Gameplay Ĭommander is a format where players construct 100-card decks, with each card (except basic lands) appearing no more than once. In 2021, Dot eSports highlighted that " Commander has become one of the biggest formats in Magic over the past five years, even leading to Wizards of the Coast dubbing 2020 as 'The Year of Commander.' The format is a boon for novice and experienced deckbuilders to craft thematic decks centered around Magic’s over 1,200 Legendary creatures". The market price sits at around $600.00 which represents more than a 45% increase in value in only about nine months". On a final note, for stores that carry singles, Reserved List Commander cards have been on a tear lately. Commander is clearly a growing format and is driving numbers upward. However, stores that ran Commander events averaged about 2111 Tickets per year which is a 12.6% increase over the stores not running Commander. In February 2020, all stores that ran events were averaging 1846 Tickets per year. Per the industry trade ICv2, "the number of unique players attending Commander events per week at WPN stores went from 9,000 in 2018 to 28,000 in 2020. In 2020, Wizards of the Coast released metrics from stores in its Wizards Play Network (WPN) on the total number of participates in Magic events (referred to as Tickets). However, the format is still maintained by the Commander Rules Committee which is run independently of Wizards of the Coast. Since 2011, Wizards of the Coast has released a product line containing preconstructed Commander decks. The EDH name was changed due to intellectual property concerns. Larabee went on to advocate the format within Wizards of the Coast which led to the commercial launch of the format in 2011.
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In the following year, Menery along with other Pro Tour judges, Gavin Duggan and Duncan McGregor, created a rules committee with an official website. Scott Larabee, the Wizards of the Coast’s Pro Tour manager, played the format for the first time in 2005 with one of Menery's decks at a tournament. This format differed in several ways such as an expanded deck size and a larger health total. Sheldon Menery, who was introduced to the format while stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, then developed the format further culminating in his 2004 article outlining the format on the Magic fan site Star City Games which "spread the word about it beyond his circle of judges for the first time". The first part of the name referenced the Elder Dragons in the Magic storyline.
Staley's original name was "a tribute to the line 'there can be only one' spoken repeatedly in the 1986 film Highlander" evoking the idea of a battle royale and that there could only be one of a given type of card in a player's deck. The original fan-created format, Elder Dragon Highlander, was developed by Adam Staley in the late 1990s and became a staple of his local play groups in Alaska.