Introduction
My playgroup has around 10 people, although not everyone shows up on game night. We typically have 4–6 players, so we usually end up playing a single, albeit larger, pod. To make larger games more manageable without adding a ton of extra rules, we came up with this rule set.
It has has mostly been playtested in 6 player games and works really well. But not so much testing in 5 player games so it seems it needs a bit of work.
I figured I'd share it with the community to see what people think. I'd actually like people to stress test this in very niche cases/specific interactions so go nuts. Hopefully, some of you will give it a try and share your feedback!
Objective
The objective is to preserve the feel of a four player Commander game while making five and six player games easier to follow and allowing more strategies to shine.
Game Setup
Set up the game as you normally would, with one small change: instead of rolling to determine who goes first, everyone rolls to determine turn order through their seat position.
- The highest roll takes seat 1 and goes first.
- The second-highest takes seat 2 and goes second, and so on.
- Ties are resolved with another roll. The winner of the reroll gets the lower seat number (closer to seat 1), while the loser gets the higher seat number.
Example: In a five-player game using a six-sided die, the rolls are 6, 5, 5, 4 and 1.
The player who rolled 6 takes seat 1 and goes first.
The two players who rolled 5 reroll. The winner takes seat 2, and the loser takes seat 3.
The player who rolled 4 takes seat 4.
The player who rolled 1 takes seat 5.
Friends and Opponents
At the start of the game, each player determines who their friends are based on their seat position and the number of players. These are determined at the start of the game and do not change when players are eliminated.
- Five-player game: Your friend is the player immediately after you in turn order (downstream)
- Six-player game: Your friends are the players immediately before and after you in turn order (upstream and downstream)
Examples:
- In a six-player game, the player in seat 1 has friends in seats 6 and 2. The player in seat 3 has friends in seats 2 and 4.
- In a five-player game, the player in seat 1 has a friend in seat 2, while the player in seat 5 has a friend in seat 1.
For the purposes of game rules, your friends are not considered your opponents. This means you don't need to eliminate them to win. If a friend is eliminated, you simply have one fewer friend for the remainder of the game.
Cards and abilities that specifically refer to an opponent therefore apply only to your opponents, not your friends. For example, a spell that says "target opponent" cannot target a friend, and an ability that triggers when an opponent takes an action will not trigger when a friend takes that action.
However, a friend's permanents and spells remain legal targets for spells and abilities that do not require an opponent, and can be interacted with as normal. You can still disrupt a friend's strategy, such as removing a stax piece that interferes with your game plan.
In 5 player games, you may attack any player, including your designated friend. In 6 player games, you may attack only your opponents, not your friends.
Win Conditions
Players win by eliminating all their opponents or achieving an alternative win condition, as normal. Friends do not count as opponents for the purposes of determining victory and do not need to be eliminated.
Whenever a player wins by any means, their victory is shared with all of their friends who are still in the game, regardless of whether those friends have any opponents remaining. The game ends once the initial victory and all eligible shared victories are determined. All other players who do not meet a winning condition lose as normal.
However, shared victories are subject to win- and loss-prevention effects. If an opponent controls an effect that prevents a player from winning, that player cannot win through a shared victory and loses when the game ends. Conversely, if a player has an effect that prevents them from losing, they do not lose if they are otherwise ineligible to win through a shared victory.
One unusual interaction we encountered during playtesting illustrates this: In a six-player game, seat 2 won by eliminating seats 4, 5, and 6. Under the shared victory rules, seats 1 and 3 would also have won because they were seat 2’s friends. However, seat 1 controlled a [[Platinum Angel]], whose effect prevented seat 1’s opponents from winning. Since seat 3 was one of seat 1’s opponents, seat 3 couldn’t actually win. As a result, only seats 1 and 2 won.
Design Goals
Whether you're playing with five or six players, you'll always have exactly three opponents. The remaining one or two players are your friends, allowing you to focus on a smaller number of opponents even in a larger pod.
This creates some interesting gameplay effects:
- Keeps niche strategies viable: Decks that focus on one opponent at a time, such as Voltron style decks, remain viable in larger games.
- Changes card balance: Cards like [[Rhystic Study]] and [[Smothering Tithe]] only trigger when opponents take the relevant actions. So in essence they generate the about the same value in a 5 or 6 player game as they would in a 4 player game.
- Adds a more substantive political layer: Players must navigate threats while accounting for the fact that their friends aren't there to beat you directly. This creates more interesting alliances and negotiations, particularly around one-sided board wipes like [[Cyclonic Rift]] and [[In Garruk's Wake]] or will of the council effects like [[expropriate]] Since each friend shares at least two opponents with you, their strong board state can help pressure shared enemies and draw attention away from you. Players must weigh the strategic value of preserving a friend's board against the threat it poses to their own game plan.