(Chromatic StarChromatic Star| Art by Yeong-Hao Han)

Perfectly Balanced, as All Things Should Be

Hello folks, and welcome back to The Monolith, where this week I'll be providing you a fun and alternative way to play Commander in the format of Star. If you've ever found yourself in the classic and annoying situation of sitting down for a game of Commander with five players, you'll probably know one simple truth: 5 player Commander kinda sucks.

You've likely added another hour or so minimum to your game just accounting for another player taking their turns. The balance of the game has been upset by yet another player messing around with the board state. Not to mention you now need to find a layout that allows you to read the cards of a player two playmats over.

But what if I told you there was a better way? A format that tries to speed up proceedings. That adds a subtle change to Commander's balance that better suits the higher player count. And even a way to increase the amount of politicking at the table for players that want to schmooze their way to victory?

Not to mention, it's played with monocolored decks!

Introducing Star

Star (also known as Pentagram or Five-Point) is a format that pits 5 players against each other in any format of Magic: The Gathering. We'll obviously be playing the Commander version, but the rules for converting your favorite rules format into a game of Star are effectively always the same.

Each player represents one of the five colors of Magic: white, blue, black, red, and green. The player assigned to black can only play cards in their deck that are of that color identity, which for us Commander players is pretty familiar. Essentially, just bring a mono black commander to the table. Each other player does the same for the color they've been assigned.

(Throne of EldraineThrone of Eldraine | Art by Kieran Yanner)

You'll then be seated at the table according to your color's position on Magic's color pie. That means each player will be seated in between their color's "allies" and opposite its "enemies". If you get confused, just look at Magic's card backs for a position chart.

From then on, playing Star is just like playing any other game of Commander, just with a little twist. The two players who aren't neighboring you but sat across the table? Those are now your enemies. They represent your ideological opponents as well as your in-game ones. As soon as both of the players sat opposite you are knocked out, you win the game.

Why Play Star Over Regular Commander?

Five player games are a tricky balancing act to get right, predominantly just because of game length. I'm sure you already know how mind numbing it can feel to wait for three long turns to finish before you can untap and get playing again. Now imagine four.

Star speeds up games by working in an altered win condition. Having only two neighbored players needing to drop before the game ends means endings are far more inevitable. And it achieves that without any artificial extras to the rules or abusable effects added on top.

Politics

One of my favorite things to do in a game of Commander is politicking the table to get a competitive edge, or out of a bind. I'm a big board gamer outside of Magic hours and that's turned me into the Commander equivalent of Gríma WormtongueGríma Wormtongue. Whispering evil deeds into my opponents ears and pulling strings from behind the scenes (and then subsequently making an enemy of every player at the table and being the first to get knocked out. What a game.)

In Star, the propensity for wheeling and dealing goes through the roof as a complex strategic position rears its head. Not because of the extra player, but because of the two players sitting either side of you.

Your "allies", each of your neighboring players, sit in a strange fragile allegiance with you. You want to actively work together with them, as you share a common enemy with each. One player opposite you both that you'd both like to take out of the game. You even want to keep them safe and protect them, as either one dropping out not only weakens your position, but also plays into the wincon of one of your enemies!

So deals naturally start to work their way into the game. Sharing Wedding RingsWedding Rings and Tenuous TrucesTenuous Truces with one another to build up your collective might. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Interesting Game States

The problem with sharing just one enemy with your neighbors though is that, by necessity, your neighbors will be enemies with each other. The more you help one friend, the more you annoy the other. And be careful helping either of them too much, because it only takes one of your neighbors taking out the other to potentially lose you the game.

Because specific player elimination is so crucial to the victory condition of Star, plenty of interesting board states emerge through play. Suddenly swooping in to defend the weakest player just as they're about to be knocked out is not only a savvy move, it might actually win you the game. Taking out your opponents quickly is important, but so is ensuring that another player doesn't do it before you get a chance to.

Sometimes you'll be desperately trying to defend your enemy from a lethal attack because a prior elimination of one of your allies has set up an opponent to win. Now you need to ensure that one of your enemies loses the game before the other. To ensure that you get named a victor.

With the possibility of shared victories, pacts can be enacted that don't have to end in an inevitable betrayal. With the right set up, two players can win simultaneously. It even makes actual betrayal even juicier.

Cool Collaboration

With mono colored decks come mono colored problems. Red for example will always struggle with enchantment removal. But by placing each player next to a potential ally you unlock the ability to collaborate between decks. Red can lean on their green ally to help them remove tricky enchantments that are causing them to struggle. Green can beg the white player to cast a board wipe to save the game for them both.

All of that of course then comes with costs. What are you offering me in exchange? What can you do for me? When the blue player is the only player on the table with access to real counter magic, what spells do they prioritize countering?

Build Your Own Star!

"But Wheels!" I hear you cry, "My friends don't have complementary mono decks. How will we play together?". Well that's where this turns into a fun little project! One of my favorite things I did when leaning more into intentional mono deck building is building a sort of Star Cube. Not for drafting, but five custom built decks of each color designed to play against one another.

You can build your five decks to really highlight the specialties and quirks of each mono color, or specifically go against type. By building each deck you can also ensure that there's a well balanced playing field for all decks involved. That every deck has equal chance of winning. To build a truly level game of Commander.

Why not try a Star of underrated Commanders for each color? Or perhaps a Star of the most busted instead? The world is your oyster, whether you want to duke it out and determine the ultimate color, or create an intriguing mess of complicated game states to unpick.

Fix Your Next Five Player Game Night

Regardless of whether or not you choose to build your own custom game of Star or just crack out the format in situations where one extra player has turned up to your pod, it's a format twist I heartily recommend. It's all too easy to become entrenched in the familiarities of base Commander. Try a new twist to shake up your game night!

And whilst this is The Monolith. The column in which I plead with the world to build more monocolored decks. I promise I won't be mad at you if you play Star with your standard, multicolored Commander decks. It's definitely a better experience sticking to the core of the principle. Five decks all repping one of the colors of Magic. But regardless, Star is just a great way to introduce a fifth player without dragging games out.

I can't help you with the five playmats problem though, sorry. Find a round table I guess, and I'll see you next week for another edition of, The Monolith.

Michael 'Wheels' Whelan

Wheels is a lover of all things cardboard from Brighton & Hove in the UK. As well as playing card games of all flavours multiple times a week he's also deeply invested in board games, wargames, and RPGs. In fact, he even designs his own tabletop games from self published TTRPGs like, The House Doesn't Always Win to published wargames like, FREAKZ! Mutant Murder Machines. Wheels is a big advocate for wacky deckbuilding and is an evangelist for more commander players building mono-coloured decks. He talks about all this and more on his YouTube and TikTok channel, Just For Fun!