I have dabbled in both Pokémon trading cards and Magic the Gathering cards for awhile now. Both card games have interesting playstyles and unique components to how you build decks and the strategies that come from those building blocks. I have enjoyed collecting and playing all sorts of ways within each area respectfully, but why not adapt new ways to play within one realm based off the other?

I was talking to some friends about Magic the Gathering and the different ways we enjoy playing cards and most of them gravitate towards Commander decks. If you are unfamiliar with Commander, you choose a legendary, mythical, or planes walker card as your commander and you create a 100-card deck based around the colors of that card. The only big rule that is different from standard is that besides land or mana cards you can only have 1 card of any name in that deck instead of 4. Also, life is 40 instead of 20 and your commander also has its own life counter. If your commander is taken out of the game, you can bring it back into play but each time it costs two more land to get it on to the field. You can see the interesting strategies that can come from this, so it got me thinking about a similar format in Pokémon.

The first thing that immediately comes to mind is how this could be done in a similar fashion? We normally only have one Pokémon out on the field at a time with a few on the bench, but what if you could bring out as many as you wanted and use the energy cards collectively like land/mana? This portion in theory could work. The real interesting part would be behind how you would evolve the Pokémon. What could that look like? Is it a set amount of energy to cast, or based on health or some other attribute?

You of course would have a summoning sickness for evolving, but maybe some have haste or speed boost that allow it to attack early or first/double strike. Poison based Pokémon could have a limit in which after x amount of turns the Pokémon has death touch and faints. Psychic types could have vigilance and steel cold have indestructible capabilities. Leaf Pokémon could have leech seed that works like life link. Electric Pokémon could cause paralysis, or which acts like a card that can’t block that turn. So many crossover elements could be established, plus the Pokémon can still apply their strengths and weaknesses as normal.  This would be a fun new way to play and I’m sure rules will need to be adjusted moving forward.

What are your thoughts on a commander style Pokémon deck? Do you think it could work? If you play Magic, the Gathering and not Pokémon would you try this format out? Do you have any suggestions on how this could play out? Let us know your thoughts on this topic.

Image Source: Taken by Author

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