Rhystic StudyRhystic Study | Art by Fuzichoco 

Finals that last eleven hours; games that are decided by word of mouth - not cards in play; and format-warping staples with no chance of being banned. cEDH has it all. Why? Because cEDH is not a format, no matter how much we pretend it is.

No sane multiplayer tournament-format would keep this card.

Commander Is the Format

Taking a step back, what defines a format? Is it the spirit of the players? How about the metagame - the pool of decks that players expect to see when they show up to play? These two things are often cited as the defining characteristics of cEDH: the competitive nature of games and the rich, standardized set of decks that routinely dominate tables.

The cold truth of the matter, however, is that neither of these qualities constitute a format. Rather, formats are defined entirely by the deckbuilding restrictions in place, from which all other qualities emerge.

Looking at cEDH this way, the truth of its existence is readily laid bare: cEDH isn't a format, but Commander certainly is.

Commander has rules for deck construction and a regulated banlist. Competitive Commander, meanwhile, doesn't have any strict augmentations to distinguish it from the rest of Commander. Certainly, some cards are powercrept out of the metagame and others take on new lives as auto-includes, but that doesn't mean there's actually any rules enforcing that difference.

Looking to the newly-developed bracket system for Commander, we can see that Wizards of the Coast has actually doubled down on this Commander-cEDH linkage in recent time; there is no difference to the Game Changer inclusion number, nor any other distinguishing guidance, between Bracket 4 - colloquially called "High Power" - and Bracket 5, cEDH.

Speaking of brackets, Commander is certainly an odd format with divisions within it, make no mistake about that. However, a play-pattern division is fundamentally different from a format-cleaving structural division, the likes of which comprise the separation between formats such as Legacy and Modern.

Commander's bracket system is advisory, flexible, and designed to ease in communication across play environments all the while maintaining the overall spirit of Commander, that is, a multiplayer experience full of politicking and player self-expression.

cEDH and Commander's Baggage

So, now that we've established that cEDH and Commander are one and the same, what does that mean in terms of format execution? To start, let's go back to Commander's earliest days and trace the format through to the modern day.

Putting the "Elder Dragon" in "Elder Dragon Highlander" since Day 1.

By and large, Commander has been a casual format since its very beginning. Initially dreamed up by a group of judges as a way to play Magic as a group in between competitive events, Commander was the format where garbage rares and fan-favorites could mix and mingle, with inordinately broken cards primarily being permitted thanks to the randomness inherent in a 100-card, singleton format.

The goal of Commander wasn't to win fast or decisively - it was to serve as a social exercise.

This mindset - prioritizing fun above competitive reasonableness - also serves as the guiding philosophy for the Commander banlist. ShahrazadShahrazad isn't a powerful card, but it is miserable to play against. The Moxen, meanwhile, might not be miserable in and of themselves, but they would be so ubiquitous that they'd encroach upon the individuality that Commander seeks to spearhead.

One Arcane SignetArcane Signet has already been decried as a design mistake by Wizards, so it's easy to see how some of the game's most devoted players would have felt similarly about Mox PearlMox Pearl and the like all those years ago.

At least Sol Ring is accessible...right?

Looking at the contemporary banlist for Commander, we can see that this focus on fun continues to dominate. Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGrand Arbiter Augustin IV, for example, isn't a particularly powerful card; believe me, I spent years trying to make it work in cEDH. However, it is an incredibly unfun card.

Resolving good ol' GAAIV means that you get to play more Magic and your opponents get to play less. The result? It may not have been banned, but by putting GAAIV on the Game Changers list it has effectively been locked behind the gates of probable playability: not powerful enough for the upper brackets, and too miserable for the lower.

By prioritizing casual fun over competitive reasonableness, Commander enshrined in its construction a clear trade off, one which continues to plague competitive circles: in exchange for players having maximal freedom to play as they like, players are required to police themselves.

In the case of cEDH - the constituency of Commander which tosses self-regulation to the wind and hyper-fixates on emulating the competitive experience - this means that players are forced into the awkward situation of playing cards which undoubtedly increase their win-rate while simultaneously enshrining a miserable play experience.

Remember me?

In truly competitive formats - Standard, Modern, Legacy, etc. - Wizards of the Coast takes an active role in maintaining format health through the proactive banning of cards. Rarely, if ever, does such a thing happen in Commander; cards often have to be both oppressive and miserable in order for any sort of supervision to be effectuated.

Tymna the WeaverTymna the Weaver, for example, perfectly displays this issue. In casual Commander, this card is an uninspiring creature which occasionally serves as a Commander for go-wide multicolor strategies. The partner mechanic was certainly problematic, but there's nothing oppressive or miserable about this card which would cause Wizards to care about its role across the majority of Commander.

In cEDH, however, Tymna is everywhere. The card has served as one of the premier commanders since it was printed, cementing the role of Orzhov+ strategies as among cEDH's best. It's simply too easy, too ubiquitous, and too consuming.

A competitive banlist would have at least been skeptical of keeping Tymna around for as long as cEDH has, but Commander - at its very foundations - doesn't run a competitive banlist.

Politics and Competition

Moving away from the banlist, Commander also brought with it something no other format contains - politics. By structuring games as a everyone-vs-everyone else, rather than the two-vs-two structure of Two-Headed Giant, Commander further randomized the outcomes of its games by allowing for persuasion, coordination, lying, and punting.

Ask any cEDH veteran - there will be plenty of games you lose not because you couldn't win, but because the table couldn't sufficiently coordinate a response to some other threat.

I've lost count of the number of times showing my hand has actually won me a game.

This social experience is the hallmark of Commander - even more so than its deckbuilding restrictions - but it's also terribly difficult to regulate in any sort of constructive manner.

There's no rules against a salty player making a spite play, and the best a tournament organizer can do to try and reign in heated debate is throw a warning at a player should they become vulgar or abusive. Nowhere else in Magic is the outcome of a game so closely tied to sportsmanship. When not appreciated properly - be it through a Multiplayer Rules Addendum or proper tournament organizer supervision - this hallmark can quickly become a stain.

As cEDH tournaments become more and more popular, so too do the number of incidents of strained politicking. Players have gotten ejected from tournaments because their debate turns into bullying mid-match. Even worse, sometimes players aren't given punitive measures for such behavior, and buffaloing fellow players becomes a rewarded strategy.

Commander has always been known for its long games, but that legacy is no justification for matches lasting eleven hours because players can't stop arguing over how to take a game action.

Wrapping Up and Moving Forward

If cEDH players really want to play a healthy, invigorating, and safe tournament format, then we need to be honest with ourselves about how the structural linkage to the umbrella format of Commander is doing more harm than good. Alternatively, if players prefer the current anarchic structure of cEDH which Commander bestows upon it, then we need to recognize that not all of our tournament wishes can be fully realized.

I enjoy playing broken cards as much as the next person; the explosivity of a Sol RingSol Ring and Rhystic StudyRhystic Study in the same turn truly is unmatched. At the same time, however, you don't have to be a format expert to recognize that Rhystic Study is probably doing more harm than good.

Similarly, table talk is a wonderful part of Commander that I don't want to lose, but we absolutely need better regulations put into place about how players can interact with each other.

Commander is a wonderful format, and cEDH is full of enjoyable opportunities and exciting moments. There's a reason it's so many players' favorite way to play not just Commander, but Magic as a whole.

However, by cleaving cEDH from Commander, working towards more proactive banlist management, and instituting greater tournament regulation, then cEDH can truly flourish not just as a Commander-offshoot, but as its own fully-fledged format.