Magic: The Gathering Interview – Senior Designer Gavin Verhey On New Capenna, Commander, Treasures, And Why We'll See More Of Monarch
Commander has been Magic The Gathering’s most popular format for years now. A highly sociable format that challenges four players to build decks around a single legendary creature, Commander has evolved from a niche, fan-made ruleset into one of the key focal points of Magic’s design.
The man best associated with Commander is Wizards of the Coast’s Gavin Verhey. A senior designer on Magic, he’s known for being one the main Commander spokespeople, and has led design on numerous Commander-focused products including Commander 2016, Commander 2018, and Commander Legends.
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With the format so quickly changing and finding a bigger audience than ever before, I had a chat with Verhey to find out about the Streets of New Capenna-themed Commander 2022 decks, the overall health of Commander, and why he doesn’t want to stop “Time Warp shenanigans” with the deck he designed for the release.
Verhey tells me it was a “totally happy accident” that both 2021 and 2022’s annual Commander sets were based on sets with heavy faction focuses. 2021 was released at the same time as Strixhaven, and its decks were based on the five colleges of the school, while 2022 is focused on New Capenna’s families. This is different from earlier releases, like 2020’s Ikoria-themed one.
“We didn’t line it up in particular for the spring set [the one closest to the Commander launch] to have these five factions,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s a coincidence in the sense that factions are awesome for Magic. Players love choosing a faction, and they love being able to identify with something… it makes a lot of sense for us to do five Commander decks at times where it shows up”.
Commander 2022
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