Doubling CubeDoubling Cube | Illustrated by Mark Tedin

Yesterday, we covered the Commander Box League, an event that Wizards of the Coast is spearheading for Edge of Eternities. Many players seem to find some issues with it.

Because it's a sanctioned event format, there's not a lot that players can do to change the policies of this event series. However, with this article, I'd like to introduce a way to augment your next Sealed Box league for Commander play that may revolutionize the way you play it.

Background

For a few years, I've tried to make the Commander Boxing League work. I started my first foray into it with Zendikar Rising, and that ended rather poorly with no actual games conducted. The idea simply petered out amongst my playgroup.

The next booster Commander Boxing League saw me with a booster box of Bloomburrow. This posed its own set of distinct issues despite games firing with more ease. My playgroup had great commanders but not necessarily the needed tools to make a deck work smoothly.

I mulled this idea over for the better part of a year, and, with Final Fantasy, finally got to enact a means to make a Commander Booster Box League fire on all cylinders for myself and two other eager playtesters.

Enter: The Booster Box Buffer Kit.

What Is the Booster Box Buffer Kit?

Simply put, this kit is a 70-strong singleton kit of cards that each player in your Commander Sealed Box event should have ready and open access to that augments one of the most major aspects of any Commander deck: mana smoothing. The kit contains 13 artifacts and 57 lands, in its current iteration.

Furthermore, these cards assist with mana production, fixing, land fetching, and even a little bit of card advantage.

Notably, all of the cards in the Buffer Kit are easy to fit in many single players' given budgets, at about $41 for the full kit. They're all geared towards generic usefulness in Commander and augment your experience for a much smoother game. In turn, this allows you to focus on putting more of your cool cards from your booster box proper into the deck.

Positives to the Buffer Kit

According to one player who playtested this with me during the Final Fantasy prerelease:

The supplemental material is very helpful at helping players feel like they can still play on curve even when their box cards aren’t “ready” to go in an opening hand. Having something to play every turn helps keep games competitive through midgame. The question is in picking the right dual lands or staples. Maybe some decks really want a City of BrassCity of Brass-like card instead of Command TowerCommand Tower, for instance. It adds a selection mini-game to break up the initial overwhelming excitement for new, unplayed cards.

As my playtester points out, the potential for mutability from set to set is one positive aspect of this kit. What works in a lands-matter set like Zendikar Rising won't always work for a set like Edge of Eternities or Bloomburrow. As such, cards can be added or removed to shore up any glaring issues with a given set, be they mana fixing, land fetching, or pretty much any other general aspect of the Commander play experience.

Fortunately, my other playtester noted how smoothly the games we played went. Mana fixing was so easy to draw into. Because of this, we all had an easy experience getting to our needed land drops. In turn, this allowed us all to secure mana on time for our more impactful plays to be made in an even measure.

Furthermore, this kind of buffer to a booster box's Sealed pool enables players to more easily use their cards in a manner more befitting the actual rules of Commander. Singleton decks with 100 total cards are much easier to make with this kit. They'll also be able to adhere well to color identity rules as Commander as a format dictates.

Potential Shortcomings of the Buffer Kit

My other playtester for the Booster Box Buffer Kit praised it highly. That said, they pointed out one possible issue with it. Being a 70-card list, it may be a bit too much for the average player to amass four times over. Shortening the list may be a necessity for some playgroups.

However, my colleague also remarked that doing so may limit options too much. As such, adding or replacing options will almost always feel better than simply removing them.

To this end, I can agree with my colleague. If you want to cut some amount of cards from this list, I would advise you cut one to two full cycles of dual lands, such as the Ravnica Karoo cycle (Azorius ChanceryAzorius Chancery and friends) the lifegain duals (Tranquil CoveTranquil Cove, etc.), or the "Thriving" land cycle (Thriving HeathThriving Heath, etc.).

This in turn will cut down on some options while keeping similar options open, if you cut no more than two of these aforementioned cycles. Remember, your playgroup will want equal treatment here so you'll want three or four of each card in the Kit as you see fit to add them.

Buffer Kit List

This list focuses on my personal iteration of the Buffer Kit. Feel free to make your own additions and subtractions from it to enhance your experience.

The Future of the Buffer Kit

I'm sure I'll make adjustments to the experience. As sets come out and their themes are made more apparent, I may remove certain cards from the Kit list. Even so, I'll work to retain a majority of the core of this experience. Feel free to try this out at your next Sealed Commander Booster Box event!

And now, I'd really like to hear from the readership of this article. Do you think this idea will make Sealed Commander Box Leagues better for players? What do you think about the possibility of using this kit in the future? Finally, does it appeal to you more than the previously-announced Commander Box League, for example? Sound off below!