Oathbreaker Is Now an Official Magic: The Gathering Format

Weirdcards

Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic: The Gathering, has often described Magic as not just one game, but many different games that share a common rule set. What he means by this is that there are as many different styles of play as there are players. From pro grinders fine-tuning their decks to go up against the top players in the world to friends opening packs at the kitchen table and building decks from whatever cards they pull, everyone who plays has their preferred way to enjoy Magic. For a number of reasons, from the absence of rotating legality, to its multiplayer free-for-all function, to the ability to play cards that would never show up in a tournament deck list, the fan-made format known as Commander has become the most popular Magic format among casual players. And yet, one key issue facing Commander is the fact that, due to the higher life totals and bigger, slower archetypes, play can drag on for hours. Working out of Rochester, Minnesota, the Weirdcards Charitable Club chose to solve this problem by designing a much faster variant known as Oathbreaker.

Whereas in Commander, one selects a legendary creature to build a deck around, in Oathbreaker, one instead chooses a planeswalker—their “Oathbreaker”—and an instant or sorcery falling within the Oathbreaker’s color identity, designated as their Signature Spell. Both the Oathbreaker and the Signature Spell are placed into the command zone at the start of play. As with Commander, the Oathbreaker can be cast at any time they could normally be cast from hand. The Signature Spell, however, can only be cast while the Oathbreaker is on the battlefield. (Both are subject to the “command tax” of costing two additional generic mana for each time they’ve been previously cast.) This combination of Oathbreaker and Signature Spell allows for variety in pairing certain planeswalkers with spells that synergize well with them, or mixing and matching. Because as in Commander, all cards must fall within the Oathbreaker’s color identity (that is, the aggregate of all of the mana symbols that appear on the Oathbreaker), players are free to choose a different Signature Spell from match to match with no chance of ending up with an illegal pairing.

Choosing which Signature Spell to pair with your Oathbreaker is one of the most rewarding player decisions in the format. Weirdcards

Deck sizes return from the 100 cards of Commander to the 60-card size of Standard, while remaining singleton (limiting decks to one copy of any given card other than basic lands). Similarly, life totals are brought back to 20. This, coupled with the inherent power of always having one’s favorite planeswalker close at hand, means that matches tend to end much, much more quickly (the designers have said that they found it was a good way to spend their lunch breaks). You can bring a lot of power to this game, but in so doing you also invite early aggression from the other three or four players. I myself like being able to play low-to-the-ground aggro decks that are generally unviable in Commander due to the higher life totals. The setup also satisfies the lore connoisseur in me. In the story of Magic, planeswalkers are typically the only ones able to traverse the many worlds that form the Multiverse. Therefore, having one as my player avatar makes more thematic sense than a creature who, while legendary, is still stuck on their home plane.

Though designed in 2017, Oathbreaker has more or less flown under the radar for much of its life. The introduction of planeswalkers at lower rarities in War of the Spark, however, caused the format’s following to grow steadily. Last week, publisher Wizards of the Coast added Oathbreaker to its list of officially recognized Magic formats, causing player interest to skyrocket further. Most of the Magic discourse I’m seeing on social media now is players figuring out the kinds of decks they want to play in this format. In case deck building isn’t your jam, Weirdcards has put together a set of preconstructed starter decks that can get you playing immediately. I expect that soon, you’ll be able to find an Oathbreaker playgroup at a game store near you!