As someone who has a bunch of EDH decks laying around, I never really get to see Planeswalkers played in the format other than the occasional Atraxa superfriends deck and random Jace, the Mind Sculptor for value. Wizards likes to hype up the existence of walkers, but there really isn't a format other than Brawl currently that allows people to utilize these cards to their fullest.
Enter Duel, a Planeswalker variant of Commander.
The Rules are simple, each Duel deck can only have cards of your Walker's color identity, the decks themselves are 59 cards plus your Walker (for a total of 60 cards), it's singleton (meaning only one copy of each card with the same English name, minus basic lands), and each player starts at 20 life or 30 life if you are playing with more than one opponent.
We also have a ban list, which is basically the commander ban list plus these cards:
Doubling Season
Phyrexian Revoker
Pithing Needle
Sol Ring
Sorcerous Spyglass
The Chain Veil
Rules:
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Players choose a planeswalker as the Walker for their deck.
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A card's color identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card's rules text. A card's color identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.
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Cards in a deck may not have any colors in their color identity which are not shared with the Walker of the deck. (The identity of each card in the deck must be a subset of the Walker's)
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A Duel deck must contain exactly 60 cards, including the Walker. In other words, 59 cards plus your Walker.
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With the exception of basic lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same english name. Some cards may have rules text that overrides this restriction.
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Players start the game with 20 life for 1v1, 30 life if it is a multiplayer game.
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Walkers begin the game in the Command Zone. While a Walker is in the command zone, it may be cast, subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting planewalkers. Its owner must pay {2} for each time it was previously cast from the command zone; this is an additional cost.
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If a Walker is re-cast (aka: second cast) from the Command Zone, it enters the battlefield with an additional loyalty counter on it. The maximum amount of additional loyalty counters that may come from being re-cast is two. (ex: if you have cast your Walker five times, it still enters with only two additional loyalty counters)
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If a Walker would be put into a library, hand, graveyard, or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the Command Zone instead.
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Being a Walker is not a characteristic, it is a property of the card and tied directly to the physical card. As such, "Walker-ness" cannot be copied or overwritten by continuous effects. The card retains it's Walker-ness through any status changes, and is still a Walker even when controlled by another player.
Optional:
- A duel deck may only contain one planeswalker in it. That planeswalker being the Commander of your deck. No other planeswalkers may be in the additional 59 cards.
Ban List:
Advantageous Proclamation
Amulet of Quoz
Ancestral Recall
Backup Plan
Balance
Biorhythm
Black Lotus
Brago's Favor
Braids, Cabal Minion
Bronze Tablet
Chaos Orb
Coalition Victory
Channel
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Double Stroke
Doubling Season
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Falling Star
Fastbond
Gifts Ungiven
Griselbrand
Immediate Action
Iterative Analysis
Jeweled Bird
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Limited Resources
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Muzzio's Preparations
Painter's Servant
Panoptic Mirror
Phyrexian Revoker
Pithing Needle
Power Play
Primeval Titan
Prophet of Kruphix
Protean Hulk
Rebirth
Recurring Nightmare
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Secret Summoning
Secrets of Paradise
Sentinel Dispatch
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Sorcerous Spyglass
Sundering Titan
Sway of the Stars
Sylvan Primordial
Tempest Efreet
The Chain Veil
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timmerian Fiends
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Trade Secrets
Unexpected Potential
Upheaval
Worldfire
Worldknit
Yawgmoth's Bargain
If you like the format, spread it around! We would like to have more people test the format out and give us some suggestions here for unbalanced cards in the format, for example cards like The Chain Veil or maybe even broken generals if you can. I have made a deck to showcase the format above where Ugin is the Walker of the deck.
Thank you all for reading and I hope you try the format!
PS: As a side note we know that a certain Golgari Planeswalker, aka Garruk, Apex Predator, is kinda scary in the format because of his plus one being able to deny a single player their Walker. We tested him in multiplayer, and he did not have enough staying power to require an immediate ban, at least not in multiplayer. As such, we have made a special case to ban him from 1v1.
1v1 BANNED WALKERS:
Garruk, Apex Predator
MULTIPLAYER BANNED WALKERS:
Pretty empty in here...