Image credit: Wizards of the Coast

Let's go back to our roots, dear readers.

Since 2011, Commander has been a staple of official Magic: The Gathering play design. It proved a massive success among its playerbase and, as such, for a decade and a half (save for 2012, when market reception was still being extrapolated), we have had a major Commander release every year. By most if not all accounts, Commander 2011 was a rousing success for the future of the Commander format.

So let's go back to where this started! We interviewed Mark Purvis, Vice President of Studio Operations at Wizards of the Coast, and Mark Gottlieb, Principal Game Designer for Magic: The Gathering. Both were on the Design teams for Commander 2011. A huge thank-you to Wizards of the Coast for facilitating this interview!

Interview with Mark Purvis & Mark Gottlieb, Two Commander 2011 Designers

What were the biggest challenges in designing the first Commander precons?

MG: The biggest challenge was that this project didn’t start out as preconstructed decks at all. The design team spent months working on a multiplayer-oriented booster product that included cards that catered to the Commander audience, the Two-Headed Giant audience, and other, more casual multiplayer experiences, while still working as a draftable product. We couldn’t figure it out (the release of the Conspiracy set was years away), so the team scrapped the entire project and pivoted to Commander decks with new cards.

MP: As Mark mentioned, the first iteration was a draftable booster set, but it felt like we were trying to run before we’d learned to walk. At that point in our history, we had never created new card designs for a fixed-deck product. Ever. When we pivoted to the idea of decks with brand-new cards designed for multiplayer, it felt incredibly groundbreaking and experimental. The set was appropriately code-named ‘Bedlam’ and there was a sense of innovation, excitement, and chaos with what we were trying to pull off.

It was also new for us to design cards that would both be fun in a 4- or 5-player game but not stagnate or drag out the games. Early on, Lead Designer Ken Nagle correctly pushed for designs that encouraged people to attack, and he deserves credit for pushing cards like Kaalia of the VastKaalia of the Vast, which were both fun to play and helped keep the game length manageable.

Did you ever expect that Commander would become the most popular format?

MP: I don’t know that we expected it, but in retrospect, maybe we should have. I learned to play in the mid-‘90s, and most playgroups I encountered preferred casual multiplayer games where everyone played oversized decks stuffed with their favorite cards. It wasn’t Commander yet, but it was definitely a more social and less competitive style of play than Wizards was focused on when I joined the company in 2007. We had data about Friday Night Magic and organized play, but we had very little visibility into the enormous number of people playing casually around kitchen tables. In hindsight, Commander was a format that grew out of the way many people already wanted to play Magic.

When we were building the decks, the future of Commander as a product was entirely uncertain. I’m so very grateful to Sheldon Menery and the EDH Rules Committee at the time. I think they realized that a product supporting the format could be a great way to grow the community, and they were willing to work with us to fully support the decks. Without their endorsement and the support of the EDH community at the time, it’s unclear to me if we would have ever made another set of Commander Decks.

What do you think about how far Commander has come?

MG: It’s fantastic. Wizards of the Coast may design and publish Magic content, but Commander is a testament to the fact that the real stewards of the game are the players themselves. It’s a fan-made format that earned its popularity organically, and I’m proud to be able to support it and take it to new heights.

MP: I think it’s wonderful. I have met so many new friends at MagicCon playing Commander, and I know that is a common experience. I’m constantly amazed at how fans express their love for Commander in different, creative ways. The professional quality of content from creators and community-builders like Game Knights and EDHREC is remarkable. And I am blown away by some of the Kaalia cosplay I’ve seen over the years! When we were working on the first Commander decks, I don't think any of us could have imagined the size and sophistication of the fandom that would grow around the format.

How did you get the assignment for designing the precons?

MG: I had just moved on from being the Magic Rules Manager and was finding my footing as a full-time designer. I had no Pro Tour experience, so the department was testing me out in a “Casual Developer” role, about a decade before the CPD [Commander Product Design] team would be founded. A multiplayer product was a natural fit for me.

MP: I had been on the Scars of Mirrodin development and Planechase (Zombie Empire) design teams, and I had a reputation for being a passionate collector and casual player with a lot of experience in multiplayer. Many of the professional game designers in R&D at the time had expertise in competitive standard and limited play, but not necessarily casual multiplayer. I credit Aaron Forsythe for seeking out designers he trusted who were also passionate and experienced with the kind of play we were creating cards for.

