Marsh, who officially retired from professional football in June of this year, has been an avid Magic player and collector for a long time. He owns a TCG store called Cash Cards Unlimited. According to his videos on Instagram introducing the new format, Cali Commander is for those players who don't like the 4-person setup, the long games, and the politics that go on at a regular Commander table. Games are 1v1 — just like in Duel Commander, an unofficial format that's been around for quite some time. There are some differences, however: in Cali Commander, players start at 30 life (rather than 20, as in Duel). Decks still contain 100 singleton cards, including one or more Commanders (the Partner mechanic is available). Here is a full breakdown of Cali Commander in Marsh's own words:
The biggest point of contention seems to be a "curated banlist" that is decided through votes on the Collector's Horde Discord channel. According to some comments online, Marsh is planning to speculate by buying out the cards that will be unbanned by the community. A screenshot posted on X shows Marsh bragging about doing just that in the Discord channel.
Commander being originally a fan-made format means that there are plenty of variations. Players adding their own twists and rules is nothing new. However, it seems that many fans are skeptical about Marsh rather than his format, with some pointing out his earlier business ventures in Cameo, the website and app that allows fans to pay celebrities for personalized video messages. He also partnered with AI tech entrepreneur Kenneth Kuo in 2021 to launch the NFT/crypto company Ownr.
On Thursday, Marsh added to the controversy with a post on X where he asked the Duel Commander committee to reach out to him, mentioning they were "upset." On Friday, Duel Commander committee member Nicolas Prail replied, saying that there is no reason for them to be upset and "there's plenty of room for various community formats."
Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering's publisher, officially recognized only the traditional, 4-person Commander format in June 2011. This is widely considered a non-competitive way of playing the game, unlike Duel Commander and Marsh's version of it. There is also an official Commander Panel that provides Commander Brackets, a way to classify decks based on their power level.
Ultimately, fans can play Commander in any way they like, and the controversy around Cali Commander seems to be directed at its creator rather than the format itself.
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