🎓 Complete Beginner's Guide to Duel Commander 2025

Requirements for a Legal Commander:

• ✅ Must be a legendary creature
• ✅ OR a planeswalker with "can be your commander" text
• ✅ OR a legendary vehicle/spacecraft
• ✅ OR a card that explicitly states it can be a commander (like some Backgrounds)
• ✅ Must not be on the Duel Commander banlist

Best Commanders for Beginners - Deck Building Guide:

💡 Beginner Tip: For your first Duel Commander deck, prioritize a mono or two-color Commander with a clear, easy-to-understand ability. This simplifies manabase construction and deck building. You can explore more complex three-color or five-color strategies later!

⚠️ Golden Rule of Color Identity

You can only play cards whose mana symbols appear on your Commander (including the mana cost, color indicator AND any mana symbols in the rules text).

📝 Important Note: Reminder text (text in italics) and flavor text do NOT count toward color identity! Only look at mana symbols in costs and rules text.

What Counts for Color Identity:

• ✅ Mana symbols in the casting cost (top right corner)
• ✅ Mana symbols in activated abilities (e.g., "{G}: Target creature gets +1/+1")
• ✅ Mana symbols in characteristic-defining abilities
• ✅ Color indicators (like on the back of double-faced cards)
• ❌ Reminder text (italicized text in parentheses)
• ❌ Flavor text (italicized story text at bottom)

💡 Why the Singleton Rule? It forces creativity and variety in deckbuilding, prevents overly consistent strategies, and makes each game unique and unpredictable! This is what makes Commander formats so replayable and interesting.

💡 Essential Deck Building Tips:

• Mana Curve: Avoid too many expensive spells (6+ mana). Favor efficient 1-4 mana spells for competitive play
• Synergy: Choose cards that work well with your Commander's strategy
• Balance: Don't forget defensive cards and answers to various opponent strategies (creatures, artifacts, enchantments)
• Budget: Start with affordable cards, optimize gradually with better versions
• Testing: Goldfish your deck (play test alone) to understand how it operates

Optimal Mana Curve Distribution for Competitive Play:

⚠️ Important: The Duel Commander banlist is updated regularly by the format committee. Remember to check it before each tournament or competitive event!

Common Reasons for Bans in Duel Commander:

• Too powerful: Cards that dominate the competitive meta (e.g., Black Lotus, Moxen)
• Unfun gameplay: Cards that create uninteractive games or lock opponents out
• Fast mana: Cards that accelerate mana too quickly and break balance
• Commander-specific: Some commanders are too dominant and get banned as commanders only

💡 London Mulligan Rule: If you mulligan (decide to draw a new hand), you draw 7 cards, then put cards from your hand on the bottom of your library equal to the number of times you've mulliganed. First mulligan = put 1 card back, second mulligan = put 2 cards back, etc. This replaced the Vancouver mulligan in 2019.

The "Commander Tax" Rule:

Each time you cast your Commander from the command zone after the first time:

• 1st cast: Normal mana cost
• 2nd cast: Normal cost + {2} generic mana
• 3rd cast: Normal cost + {4} generic mana
• 4th cast: Normal cost + {6} generic mana
• And so on... (+{2} additional generic mana each time)

💡 Important Rule: If your Commander dies or is exiled, you can choose to put it in the command zone after it entered the exil zone or the graveyard. If it goes to your library or returns to your hand, you can choose to put it back in the command zone instead. However, the commander tax will still increase for each time you've cast it from the command zone!

When Can You Return Your Commander to the Command Zone?

You can choose to return your Commander to the command zone as a replacement effect when it would go to:

• ✅ Your graveyard (when it dies or is discarded)
• ✅ Exile (when exiled by any effect)
• ✅ Your library (when shuffled or put on top/bottom)
• ✅ Your hand (when bounced or returned)

You cannot return it from:

• ❌ The battlefield (it must change zones first)
• ❌ The stack (while it's being cast or as a spell)

Additional Differences from Multiplayer Commander (EDH):

• No politics: Pure 1v1 competitive strategy, no negotiation or alliances
• Different banlist: Optimized specifically for competitive 1v1 play
• Faster games: Average game length is 10-20 minutes vs 30-90 minutes in multiplayer
• No sideboard: Unlike Modern or Legacy, but you can swap commanders between games
• More competitive: Focused on tournament play with prizes and rankings

Types of Partner Abilities:

💡 With Two Commanders: You have 98 cards in your library instead of 99. Both commanders start in the command zone. Your color identity is the combination of both commanders' color identities. However, you can only cast one commander directly from the command zone per game!

How Companions Work in Duel Commander:

• Your entire deck (including your Commander) must meet the companion's deckbuilding restriction
• The companion starts outside the game (not in your 100-card deck)
• Once per game, during your main phase, you can pay {3} to put it from outside the game into your hand
• After that, it functions like a normal card in your hand
• Popular companions: Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Yorion (doesn't work due to deck size), Umori

⚠️ Important: Some companions like Yorion, Sky Nomad don't work in Duel Commander because they require more than 100 cards in your deck! Always check companion restrictions carefully.

Common Tricky Situations and Rules Questions: