Ruhan of the FomoriRuhan of the Fomori | Illustrated by Raymond Swanland

Fifteen years ago this month was a momentous occasion. The previous two summers, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) had released decks specifically tailored for multiplayer Magic. In 2009 there was the incredibly fun Planechase, and then in 2010 there was the innovative Archenemy. WotC wanted to run it back again in 2011 and this time focus on a player-run format called Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) that had been growing in popularity over the years.

EDH Godfather Sheldon Menery had introduced me and many others to EDH four years earlier, and I'd immediately fell in love with the format, and started writing about it more and more in my weekly columns on Magic: the Gathering. When I'd regularly started writing for Starcitygames.com in 1999, like nearly everyone else I'd focused on competitive Magic, but with a more casual bent since I didn't have the time or the drive to live the truly competitive Magic lifestyle seeking a spot on the Pro Tour. Back in 1994 when I came to Magic I played with my Dungeons & Dragons buddies and had been playing multiplayer with them for years, so when Sheldon's nifty EDH format hit our radar we quickly shifted gears and started playing that.

At the time, Magic content was almost exclusively tournament-focused. There were a handful of talented casual lights shining through the competitive jungle, awesome folks like Anthony Alongi, The Ferrett, and Abe Sargent, and many of them took up the EDH mantle too once they heard about it and tried it out. Having WotC make a product specifically geared to EDH fans was wild for those of who played and preached about how much fun the format was. Originally called just Commander, it was later known as Commander 2011.

We knew it was coming. Back in December the previous year, WotC Aaron Forsythe announced the product... and the name change. Here's what Aaron said in the article:

The format is now known as "Commander." The titles "Elder Dragon Highlander" and "EDH" are going away. It's not that we don't like those names necessarily (and I'm sure that many of you will keep using them), but we want to sync up our terminology. We've been calling it "Commander" on Magic Online for some time now, and we introduced the "command zone" as part of the game last year, so that term shouldn't be unfamiliar. Your "general" will now be known as your "commander."

Of course, fifteen years later many people still call it EDH, but back when WotC brought the format to Magic Online, they realized there might be legal issues using the word "Highlander" in an official product, given its ties to the popular Highlander movies and TV show, so if you wanted to play EDH on Magic Online it was called "Commander;" with this announcement, the name of the format formerly known as EDH was officially Commander.

But it wasn't just the name change. WotC was using this product to introduce 51 unique cards designed specifically for a multiplayer format, which was simply mind-blowing for us fans.

Prior to this, finding hidden gems in the rough of tournament Magic bulk rares and draft chaff was a fun but often tiresome exercise, even though many of us truly loved that aspect of the format (picture me raising and waving my hand back and forth enthusiastically). Having a product where the most casual of casual Magic fans could just buy a deck from the shelf, shuffle up and play was a game changer, breaking down barriers to entry that many of us didn't even realize were there at the time.

Ten days before Commander 2011 was released, I was incredibly lucky to be given a preview card from the product and wrote about it here.

Yes, Ruhan of the FomoriRuhan of the Fomori, which many people will recognize became the commander of one of Sheldon Menery's most notorious signature decks, You Did This To Yourself. The deck was chock full of "Aikido" style cards that turned big swings an opponent made against them.

It was wild that Sheldon used Ruhan as this deck's commander, given that it didn't necessarily synergize with the other cards in the deck, but it did make a pretty hefty clock, dishing out 7/7 beatings at random opponents.

Here's what I said in my preview article about Ruhan:

Around a multiplayer table... [Ruhan's] “drawback” becomes much more interesting! First of all, think about all the games you’ve played where someone gets a big creature out relatively early and can’t really decide whom to attack; nobody has played anything threatening or is more ahead than anyone else is. Do you just attack the gal to your left and go clockwise? Do you pick at random? Do you get revenge on someone for the game from last week? Or do you just not attack anyone, which is the safe route but usually pretty disappointing?

Ruhan’s beginning-of-combat trigger takes the choice out of your hands—he’s going to attack and attack at random, a very red ability apropos to the pointy end of the wedge.

In my article, I was pretty impressed with Ruhan's 7/7 size for just four mana. Remember, this was in the relatively early days of EDH; creatures have gotten much more impressive in the past fifteen years. Currently, EDHREC shows 2,834 Ruhan decks and a rank of #827, which honestly is higher than I expected. I credit two things: people wanting to walk in Sheldon's footsteps with a similar version of You Did This To Yourself, or picking Ruhan as the leader of a Giant typal pile. Ruhan's Jeskai color combination is a nice bridge between the original Boros () Giant cards from the various Lorwyn sets, and the Izzet Giant cards from Kaldheim.

A couple weeks later I did a full set review, and I did it in a novel way where there was an excited me alternating with a curmudgeon me (yes, I'm old enough that even fifteen years ago I could be a curmudgeon). I thought it would be fun to take a look at what I was saying then back in 2011 through the eyes of 2026 Commander.

This was part of my opening paragraph:

Man, these Commander decks have hit my Magical palette like crab cake jambalaya passing the lips of a starving man. Just tons of awesome stuff, great brand new cards, and some fantastic reprints. Each preview card and tidbit of information gave me something more to get excited about. These decks are so well put-together that I’m keeping three of them intact for whenever anyone wants to play some lower-power fun games of Commander.

