The Ultimate Guide to Conquest

Last updated on February 28, 2024

Paradox Engine | Illustration by Christine Choi

“It’s a seven.” The three most dreaded and simultaneously meaningless words ever spoken in a Commander pod. Are you about to be crushed by a turn three Demonic Consultation into Thassa's Oracle? Or is that “seven” really just a big goofy dragon deck with a copy of Utvara Hellkite they’ll never tutor for?

The past decade of Commander play has always suffered from power level disparities between those of us looking to fill a deck with our chaff rares and those of us who take this supposedly casual format seriously. For years, players have searched for a way to mitigate this problem, from setting price limits on decks to creating their own EDH ban lists to compensate for powerful combos. These have all been relatively unpopular, until now. Conquest is the new 100-card singleton Commander-variant sweeping the nation and coming for the throats of you competitively-minded players.

What is Conquest? What makes it different from EDH? Let’s take a look!

What Is Conquest?

Chord of Calling | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

Conquest is a Commander variant format created by Shaper, a cEDH content creator and admin of the Conquest Discord server. It arose to address issues that were observed in cEDH environments and to combat the disparity in power levels between casual and competitive Commander. The format uses a modified deck size, starting life, and ban list to fix cEDH and silo its players into a casual-but-still-competitive format.

For example, it’s nearly impossible to play an aggro deck with the standard cEDH rules. Your opponents have a combined 120 life in a four-player game – a nearly insurmountable amount of damage you have to lay down early to win. The starting life total is reduced to 30, and Commanders only need to deal 12 damage to defeat an opponent.

Besides that, cEDH was often criticized for its high cost-of-entry, since the most powerful Reserved List cards tend to make regular appearances in the format’s top decks, and we don’t need to go over how expensive duals like Volcanic Island are.

Who is Conquest For?

Conquest is for the player who loves high-power Magic environments that lend themselves to complex puzzles, threat-assessment, and decision-making. The format imitates the high-level competitive play you’d see in Modern or Legacy tournaments, while still maintaining the “fun” aspects of being a multiplayer format. Players who thrive in that cagematch-style gameplay will enjoy playing at a table where everyone’s on the same page, and that page is lethal.

Conquest-Legal Sets

Conquest’s cardpool consists of all regulation-sized Magic cards publicly released by Wizards of the Coast other than those on the Reserved List, silver-bordered cards, acorn security-stamp cards, and the banned cards listed below. Cards are legal to play as of their set’s prerelease.

Conquest Rules

Conquest is a Commander variant format. It follows all of the normal rules for Commander, with some exceptions:

• Commanders can be any legendary creature or planeswalker
  • The addition of planeswalkers as Commanders opens up a whole new world of viable strategies and lets players run their favorite characters as the stars of the show.
• Players start with 30 life in multiplayer and 25 life in 1v1 matches.
  • The reduced life totals make aggro strategies viable, as well as disable some nasty Commander combos that work off of starting with 40 life. Looking at you, Felidar Sovereign.
• Each player's deck must be at least 80 cards and singleton.
  • The reduced deck size and no maximum size gives players a little more agency in deck construction. Slimming down deck size means less room for chaff and lets you focus on your key cards. Also, no upper limit on deck size means I can finally run Battle of Wits in EDH.
• The Scry Rule: Instead of the “draw or play” rule we see in typical EDH, after taking mulligans and before any pre-game actions, each player who is not the first in the turn order Scries X, where X is the number of other players acting before them. This only applies in multiplayer games.
  • This change to the draw-play rule helps mitigate the disadvantage meted out to the players who don’t play first. In 1v1 games, the draw-play mechanic is nearly fair as far as advantage generated goes, but in multiplayer games, there are suddenly three players taking turns and drawing cards before you have a chance to start your second turn. Reducing the advantage gained by your opponents smooths out the gameplay to give each player a fighting chance.

Conquest Banlist

The conquest banlist is one of its defining differences between it and traditional Commander.

