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Magic: The Gathering’sCommander format gives you access to almost every card ever printed for the game, which includes multitudes of clever, interactive win conditions. Alternatively, you could go for the ancient tradition of smacking your opponents in the face until they stop twitching.
To pull this off, you’ll likely be aiming to win through Commander damage. Deal enough with your commander, and you can fully knock an opponent out of the game. However, there are a few important rules to keep in mind when trying to make good use of commander damage.
The Rules For Commander Damage
The rules for commander damage initially sounds simple, but there are a lot of intricacies to keep in mind. At its most basic level, commander damage is if asingle commander deals 21 or more combat damage to a single player, that player loses.
The Damage Must Come From One Commander
The first big misconception surrounding commander damage is the idea that you lose if you take 21 cumulative damage from all commanders. This is not true, asdamage is tracked individually,and all of this damage must be dealt bythe same commander.
For instance, if Player A’s deals ten damage to you, and player B’s deals 11, thatwill not knock you out of the game. Player A or Player B’s commanders must deal the whole 21 themselves.
This also applies to partner commanders. If you have two commanders, their damage istracked individually.One of them must land 21 damage to knock someone out with commander damage.
Damage is tracked over the course of the game, and doesn’t not have to all be dealt at once.
Only Combat Damage Is Counted
The second misconception is that any form of damage or lifeloss a commander causes counts as commander damage. In actuality,onlycombat damagedealt to you is counted.
For instance, a lifeloss trigger from Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rosewill not count as commander damage, nor would the direct damage Arabella, Abandoned doll deals through its triggered ability. For it to be commander damage, the commandermust attack.
‘Commanderness’ is a quality of the card itself, not the player controlling it. If another player takes control of a commander and hits you with it, the damage is still counted, even though it is not their commander. This even applies if they stoleyour own commander.
On the other hand, copies of a commander are not commanders themselves, and won’t count as commander damage.
This rule does cause a few oddities, though. If youprevent combat damage,such as with a Fog, youwon’t gain commander damage.However, if youprevent your life total from changing,it will still be counted. For example, commander damage is one of the only ways to still eliminate a player who has played a Teferi’s Protection or Platinum Emperion, as that cardonly stops your life total from changing, it does not prevent damage.
Similarly, if a commander deals damage that would be turned into something else – such as infect turning the damage into -1/-1 counters – the damage is still dealt to you and contributes to commander damage.
You Still Lose Life
Commander damage simply trackshow much combat damagea commander has dealt. Otherwise, commander damage is treated the exact same as any other creature’s, and means youstill lose life as well.
If you are reduced to zero before hitting 21 damage,you will lose the game.
Removing Commander Damage
There are no ways to remove commander damage once it has been dealt to you. Even if you regain the life lost,you have taken that damageand it will still be tracked.
The reason for this is the very reason why commander damage was introduced to the format in the first place. Without commander damage,lifegain decks would almost always win. It would be far too easy to gain billions of life and wait out the rest of the table – having a hard limit of 21 damage gives lifegain players’ opponents a fighting chance.
How To Track Commander Damage
The important part of tracking commander damage is trackingevery commander individually. Each players’ commanders may land different amounts of damage on you, but the only thing that matters is stopping any individual one from deal 21.
You could use an app likeLifetap or the Magic Companion Appto track individual commander damage, but an easier way is to just used20 dice. Have one for each commander on the table, and tick them up whenever they deal combat damage to you.
