Editing Commander (section)

==House Rules==
Most house rules are made for the purpose of correcting shitty rules. A player at the author's LGS often stated these as "rules which increase the fun factor of the game, or remove an '''un'''-fun factor". Terrible use of the English language, but still a valid point. Commander is meant to be primarily a fun format played with friends over beer and pizza with the intent of causing copious amounts of rage and maximizing [[JUST AS PLANNED|the level of bullshit which can occur]]. To this end, here are some of the common house rules for Commander:

Far and away the most common house rule in Commander is that all life total requirements, and the total number of poison counters necessary to kill a player, are doubled. This prevents [[That Guy|assholes]] from playing a Blightsteel Colossus on turn three (with haste and sac-at-the-end-of-turn, of course) to kill a player before the game has really gotten under way. This isn't fun, it isn't clever, it's just a dick move and everyone hates That Guy. This rule also removes the need to house-ban cards like Felidar Sovereign and Serra Ascendant, because they will require double the life total to "go off".

A less common version of this rule also doubles set life totals for certain other cards. The examples of this include Sorin and Magister Sphinx, which canonically both set a player's life total to 10, setting their life total to 20 instead. This prevents dickery on a similar scale to the aforementioned Blightsteel incident, where a player can be almost completely taken out of the game in the first few turns by cheating an artifact into play temporarily. However, since this does not '''literally''' remove the player like Blightsteel, it is less common as a house rule.

Commonly, players will ban commanders they feel are particularly stupid in nature. These are usually commanders who force an entire play group to collectively and drastically alter their play style in order to avoid being beaten every time. While some feel that this is in a way the '''point''' of MtG, others feel that if an entire group has to respond by heavily altering their decks to deal with your one recastable creature, that creature needs a ban. Another common policy is to change the type assigned to a card by making a non-legendary card legendary, or to ban/unban cards that players feel should/should not be on the banned cards list:

*Platinum Angel was a common card which was assigned legendary status prior to the M14 Legendary Rule change, since having multiple Platinum Angels on the battlefield at once literally stalemates a game.
*Hinder is often banned in play groups which contain a Uril, the Miststalker deck as [[Butthurt|players feel that it is used specifically to target their deck]].
*The Nephilim cycle of creatures were often assigned pseudo-legendary status to make them usable as commanders. Prior to Commander 2016, they were the only four-color creatures in Magic, and there is only one per four-color wedge. Combine this with the fact that each has a cost of four specified, different colors, and players tend to feel that they are valid for use as legendary creatures.
*Like the Nephilim above, some more casual playgroups will allow you to run certain non-creature legendary permanents as your commander, like Genju of the Realm, a legendary WUBRG aura enchantment that turns one of your lands into a creature, or double faced cards like Elbrus/Withengar and Westvale Abbey/Ormendahl which are not ''truly'' legendary creatures, due to the front facing side not being legendary, or even a creature. 
*Some particularly butthurt play groups ban Aura Shards because they are scared of a little enchantment-based enchantment destruction. That said, it is a '''very''' powerful card if used correctly, and if you're a reasonable player who doesn't ban it, you should be prepared to kill it the moment it his the field. Did we mention that [[Slivers]] [http://magiccards.info/ts/en/240.html have their own version of it?] [[JUST AS PLANNED|another reason why]] [[Swarmlord|Sliver Overlord]] [[Tyranid|is feared by every other deck in the format]] [[Power Nine|including itself]].
*Play groups with particularly deep pockets sometimes unban power-nine cards from their play groups in order to speed games by improving their ability to pull [[JUST AS PLANNED|massive bullshit]].
*Eventually if your play group is in to the trickery and dickery aspect of Commander as much as many, someone will also convince you all to unban Shaharazad. ''DO NOT DO IT''. Playing a commander sub-game may sound fun, but by the 5th hour of continuous Commander sub-games on that player's every turn, you'll end up so angry that even [[Commissar Fuklaw|his honorable angryness]] will be impressed.