Sneak Peek: Commander Legends

We got a tantalizing look under the hood of Commander Legends over the weekend at CommandFest Online from Gavin Verhey.

First Look

First and foremost, let's take a look at some of the cards! For lands, we're getting the Enemy cycle of the aptly labeled "crowd" lands that we first saw in Battlebond:

We're also getting a pick-your-color, common Commander! Yes, you read that right! The Prismatic Piper is there to help out in draft environments to ensure that you can build a deck, no matter what you pull.

Booster Pack Variants

Commander Legends has regular Draft Booster packs and Collector Booster packs.

The Draft Booster packs will be 20 cards and contains:

• 20 Cards

• 2 Legendary Creatures

• 1 Foil Card

The Collector Booster packs will be 15 cards and contains:

• 15 Cards

• Extended Art Cards

• Showcase-frame Cards

• New Foil-Etched Cards

Foil-Etched Card Example

Draft Environment

This set was designed to be drafted, and with that design, comes some unfamiliar rules.

For every pick of Commander Legends, you'll select two cards every time! Just like the Two-Headed Giant Draft in Battlebond, or the first pick of Double Masters, you will select two cards at once for every pick.

After the draft, you will need to build a 60-card deck. Yes, 60 cards. This section is pretty detailed, so I'm just going to give you Gavin's words:

After the draft, you will need to build a 60-card deck—much like how a traditional deck of Magic is 60 cards and a traditional draft is 40, here it's 60 to Commander's 100.

Your deck will need a Commander that locks in its color identity for deck building, your life total is 40, and there's Commander damage, and all additional Commander rules are still in play . . . with one exception.

You can play more than one copy of a card if you draft it: the Singleton rule does not apply. We increased the number of commons in the set from normal to help mitigate how often this comes up, but it can happen. It also stops you from making Draft picks you feel sad about later: "I took a second copy of this card on accident. Whoops!" It's a nice quality-of-life rule, and because you're drafting, don't worry, there's still tons of variety in your decks.

Then the team and I uncovered the glue that would hold the whole thing together. The element that made drafting work.

Are you ready for it?

Monocolor partners.

It was PERFECT. You could draft a red partner and still easily find a monocolor partner of a different color to pivot into—while keeping your red color alive. This is pretty similar to a normal draft, where you will start off drafting a color and then look for another color to be open. It played great! (This is another reason, by the way, that picking two cards per pack is awesome: you can grab two partners at the same time!)

Be sure to check out Gavin's full article over at https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/sneak-peek-commander-legends-2020-08-22 for all of the information on Commander Legends.