That last sentence is key to think about. In the early days, these Commander precons were extremely low power, which is wild to think about given how powerful precons are these days. It was as if WotC was selling a deck prototype with many opportunities to customize it, taking out clunky cards that didn't really synergize and replacing them with cards from your own collection. And the mana bases were clunky as heck! WotC has made a ton of great color-fixing lands in the intervening time thank goodness.

First I talked about Zedruu the GreatheartedZedruu the Greathearted.

The card is an awesome design, one where you can be kind of silly, or kind of mean. Or real mean. If you don't know, there was actually a poem someone wrote about Zedruu that went viral. Here is an excerpt:

It is the will of Zedruu that you should have … this Howling MineHowling Mine.

Take it.

I bequeath it to you.

While you possess it, it shall draw both of us extra cards.

I’m going to gain a life now.

It is the will of Zedruu that you should have … these Goblin CadetsGoblin Cadets.

May they serve you well. Although they flinch in battle, they occasionally reach through to an opponent.

I want you to have them.

I will be over here, drawing extra cards.

It gets better from there, and is definitely worth looking up on the interwebs to read the full poem!

Now, my curmudgeon side had a bone to pick with the art for this "Minotaur" Monk:

We saw the art for this card a while ago. The fact that it turned out to actually be a pretty cool card does not excuse the gross Vorthos negligence of drawing a Minotaur as a freakin’ goat. Minotaurs are supposed to have a bull’s head on a humanoid body, and there’s a pretty big difference between a bull head and a goat head. A bull will gore your ass and stomp your entrails into the dust; a goat will chew on cans and bleat. Yes, the Monk class suggests a less violent specimen of Minotaur, but that doesn’t change the fact that her mama and daddy were bull-headed badasses. Even a Gandhi Minotaur would still look like he could rip you a new one.

The art by Mark Zug is actually really sweet, and I feel like the entire (minor) controversy could have been averted by simply making the Zedruu card a Goat Monk, you know?

Great Commander Staple Reprints

The decks were chock full of EDH staple reprints that were much appreciated. While some of those staples haven't stood the test of time, there were still some bangers, like Mother of RunesMother of Runes, Lightning GreavesLightning Greaves, and SkullclampSkullclamp, that we're always happy to add to our Commander collection.

We even had iconic green land ramp cards, like Sakura-Tribe ElderSakura-Tribe Elder, CultivateCultivate, and Kodama's ReachKodama's Reach.

What was really, really exciting was having Sol RingSol Ring in each deck, something that's continued to this very day. At the time, Sol RingSol Ring was only legal in Vintage, so the price of a Revised one was quite reasonable for EDH fans to pick up, to the point that nearly all of the early EDH decks ran it. So when WotC was designing the decks, they decided Sol RingSol Ring was iconic to the format and should be readily available. Fifteen years later I'm personally glad they did, since fundamentally I like that it helps make more expensive commanders easier to play.

Where’s My Doubling SeasonDoubling Season?

There was one card not reprinted that the EDH community was pretty disappointed in, as expressed by my curmudgeon side:

Seriously? You name a deck Counterpunch—an obvious play on doing fun things with “counters” on cards—and you don’t include the most sought after staple for any Commander deck that uses counters and tokens? A card that suffers from major supply issues despite not being used at all in Legacy seemed like a slam-dunk choice for this product.

Turns out WotC held back on Doubling SeasonDoubling Season to juice up excitement for other sets like Modern Masters, Battlebond, and bonus sheets in various other sets. It's actually been reprinted quite a bit, and it's still a $30 card!

New Commander Cards

It's hard to imagine this format before Command TowerCommand Tower, incredible color mana fixing for multicolor decks. This was such a wild design, an incredibly powerful land that only worked in Commander. Chaos WarpChaos Warp was designed to help help red decks deal with permanents it otherwise had trouble dealing with (enchantments, for example). Plus, it had a neat little mini-game attached to it that sometimes led to wild story-worthy swings when that permanent on top of the library ends up being some huge creature. Spell CrumpleSpell Crumple may look pretty mid to the modern Commander eye, but at the time if your commander got "tucked" into your library, you were forced to play Commander without your commander until you found it in your library. This card and others of its ilk were so brutal the Rules Committee eventually changed to rules so if your commander got "tucked" you could instead stick it in your command zone. Huzzah!

Originally printed in Commander 2011, Scavenging OozeScavenging Ooze was such a flexible and awesome graveyard-controlling card it got reprinted into Standard. Champion's HelmChampion's Helm still gives Equipment decks another way to protect legendary creatures. Tribute to the WildTribute to the Wild was a powerful design at the time, but people play tons and tons of artifacts and enchantments these days so it's just not as impactful as it used to be.

Martyr's BondMartyr's Bond and Hydra OmnivoreHydra Omnivore were two pretty high-impact cards back then, but these days you expect a bit more from a six mana spell.

One thing that was a bit of a head-scratcher were two cards that riffed on Verdant ForceVerdant Force. Magmatic ForceMagmatic Force wasn't terrible, and did a pretty good job of picking off smaller creatures, but Celestial ForceCelestial Force? Gaining that extra life seemed way, way too small an effect for the whopping eight mana your white deck needed to generate to cast this.

Where you around in 2011 for the release of the very first Commander product? What do you remember about that time?

Read more:

The 10 Best Colored Artifacts in Commander

Uncommons You're Not Playing in Commander, but Should Be!