The following cards are generally banned in Conquest:

• Cards with the Conspiracy card type
• Cards referencing Ante
• Cards Wizards has removed from Constructed play

The following specific cards are banned in Conquest. Many of these are staples in traditional EDH:

• Balance
• Burgeoning
• Carpet of Flowers
• Channel
• Demonic Consultation
• Demonic Tutor
• Dockside Extortionist
• Drannith Magistrate
• Eldritch Evolution
• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• Exploration
• Finale of Devastation
• Flash
• Food Chain
• Griselbrand
• Hullbreacher
• Imperial Seal
• Isochron Scepter
• Jeweled Lotus
• Karakas
• Limited Resources
• Mana Crypt
• Mana Drain
• Mystic Remora
• Mystical Tutor
• Natural Order
• Rhystic Study
• Sol Ring
• Sylvan Library
• Tainted Pact
• Tinker
• Trade Secrets
• Upheaval
• Vampiric Tutor
• Worldly Tutor

The following cards are banned as Commanders in Conquest:

• Haldan, Avid Arcanist
• Inalla, Archmage Ritualist
• Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• Najeela, the Blade-Blossom
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh
• Thrasios, Triton Hero
• Tymna the Weaver
• Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Additionally, Lutri, the Spellchaser is banned as a companion in Conquest.

Conquest has also banned the original Onslaught and Zendikar fetchlands:

• Arid Mesa
• Bloodstained Mire
• Flooded Strand
• Marsh Flats
• Misty Rainforest
• Polluted Delta
• Scalding Tarn
• Verdant Catacombs
• Windswept Heath
• Wooded Foothills

Finally, every card on the Reserved List is banned. This includes the Power Nine, the original Dual Lands, plus the following common cEDH cards:

• Academy Rector
• Aluren
• Bazaar of Baghdad
• Candelabra of Tawnos
• Chains of Mephistopheles
• City of Solitude
• City of Traitors
• Copy Artifact
• Corpse Dance
• Diamond Valley
• Dream Halls
• Earthcraft
• Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
• Eureka
• Fastbond
• Fork
• Gaea's Cradle
• Gilded Drake
• Grim Monolith
• Hall of Gemstone
• Helm of Obedience
• Humility
• Intuition
• Invoke Prejudice
• Karn, Silver Golem
• Lake of the Dead
• Library of Alexandria
• Lion's Eye Diamond
• Living Plane
• Lotus Vale
• Memory Jar
• Metalworker
• Mind Over Matter
• Moat
• Mox Diamond
• Nether Void
• Null Rod
• Palinchron
• Pendrell Mists
• Power Artifact
• Recurring Nightmare
• Replenish
• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
• Seeds of Innocence
• Serra's Sanctum
• Shallow Grave
• Sliver Queen
• Squandered Resources
• Survival of the Fittest
• The Abyss
• The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• Thawing Glaciers
• Time Spiral
• Time Vault
• Tithe
• Tolarian Academy
• Transmute Artifact
• Treachery
• Volrath's Stronghold
• Wheel of Fortune
• Winding Canyons
• Yavimaya Hollow
• Yawgmoth's Bargain
• Yawgmoth's Will

Where to Play Conquest

Conquest is on the rise in physical and online spaces. If you’re looking for a game of Conquest, the best place to start is on the official Conquest Discord, where you’ll find strategy discussion and groups looking for players. The MTG Conquest Facebook group isn’t a bad start, either. Finally, I’d suggest hitting the pavement and getting out to your local game store to preach the good word of Conquest to your fellow cEDH players. The best way to convert someone to a new format is to show up with a deck ready-to-play for them!

MTGO and Arena currently don’t support the Conquest format, but with rising interest we may see it digitally soon.

Conquest Decks

Deckbuilding for Conquest is a different beast than Commander – decks usually require a tighter focus and a more balanced game plan so they don’t burn out early or slip into “battlecruiser” play style. Here’re some examples of typical Conquest decks.

