When did you start playing Commander, and what was it like?

[Morganator 2.0]

Title says it all really. Commander has a history now, and I'm sure a lot has changed from when you started to now. Describe what your experience was like.

I started about 6 months before the release of Commander 2016. I very quickly figured out what makes a good deck, so I jumped into a commander league and played for prizes, piloting Krenko, Mob Boss. The makeup of decks back then was much different. There was a Mayael deck, Azami, Meren, Jeleva storm, Seton storm, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV stax, and some others that I can't remember. Besides Meren, I rarely see any of these commanders anymore.

Deck composition was different too. There were no enemy coloured talismans, no Arcane Signet, and barely any ramp or draw options in red/white. If you were playing those colors you were having a rough time. It really did seem like the game was blue-green-black dominated.

And then with Commander 2016 getting released 4-colour partner commanders became a thing.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I started playing EDH after the release of Shadowmoor (late 2008, probably). I was about 15 years old back then. I built a deck around the newly released card Rosheen Meanderer with a lot of Hydras, some untapping and little interaction. Before that I had only played kitchen table no bans 60 card so I wasn't that familiar with deck building and the deck sucked. It sucked hard. Especially when Rosheen Meanderer got removed which was quite often. In fact the deck sucked so hard that I remember literally throwing the cards out of the window (my friends went and picked them up) and I gave up on Magic for many years.

The will to play Magic came back around five years ago (2016) and I started using Deckstats a little over four years ago (2017). I didn't start with EDH straight away - we played a lot of tiny leaders because the card pool was smaller, games didn't last quite that long and since we didn't often have full four player pods it was a little fairer for the aggro decks. I brewed my first tiny leaders decks probably somewhere around 2017 or 2018... Drumroll - it was Merieke Ri Berit!

We picked up EDH again probably in 2018 or 2019 and soon I converted my Merieke Ri Berit deck into a full fledged EDH deck. The tiny leaders version was a walls aggro and theft deck (High Alert was a new card released back then) with some untapping to go with the walls and theft. The EDH version soon turned into a combo deck because I had access to better creatures, more mana, more life to soften the blows and more card draw. I also had the remains of my Rosheen Meanderer deck from earlier and I think I made some rebuilding efforts already back in 2017. I basically had two decks.

After that I got a Ramos, Dragon Engine, an Animar, Soul of Elements and a Depala, Pilot Exemplar Dwarf tribal deck. I've taken apart some decks and currently in paper I own my trusty Merieke Ri Berit combo deck, a group draw Kami of the Crescent Moon deck, a proxied Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath deck, a Medomai the Ageless leftovers deck and a non-updated version of the Rosheen Meanderer deck that I don't play very often.

Overall I feel like my decks have improved a lot and the cards that have been printed are now much more powerful than before and as a result many of the decks I own are mostly playable. Obviously I brew a lot online (working on buying that Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith + Thrasios, Triton Hero landfall deck...fetches are expensive) and sometimes I play these decks on Cockatrice just to see whether they're worth buying or not. I like to think my skills as a deck builder and player have improved a lot since I started playing EDH again.

[Slyvester12]

I started playing magic (I had played a bit before, but never really built my own decks and learned the rules) around Zendikar. I didn't get really invested until a little bit later with Scars of Mirrodin. I started playing commander around the same time.

My first commander deck was something I bought myself as a birthday present in high school. It was a Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck that focused on dragon ETB effects because I didn't understand Scion's ability. It was terrible, even when cheating and using ETB effects with Scion. Since then, that deck became my second best before I dismantled it.

Commander was still universally called EDH back then. This was around 2011, I think. The Tuck Rule still existed, so effects like Condemn were staples. Sol Ring was still a $20+ card. There wasn't really an accepted ban list, so Tinker was a problem. Massive CMC commanders were normal, and games that involved someone resolving an Omniscience by paying retail were common sights. Planeswalkers had just been released for the first time, so the OG walkers and Jace, the Mind Sculptor were everywhere and considered kill-on-sight. I remember people calling Oona, Progenitus, and Memnarch bullshit, oppressive decks.

How things have changed.

EDIT: Not Omniscience. I was thinking of Time Stretch. I really have no idea how I confused those.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that the main draw of the original precons was that each came with a Sol Ring and the cost $20, so it felt like paying for a Sol Ring and getting 99 cards for free. That feeling went away within a year or two when Sol Ring plummeted and especially once they started raising the price and lowering the reprint value.

