These are pretty focused and competitive decks, but they can work as decent examples of what to expect if you want to get into the format yourself. Duel Commander is an eternal format, so all eternal sets are legal in the format. The only sets that aren’t legal for Duel Commander are silver-bordered, acorn cards, or alternate back (not counting double-faced or meld) cards.
Setting Up a 1v1 Server in CS2
Duel Commander is a very varied format with a quickly changing meta. I think the best option for anyone wanting to get into it is to go over the more viable archetypes and playstyles and then try to find cards from your collection or precons that fit those styles. Duel Commander is a one-versus-one format where players pick a legendary creature to act as their commander and build a Singleton 99-card deck that adheres to that commander’s color identity. Outside of this, you can pretty much build your commander deck how you want. But there are so many cards that you have to choose from, what’s the best way to figure out which deck to build?
Aragorn’s win conditions are effective cards that require little help other than stopping the opposing player’s stuff. Duel Commander is just like any other format in the sense that it has some archetypes and strategies that can prove stronger in the format’s rules and limitations. Some of the main archetypes you start with include mono-red aggro, white-weenie aggro, land aggro, blue control, and even some combo decks.
1 Commander
Archidekt and Moxfield are both online deck building tools that give you the ability to have a visual representation of your deck. On top of that, if you want to play Commander on Spelltable, but don’t have your deck in paper, you can play using Moxfield. The mtg decks other option that you have is to build one yourself from scratch. First, you’ll want to pick a Commander, which is a Legendary creature that isn’t on the Commander banned list.
It’s a trove of resources and info on the format and the largest server dedicated to Duel Commander. The ranger-turned monarch commander maintains tempo, with nearly as many instants as lands, and a small percentage of creatures. With Aragorn, King of Gondor if you stay ahead and keep the monarch crown, you can swiftly take down opponents.
On occasion a Planeswalker card may say that it can be your Commander. The Workshop maps in CS2 were explicitly designed for 1v1 duels, so they have more advantages than standard maps. For example, Workshop maps are smaller, creating a more dynamic and eventful environment for players. We have a friend article with console commands that you may also find useful, check out the article “What are the most important CS2 Console Commands? Not to be confused with duel commander which is a fanmade gamemode.
Duel Commander-Legal Sets
You can search by color combinations and EDHREC will give you all the available Commanders for those colors. At it’s core, the foundation of a commander game is very similar to a normal constructed game of Magic. But there’s some stipulations around Commander that make it very different too. The setup may be daunting for some, but have no fear—the Blix team has created this guide so you can play 1v1 effortlessly. Both my partner and I really enjoy playing 1vs1, whether its with the old Duel Decks, new Challenger Decks or Planeswalker Decks. We even tried to make Arch Enemy work with just 2 players which was…interesting, to say the least.
A lot of EDH staples would prove far from useful in Duel Commander thanks to the differences in gameplay. Politics aren’t an option in duel formats so you should focus on more, well, focused cards. Once your commander is picked, it’s time to start building your deck. Check my community posts and the end of this video to see the full roster and the matches that each deck have been sorted into. Each match is best of three and even if a deck takes the first two games (and therefore wins), we will play a third just for fun. There aren’t any official products focused on Duel Commander since it’s not a sanctioned format.
This format’s origin can be traced back to France where level 4 (now level 5) Magic judge Kevin Desprez decided that EDH would benefit from a 1v1 iteration. The idea quickly spread and grew until a separate committee (different from the EDH one) was formed to regulate the format. It’s since spread into tons of countries and is one of the most played non-sanctioned formats. Once you’ve made some of these baseline decisions, where how would you go about planning your build?
But you can still find Duel Commander tournaments as side events at officially-sanctioned tournaments. As with any other format, you can always hit up your LGS to see if there’s a format-related playgroup. Duel Commander is an adapted rule set that takes Commander from a multiplayer format to 1v1 while still keeping the original essence. After all, what’s broken in a 1v1 context is really different from what’s broken in multiplayer games. One of the most useful resources that exists for Commander players is EDHREC.com. They have a massive database of all of the cards that people are using as their Commanders and in their decks.
One other thing to consider, which is more a rule of multiplayer formats, rather than Commander specifically, is that the player who is going first will draw a card on their first turn. I am very curious about why the 1vs1 format in commander is not getting a real hype. Duel commander, Archon, the two most popular “format” are not getting that many people either on discord or Reddit to debate around decks, bans, strategy etc. I personally think that having a 1 to 1 format leveraging on singleton is amazing for both players and collectors. […] for deckbuilders, people who want to create decks in a wild and open environment. Regular formats place a stronger focus on gameplay than they do on deckbuilding due to a very dense metagame, while Duel Commander’s higher variability opens up more space for deckbuilding.
They both have formats (with notably different rules and banlists) that could act as a replacement, 1v1 Commander for MTGO and Historic Brawl on MTGA. For the complete and comprehensive rules set, the safest and most updated source will always be the official rules by the committee. They keep the site up to date with announcements at least every two months with any changes, so you should always check this source when in doubt. They’re mostly pretty similar to regular EDH rules with a few notable differences. Duel Commander upholds EDH’s values, so the format is open to everyone who wants to get into it. It keeps a strong focus on fun and personalized decks that don’t have to conform to a meta as strict as the one in 60-card formats.