Is this actually a new format?
It depends on your point of view. Since most Commander decks could be viable for this, but not all, it toes the line between a new format and simply a set of rule 0 conditions. Of my sixteen decks, five could just jump in a play this format, with one more just needing to add one legendary creature to the 99 to be legal.
Why play this format?
If you have been playing commander and find it difficult to play casually when you are the type of player who enjoys optimizing decks, or if you want to play with and/or against decks that cannot be built to rely solely on their commander, then this is the format for you!
What do I need to play this format?
All you need is a Commander deck with at least three legendary creatures that each on their own could be a legal commander of your deck according to color identity rules ("partner" combinations, "partner with" combinations, and "friends forever" combinations are a little trickier, but basically, each unique combination counts as a single "commander").
So, of the 61 precon commander decks, 54 are legal Triumvirate decks. Essentially, most people can easily jump into the format if they want to.
How do I play this format?
There are only two additional rules:
- Before the game begins, beginning with the player going first and continuing in turn order, each player reveals the three options in their deck that they have chosen to be usable as their Commander, collectively known as their Triumvirate. No two options can use the same Commander, so if one option is a combination of two partnered Commanders, each of those cards are not eligible for consideration for the other two options. Then, once each player has revealed their Triumvirate, beginning with the player going first, they select one of those three choices at random. (The game continues as normal with that choice being their commander and with the other cards forming a part of the remainder of their library, which must add up to 100 if the card(s) in the command zone were added to it. The game continues on as normal.)
- (Since it's possible to circumvent this rule by using two members of the Triumvirate that are designed to search your library to find the last one, there is an additional rule limiting the depth that cards can search libraries.) If an effect a player owns would cause them to search a library, that player searches the top 21 cards of that library instead. (Why 21? It's the same number as the amount of Commander damage, a number that is chosen arbitrarily, so limiting the number of arbitrary numbers in the format's rules seems prudent.)
That's it! No changes to the banlist either! (That said, the cards that search libraries or are banned due to an interaction with such a card, like Flash, could easily be unbanned if this format becomes popular enough.)
How to specifically build for the format
To give yourself the best chances to win, the strategy that is needed is one that works well with at least three possible options, but doesn't rely on any one particular one to be effective. For example, a creature-heavy deck might have Chulane in it's Triumvirate, but 67% of the time, it won't. That's 67% less Chulane opponents when you play this format. If you choose to play a mono-red group slug commander deck, you might pick Torbran, Zo-Zu, and Neheb the Eternal for your Triumvirate. This allows you to get a more varied type of gameplay with the same deck and never feel like your deck doesn't work because it doesn't have a good commander.
The benefits of these rules (which may or may not be benefits depending on your particular player personality)
- It becomes much more difficult to combo off using a 2-card combo where 1 card is your commander.
- It becomes much more difficult to combo off in general, unless you have redundancy (which few combos have).
- There is less need to play cards like Oubliette and Song of the Dryads, because the commander is most of the time not going to be the best option for the deck.
- These rules only invite players who like inconsistent gameplay, which means that there will be less mismatched pods, even without any rule 0 discussion.
- It allows extremely popular commanders to not be as scary, since the deck is forced to be playable without them.
- It allows unpopular commanders to have a moment in the spotlight.
- Even if all players aren't open to trying the format, you can still apply the rules to yourself to get the benefits of more varied experiences. If you are a player with a notoriously high win-rate in your groups, it might even help put everyone on a more level playing field.
- Learning to build a Triumvirate deck, where you build the deck as though you won't have access to any one particular effect in the Command zone, could even make you a better deck builder in regular Commander. If your deck is built to work regardless of what Commander you have, that sounds like a much less fragile deck than one that only works when you have access to a particular Commander.
Feedback
If you are a player who would be interested in playing a format that is better than Commander, how close does this format get to that? How would you make this format better without making it more similar to Commander (i.e. by eliminating rules)?
