss conditions, if a player is dealt 21 points of combat damage from a single commander over the course of the game, that player loses the game.