Paradox Engine Sisay

Captain Sisay | Illustration by Ray Lago

This deck uses Captain Sisay’s tutor effect to pull out Paradox Engine to combo off into infinity. To execute this complex combo, you’ll need Captain Sisay on the field and non-summoning-sick, 5 generic mana available and enough mana to cast another spell from your hand. Here’s how it works:

• Tap Captain Sisay to tutor Paradox Engine, cast the Engine, then cast any other spell such as Land Grant to untap Captain Sisay with Paradox Engine‘s trigger.
• Tutor and cast Mox Amber, untapping with Paradox Engine.
• Tap Mox Amber for 1, tutor and cast Mox Opal, untap.
• Tap the moxes for 2 (now floating 3 mana), tutor and cast Skrelv, Defector Mite or Shadowspear, untap with 2 mana floating.
• Tap the moxes for 2 (now floating 4), tutor and cast Nyx Lotus, untap with no mana floating, Lotus enters tapped.
• Tap the moxes for at least 2, tutor and cast a MV < 3 legend such as Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, untap.
• Tap the moxes and lotus for at least 4, tutor and cast any MV < 5 legend such as Reki, the History of Kamigawa, untap with 1 mana floating.
• Tap for at least 5 (now floating 6), tutor Kogla, the Titan Ape, untap and draw a card.
• As necessary, using Kogla's activated ability, recur a Human to hand, and cast it to untap the board with Paradox Engine. This combination can generate unlimited mana.

From here, you have a lot of options. Katilda can draw a lot of cards when used with Reki, and an Eternal Witness can return removal and other key cards from your graveyard to deal with any threats. You’ll win by combining this combo with a Loran of the Third Path to draw an opponent out, Shalai, Voice of Plenty to make a huge board, or Blind Obedience’s Extort ability to drain the table out all at once.

Chandra Burn

Chandra, Hope's Beacon | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

This Conquest deck is built around Chandra, Hope's Beacon, a planeswalker from March of the Machine. Its triggered ability copies one of your instants or sorceries each turn, plus generates mana on its own to help cast those spells. Often, you’re looking to copy one of your rituals like Jeska's Will to both generate mana and dig through your library for more spells to cast. Combine all that extra mana into one big Rolling Earthquake and burn each of your opponents into dust all at once.

Getting Started with Conquest

One of the worst parts of getting started with a new format is the buy-in to build a deck with a whole new ruleset. Lucky for you, many standard EDH decks can be converted over to Conquest in a jiffy. Cutting that deck down to 80 cards lets you really focus a strategy down on the key cards you need to win. Plus, you’ll undoubtedly have to remove some of the EDH staples from your Conquest deck, like Sol Ring.

The Conquest team has a really wonderful selection of starter deck lists built on Moxfield, too. I recommend taking a look at those and expanding on them. Similarly, try filtering by the Conquest format on the site and look at what everyone else is building.

Conquest Products

There are no official Conquest format products from Wizards of the Coast. Hopefully, we’ll see official support for this format in the form of tournament play soon, but I still doubt we’ll get any Conquest precons. WotC typically doesn’t print preconstructed competitive decks outside of the hit-and-miss Event decks. If any third-party groups are selling pre-built Conquest decks, I haven’t been able to find them. That’s a great idea for a product, though, don’t steal my idea.

Conquest Communities

Conquest has a thriving community online in both its Discord and Facebook groups. Besides there, you might try the Reddit pages for both EDH and cEDH if you’re looking for online play. If you’re a paper player, you’ll probably need to convince your playgroup to ditch Commander night for Conquest night. Bring a spare Conquest deck for someone else to try out, and I bet they’ll be hooked.

Wrap Up

Horizon Canopy | Illustration by Noah Bradley

The endless divisions of Magic formats to more perfectly define the goal of a particular format might seem an ultimately fruitless venture, but good on the Conquest designers for giving it a shot. Sometimes, something as simple as a new ban list and a modified life total are all a player needs to breathe new life into a game and get us all hooked on deck building once again. Conquest is a serious attempt at creating a “fun” cEDH environment, and it comes damn close to fulfilling that promise.

Will you be playing any Conquest sometime soon? Or is this just a passing fad, destined to go the way of other defunct formats like Primordial or Kamigawa block Pauper Tiny Leaders? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim’s X/Twitter.

Thanks for reading! May you crush your enemies and see them driven before you!