Playing Commander online is tricky, especially on official MTG clients. The closest thing MTG Arena has to Commander is Historic Brawl – a two-player format with a custom ban list that utilizes all the cards that MTG Arena has. Over on Magic Online, players can participate in competitive and casual Commander games, but there are some cards missing from the client. It is otherwise rather difficult to properly navigate a four-player game on that platform.
Recently announced is another new pillar of online support for the Commander format. This specifically applies to Dual Commander, or two-player Commander. Magic Online will be adopting the format to its platform officially, offering players everywhere a way to play the format from their homes.
Dual Commander Comes to Magic Online
Announced at the French National by the Dual Commander committee, Magic Online will begin to officially support Dual Commander. This includes fully functioning Dual Commander leagues with 25-minute timers, and tournament practice rooms for anyone who wants to experience the format without entry.
Surprisingly, even larger Challenge events were confirmed for Dual Commander. Challenges are generally larger events with a minimum of 32 players required that have a top eight cut. The entire tournament is played in one sitting, with swiss rounds followed by the top eight.
According to the official Dual Commander site, these changes should start hitting Magic Online on July 24, just 10 days from the writing of this article.
Dual Commander Differences
Notably, Dual Commander is quite different from four-player Commander, so there are some functional changes. Besides the obvious two-player nature of the format, the biggest of which is that Dual Commander has a very different banlist from traditional Commander. Fast mana is incredibly problematic in a two-player Commander format, so the bans are a lot harsher surrounding these cards. Sol Ring, for example, is banned.
Life totals are different for Dual Commander, as well. Players will start at 20 life and use sanctioned mulligan rules (no free mulligans). Partners also work differently in Dual Commander. Finally, Commander damage is simply not a thing in this format.
Dual Commander is rather similar to Canadian Highlander, with the two sharing a similar relationship as Legacy and Vintage do. It is basically the Legacy version of Canadian Highlander, with problematic cards banned outright instead of included using a point-based deckbuilding system.
A Massive Gain for Dual Commander
Dual Commander has been a somewhat underground MTG format for quite some time. The two-player Commander phenomenon has a lot of support in certain parts of the world, but its introduction to Magic Online is absolutely massive for the format. This exposes Dual Commander to a lot of new faces, and allows an unparalleled ease of access that was not there. Players will no longer have issues finding others to play this format which, in turn, could even allow it to have some additional paper play.
A lot of players commenting on this announcement have not even heard of Dual Commander, but are incredibly excited to try it. The carefully curated banlist is a very specific point of interest, getting rid of a lot of commonly problematic haymakers that can ruin games of four player Commander.
Otherwise, some other players are interested in finding out if other less traditional MTG formats will end up garnering support. Will Premodern appear on MTGO? This could be a sign for some interesting things to come.
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