Magic: The Gathering - How Does Commander Damage Work?

Magic: The Gathering’s Commander format gives you access to almost every card ever printed for the game, which includes multitudes of clever, interactive win conditions. Alternatively, you could go for the ancient tradition of smacking your opponents in the face until they stop twitching.

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To pull this off, you’ll likely be aiming to win through Commander damage. Deal enough with your commander, and you can fully knock an opponent out of the game. However, there are a few important rules to keep in mind when trying to make good use of commander damage.

The Rules For Commander Damage

The rules for commander damage initially sounds simple, but there are a lot of intricacies to keep in mind. At its most basic level, commander damage is if a single commander deals 21 or more combat damage to a single player, that player loses.

The Damage Must Come From One Commander

The first big misconception surrounding commander damage is the idea that you lose if you take 21 cumulative damage from all commanders. This is not true, as damage is tracked individually, and all of this damage must be dealt by the same commander.

For instance, if Player A’s deals ten damage to you, and player B’s deals 11, that will not knock you out of the game. Player A or Player B’s commanders must deal the whole 21 themselves.

This also applies to partner commanders. If you have two commanders, their damage is tracked individually. One of them must land 21 damage to knock someone out with commander damage.

Damage is tracked over the course of the game, and doesn’t not have to all be dealt at once.

Only Combat Damage Is Counted

The second misconception is that any form of damage or lifeloss a commander causes counts as commander damage. In actuality, only combat damage dealt to you is counted.

For instance, a lifeloss trigger from Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose will not count as commander damage, nor would the direct damage Arabella, Abandoned doll deals through its triggered ability. For it to be commander damage, the commander must attack.

• Things That Count For Commander Damage

  • Combat damage.
  • Both instances of combat damage from double strike.
  • Any excess combat damage dealt to you from trample.
  • Combat damage dealt by stolen commanders, including your own.

• Things That Do Not Count For Commander Damage

  • Any activated or triggered ability that causes a loss of life.
  • Any activated or triggered ability that causes direct damage.
  • Copies of commanders dealing combat damage.
  • Any combat damage 'dealt' while combat damage is prevented.

‘Commanderness’ is a quality of the card itself, not the player controlling it. If another player takes control of a commander and hits you with it, the damage is still counted, even though it is not their commander. This even applies if they stole your own commander.

On the other hand, copies of a commander are not commanders themselves, and won’t count as commander damage.

This rule does cause a few oddities, though. If you prevent combat damage, such as with a Fog, you won’t gain commander damage. However, if you prevent your life total from changing, it will still be counted. For example, commander damage is one of the only ways to still eliminate a player who has played a Teferi’s Protection or Platinum Emperion, as that card only stops your life total from changing, it does not prevent damage.

Similarly, if a commander deals damage that would be turned into something else – such as infect turning the damage into -1/-1 counters – the damage is still dealt to you and contributes to commander damage.

You Still Lose Life

Commander damage simply tracks how much combat damage a commander has dealt. Otherwise, commander damage is treated the exact same as any other creature’s, and means you still lose life as well.

If you are reduced to zero before hitting 21 damage, you will lose the game.

Removing Commander Damage

There are no ways to remove commander damage once it has been dealt to you. Even if you regain the life lost, you have taken that damage and it will still be tracked.

The reason for this is the very reason why commander damage was introduced to the format in the first place. Without commander damage, lifegain decks would almost always win. It would be far too easy to gain billions of life and wait out the rest of the table – having a hard limit of 21 damage gives lifegain players’ opponents a fighting chance.

How To Track Commander Damage

The important part of tracking commander damage is tracking every commander individually. Each players’ commanders may land different amounts of damage on you, but the only thing that matters is stopping any individual one from deal 21.

You could use an app like Lifetap or the Magic Companion App to track individual commander damage, but an easier way is to just use d20 dice. Have one for each commander on the table, and tick them up whenever they deal combat damage to you.

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