It has been a quiet quarter for Commander, and we are going to keep it that way. We don’t have any changes to the Rules or Banned list this time around. We will continue to monitor the format, player experience, and so forth. 

As always, we’re interested in your feedback.  You can pop around to the free RC Discord server and be pretty likely to run into an RC or CAG member in a chat (or four). 

We are making one small change regarding our announcements. This is the last quarter in which our regular announcements will take place on the Monday after a new expansion’s prerelease weekend. Starting in January 2021, quarterly Commander announcements will happen the Monday before a new expansion’s prerelease weekend. The reasons are two-fold:

1. Since new sets are legal in Commander as of the prerelease, it only makes sense that any announcement take place before then. 
2. This will get any possible bannings/unbannings and rules changes out of the way prior to the prerelease. Commander players can attend their prerelease (well…someday), acquire cards, and not be worried about rules changes the following Monday.

The Rules Committee, some of the Commander Advisory group, and a few “friends of the format” have been playing a format variant for the last 4 month. Dubbed the “EDH Boxing League,” it has proven itself to be a very different, fun way to play Commander.

The short version is:

1. Each player opens a booster box or a normal release expansion or Core set cards.
2. Players build their Commander deck from this pool.
3. Starting each subsequent week, each player can open 6 boosters of another set and add those cards to their pool. They can’t select a set for which they have already opened boosters in that league.
4. All Commander Rules are in effect (including banned cards).

There’s a full write up of the rules here.  There’s also a dedicated channel for it on the Discord server. 

If you’d like to see the format in action, join us on the RC Twitch channel (http://twitch.com/CommanderRC) on Thursdays at 8PM EDT and Sundays at 2PM EDT.

2020 has been a challenging year for everyone. Our hope is that Commander has provided some small sense of relief from the crazy over the last 6 months. See you again in January!