[ApothecaryGeist]

I started playing in 2011.  This was just after the New Phyrexia prerelease.  The 2011 Commander deck precons were still a month away.  The format had just recently been renamed as Commander; formerly being EDH.  The Command Zone had just become a thing within the official MTG rules.  And Commanders had just been given that moniker having previously been referred to as your "general".


I don't recall a lot of specific cards that were played at the time (aside from those that would go on to become format staples).  Although I do recall all of the [Color] Sun's Zenith cards getting a lot of play.  They are from Mirrodin Besieged, which was the previous set.


Red was considered the worst single color, not white.  Blue was considered the best.


There was no Arcane Signet.  Talismen had not been reprinted.  Neither had the Medallions.  Ramp consisted of Guild Signets, Rampant Growth if in green, and then a lot of 3-mana ramp.  I do recall Darksteel Ingot being very popular.  Gilded Lotus was a good card back then.


Also of note:  Command Tower didn't exist yet.  Not until the 2011 Commander decks hit.  And even then, if you didn't buy one of those precons, then you still didn't have one.  It followed much the same pattern as Arcane Signet.  All the Commander players wanted one for every deck.  But few available to purchase as singles.


The rules were a bit different back then.  The Legendary rule affected all permanents on the battlefield.  And if more than one player had one, then all were put into the graveyard.  So if you have a Mayael the Anima in play; and then I play one, both are sent to the graveyard.  Same with Legendary lands like Gaea's Cradle.  For this reason, legendary cards in the 99 were something to use sparingly.  Because they wouldn't stick around for long.  A legendary in your deck was often there as spot removal against that same commander.  Phantasmal Image was a very popular (and powerful) card.  Under the old legend rule, it basically says "a commander of your choice gets sacrificed".


The tuck rule still existed.  Terminus was great removal for troublesome commanders.  As was Chaos Warp when it debuted in the 2011 Commander decks.


Board wipes were the preferred mode of removal.  Spot removal was used, but in much less quantities.  It was not uncommon to see a board wipe in each turn cycle.  As one player recovered quickly, another would wipe again.


There were a few other rules difference.  Obviously, there were no commander death triggers.  Given that rule just changed recently.


Your deck also couldn't make colors outside of your Commander's own color identity.  This doesn't come up often currently.  But if it still existed, a Commander like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer wouldn't be very good at all.


There have probably been some other changes.  But the biggest change I think from 2011 to now is PRICE.  The Modern format had not been introduced yet.  There were no made-for-commander cards yet.  Everything still filtered through Standard.  If you waited until cards rotated out of standard, most cards were cheap (aside from the OG duals).  Quite often good commander cards were cheap even before rotation.  As a general rule, good Commander cards were not good Standard cards.

[robort]

I don't know exactly what it was like though. To go through the story I found an LGS that I liked so I was doing drafts and pre-releases around 2014/2015 and didn't really know much about magic or even the cards themselves. I was still playing 60 card casual decks with friends/family around this time as well. I remember this well because I thought and did ask a few of the players why aren't they using Evolving Wilds more over Fetchlands because my reasoning at the time was "It fetches you any land". I again knew nothing about Magic besides the basics of how it it played. Fast forward some and one of the regulars decides to run this Commander league using/buying pre-cons. I figured it would be fun and going back to the not knowing much about magic I bought the Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas pre-con. Not knowing at the time that boros was terrible in commander. I just remember having a blast and enjoying myself because I love multiplayer games and this aspect of magic was multiplayer. Thinking this scenario was going to continue I figure I may as well make myself my own commander. It wasn't a disaster per-say but let's just say that deck is completely dismantled now. I then also bought the Meren pre-con and upgraded that from a casual reanimator deck I owned that is now also dismantled,

Now there is a gap from 2015/2017 because nobody tried running a commander league at that LGS again and I continued to draft and do pre-releases still hoping to find those who wanted to play commander. Found a friend or two who invited me to there place to play commander though. This happened only 3 times so I got to see some other commanders besides and I get to try that very first commander deck I made. I still love the multiplayer aspect and hope that this trend continues.

Now 2018/2019 rolls around and this is really where I started playing and almost play exclusively commander. It started with 2 people who are Chris and John who would show up at the LGS on Thursday and play commander with each other. After a bit there was a small group showing up to play. The owner of the shop says "There is commander on Thursday if I was interested". I jumped at this immediately because  again I love multiplayer. This is where I really learned the aspect of magic. This is where I really started creating/making decks, Seeing the power of decks and seeing a whole slew of magic cards that do stuff. There was no turning back. This is also where the shop time being closed was extended from 7 pm to 10 pm. This also helped us extend it from Thursday to Saturday as well. So it went from 2 people to a slew of people.