Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) October 10, 2008
Posted by James in : all, game rules, rules variant , trackbackI heard about the Elder Dragon Highlander (AKA Commander) format about a year ago, but I wasn’t yet sucked in. It was only in the last month that I decided to try it out. Too many people have been playing this format and there was one thing in particular that made me want to try it out: I collect one of every Elf. All I had to do to make a deck was pull all my favorite Elves out of my Elf collection binder.
That’s right. In this format you can only play one of each card. It is called “highlander” in the sense of Duncan McCloud. “There can be only one.”
The main idea of this format is that you get a leader (legendary creature) that can be played any time during the game. You are encouraged to build a deck around this leader. This is a casual format that allows players to play many type 1 cards, such as skullclamp, but without being overpowered. Try making an overpowered type 1 deck without any four of’s… And 100 cards in the deck. Exactly, that’s not easy to pull off.
EDH Uses the following basic rules:
- You play a deck of 100 cards.
- No more than one of any card can be in your deck except basic lands.
- One card is your “general,” a legendary creature.
- No cards can exist in your deck with a mana symbol anywhere on it that isn’t in the mana cost of your general. (Your general also can’t have any of the “wrong color” in its text box.)
- You start the game with your general in the removed from game zone. You may play it as though it is in your hand (for two additional mana for each time you have played it in this way.)
- If your general deals 21 combat damage to the opponent, that player loses the game.
- Players start with 40 life in multiplayer games, and 30 life in 2 player games. (This is not mentioned in the official rules, but it is universally accepted.)
My experience so far: Most decks seem to have several wrath of god effects. It is important to have some kind of removal for creatures, enchantments, and lands.
My Elf deck is surprisingly powerful and consistent. There are tons of great elves and I’m not even sure if I picked all of the right ones. I use Rhys the Redeemed as my general and I have some uses for white mana, but I only use forests. (White mana can be generated using certain elves.) However, my deck has basically no creature removal and I can lose games quickly to giant dragons when I am caught off-guard. I will be listing some Elf EDH decks similar to my own in my ebay store, the Magic Deck.
Update 10-11-2008: Superstars has finally announced that they are going to have tournaments for EDH every Sunday at 7:00 PM. (I have mentioned Superstars before here.)
One of the rules about EDH that I didn’t know about is that your General doesn’t fall victim to the legendary rule. The Official EDH Forums had a post that questioned this by claiming that “it is a paradox to meet yourself.” First of all, there can be two of the same person from two different dimensions. Rhys the Exiled and Rhys the Redeemed are a recent example. You can have both in play at the same time. Second, even if you meet your past self via time travel no paradox has occurred. The space-time continuum doesn’t even know what it means to “meet yourself.” Do you have to touch, like in Time Cop? Back to the Future said something like “if you meet your past self, the universe explodes,” but that is pure fantasy. Although I must admit that meeting your past self can lead to a paradox if you kill your past self. This would be possible in Magic the Gathering if you agree that one General is from the future and one is in the past and they fight in combat.
The whole point of a paradox is that something can neither be true nor false. If you kill your past self, then it can neither be true nor false that you are alive. If you are dead, then you couldn’t kill yourself. If you are alive, then you can kill yourself and will be dead.
I will post the next article this Tuesday 10-14-2008.
Comments»
Why can you only use forests? Isn’t rhys a green white hybrid?
I can use forests and plains, but I choose to only play forests anyway because almost all elves are green. I could play more white for control or Armageddon, but I am not currently doing that because I like drawing a ton of Elves.
What about running a Pendelhaven? That seems good with cards like Rhys and other 1/1 elves.
Yes, I use one Pendelhaven.