Breathing New Life into Magic Cards
What do you do with your cards when they don't have a home in a commander deck?
Make a new format variant out of them!
(well ok, you don't make a revolutionary format from scratch, you steal take inspiration from the paths trodden before)
My name's Cole, I've been a content creator for Commander and EDH for the last 3 or so years. I've done two podcasts, the Uncommon Commander and the recently started Hero's Blade Vibe Check podcasts that's available in many places!
One of my biggest grievances as Commander player is that 100 cards never seems to be enough for my decks. 36-41% of the deck is dedicated to a combination of a commander(s) and lands. That leaves you with approximately 60~ cards to mess around with, cut, fiddle with, and optimize, depending on your intent and level of investment.
For people who've had lifelong commander decks, that usually means having a Ship of Theseus situation: more cards come out that are circumstantially or objectively better than previous versions. For whatever your end goal is, you add and remove cards for your needs and eventually may even change the commander!
EDH/Commander is not the same beast it was a decade ago, let alone when the original premise was in its infancy. Decks today are much better than what was around in 2011, and sub formats like PrEDH are an example of the blatant power creep that we players have had to deal with.
As I've evolved as a player and brewer, I've made my peace with having to make compromises with deck building, but there's always that small feeling in the back of my head that says "these cards need a home, and it's not just another commander deck, or selling/trading these off". Duplicating a commander deck for the sake of scratching that itch isn't enough.
I needed to do something. The thought came to me at 5am.
(Well ok, it stewed for a long time before inspiration struck upon waking up at 5am because one of my cats is insanely regimented and wanted breakfast ASAP, so after getting bitten on my arm, lightning strike and I got to work)
Making Killer Queen - A Compromise
So what is Killer Queen, and what does this have to do with finding home for cards?
I've trapped myself as a Magic player. As I stopped playing Standard back in 2014 and more or less dedicated myself to Commander brewing, a lot of skills have fallen to the wayside. I'm terrible at Limited Draft, subpar at Sealed, and have radically changed my viewpoint of 1v1 magic. Brewing a 360 card cube felt impossible to do myself.
So how do I consolidate these feelings and viewpoints? I make a single deck that everyone can play from like the fan format Dandan (aka Forgetful Fish), use only 3 colors (Mardu/Red-white-black), give everyone the same Commander (Queen Marchesa) and make it singleton.
Boom. Killer Queen, aka Marchesa Dandan, aka MarDanDan!
One 155 card deck (plus 2-4 copies of Queen Marchesa) that everyone plays from, one shares graveyard and a bunch of different ways to set up or influence your opponents!
It's been a recent project I've been working on since October 2023, and while games are far and between, it's been my personal answer to my issues of cards being shuffled around decks with no real home, but still having commander-like gameplay that appeals to people in general. Public sentiment so hard? It's a neat way to play Magic, and it's something that can be brought along to game nights in case people want a change of pace.
It's been a great exercise, and makes me go back to my original point: there's a lot of ways to play Magic. There's a lot of ways to engage with Magic that isn't just constructed formats, and you can do it on a budget (or using online creatures like Moxfield's playtest feature in tandem with a digital camera program like OBS).
People are frustrated with the direction Magic: the Gathering is headed, and I encourage everyone to healthily engage with this game we've all come to love, or love to hate, in a way that is satisfying to you.
Get back to your kitchen table routes if you have to. Do a deep dive on Scryfall, whatever it takes for you to enjoy this game in peace.
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