What do you remember most fondly about the design process?

MG: I’m not sure if “fondly” is the right word for it, but I distinctly remember that Ken Nagle, the lead designer of the project, would always attack me first in our playtests. Every. Single. Time.

MP: My day job at the time was on the Magic Brand Marketing team, but R&D would occasionally allow Wizards from any department to contribute to design and development teams. My boss at the time was very supportive of me participating in product design, and I was only too happy to spend my nights and weekends coming up with new card ideas.

As a fan of the game since Revised, having the opportunity to design cards was a dream come true. Tariel, Reckoner of SoulsTariel, Reckoner of Souls, Basandra, Battle SeraphBasandra, Battle Seraph, Mana-Charged DragonMana-Charged Dragon, Acorn CatapultAcorn Catapult, and Kaalia were the first rare and mythic rare cards I designed that made it all the way to print, and they ended up being printed very close to my original designs. Seeing Kaalia continue to be a fan-favorite more than fifteen years later is something I never would have predicted.

I was also so proud to have created a card that brought squirrels back to Magic after nearly a decade, although the original design for Acorn Catapult was called ‘Squirrel Cannon.’ The creative team at the time correctly pointed out that if it shot 1/1 Squirrels and did 1 point of damage, you’d end up with a dead rodent rather than a live 1/1 token. I never take for granted that I work somewhere where conversations like that happen as part of my job.

Are there any modern keywords you wish you had access to when designing these decks?

MP: I can’t think of any specific keywords, but I will say that whenever I have played Commander recently, I am floored with the variety of strategies available to players nowadays. I think it is a testament to the players and their creative expression that every game of Commander I play is different, and always memorable.

Did the reception to the Heavenly Inferno precon influence the designs of any later releases, Commander or otherwise? If so, how?

MP: I am Boros at heart, and I designed that deck very specifically to quickly knock one person out of the game and then become the obvious threat. My sense is that modern Commander deck design generally takes a more balanced strategic approach to deck building.

The Mirror Mastery deck is the only one among the Commander 2011 releases to contain a planeswalker card. What went into that design decision?

MG: A lot of what we were doing in this product was experimental and boundary-setting (or at least envelope-pushing). Planeswalkers only came into being in 2007, and we were working on Commander 2011 design in 2009 or thereabouts. So planeswalkers were still quite new, there weren’t that many of them, and they were all mythic rare. Including one per deck felt like overstepping, but including one in the product at all was exciting and would teach us a lot.

Counterpunch’s theme is fairly well-defined as a token deck. What themes were considered for these precons but were ultimately scrapped?

MG: Those records have been lost to time.

Political Puppets is identifiable as a group-hug deck, but in terms of face versus secondary commanders, Ruhan of the FomoriRuhan of the Fomori is very dissimilar to Zedruu the GreatheartedZedruu the Greathearted. What lessons for future designs did you extrapolate from the reception to things like that?

MG: I consider this a success in terms of process. By definition, a deck can have only one face commander, and it carries a lot of the weight of the deck. By and large, people aren’t making their purchase decisions based on what the backup commander does. And there’s no point in having the secondary commander do the same thing as the face commander, since we’re already trying to make the face commander be the coolest expression of whatever that is – why make a subpar version? The secondary commander is a relatively low-stakes spot for experimentation or sideways theme design, and we can learn a lot from public reaction.

MP: The deck's lead designer had a great sense of humor, and the stark contrast between the two commanders was very intentional. That was obvious in their development playtest names: "Barack Obama" and "George W. Bush."

Devour for Power had some of the most iconic Commander-playable reprints within it, from Avatar of WoeAvatar of Woe to Grave PactGrave Pact and beyond. What other reprints were considered for the decks in preliminary design?

MG: Those records have been lost to time.

Conclusion

Another huge thank-you to Wizards of the Coast for allowing us to pick the brains of some of the iconic designers of Commander 2011! It was truly a privilege and an honor to do so.

And now, let's open the floor to you, dear readers! When did you begin playing Commander? What was your first precon from the format releases? What influences from the decks above do you see in some of the deckbuilding decisions you've made in recent years? Sound off in the comments below!