Pools of Becoming | Illustration by Jason Chan
Planechase is once more in mainstream Magic with new planes printed twice in 2023 (March of the Machine and the Doctor Who Commander decks). There isn’t just one way to play with Plane cards, though, and the most common “format” of Planechase (one big pile) is far from what was originally envisioned.
An alternative way to use Planes is to “draft” a planar deck from a central pool of planes to use alongside your Commander deck before the game begins. Today we’re going to look at exactly how this works, and why you should try it with your Commander pod when you next meet!
What is Planar Draft?
The Maelstrom | Illustration by James Paick
Planar Draft is a fantastic way to incorporate Planechase cards into your Commander games. It balances the setup needed to have your own preconstructed deck of planes with the more chaotic version of the “big pile” of everyone’s shared plane cards in the middle of the table.
The trick is to draft the planes before starting your game. This way, each player has their own planar deck for that game, hopefully including the best planes for their Commander deck of choice, without having to bring it from home. Popularized by Commander Rules Committee member Gavin Duggan, this format is gaining popularity as a go-to way to add these super interesting cards to your casual games.
How Do I Play Planar Draft?
If you’re going to play Planar Draft with your pod, you’ll each need to bring a Commander deck, and one player will need a set of plane cards for the pod to share. Ideally, you should have 16 planes per player (so 64 planes for a typical four-player pod) organized into eight ‘packs’ of eight plane cards. Each player gets two of these packs.
Once everyone is set up, draft the packs similar to how you would draft normal Magic packs. Each player individually looks at one of their packs and secretly picks one of the planes. They pass the rest of the pack to the player on their left, receiving a stack of seven planes from the player on the right.
Repeat this process with the packs you’re passed until they’re all gone, adding each pick to your pile of planes. Then, repeat the process with the other pack of planes, but this time passing to the right. Each player should have a total of 16 planes in their pile at the end of the Draft.
Finally, once all the planes have been drafted, players should choose 10 of the 16 planes they’ve drafted and put the other six back “in the box.” The ideal number of planes to draft and keep is ultimately up to your group to decide, but I've found this to be a good balance through trial and error over many Drafts. You can tweak this number depending on how many Planes you have, how long you want the draft to go, or if you’re playing with different numbers of people. A minimum of six planes per player is strongly recommended though, otherwise the game gets overly simple and repetitive.
When it comes to gameplay with the planes, the official instructions from Wizards are:
“Individual planar deck: The first player gets to reveal the first plane from their own deck, and when anybody rolls the planeswalker symbol, they move on to the top plane of their own Planar deck. All other rules remain the same.”
Revealing the first plane before players mulligan is a good idea, as it can drastically affect the value of opening hands.
What makes Planar Draft fun?
- Additional variability to Commander games
- ‘Leveling’ effect between competitive and non-competitive decks
- Benefits over the “big, shared pile” version of Planechase
- Something different to try!
One of the main draws of Planar Draft is a chance to actually play with the plane cards. They’ve always intrigued many players, but can't commonly be used in everyday Magic. With the printing of new plane cards in 2023 and reprinting of others, we’ve got even more of these fantastic flavor inclusions in Magic than ever before, so it’s the perfect time to start thinking about how to use them in our regular games.
It's also a good way to add some more variability to your Commander games and could even put a bit of spice into your older Commander decks that don’t see as much play anymore. Who knows what kind of interactions you’re able to add once you knock the dust off the box and take your old favorite for one more adventure across the Multiverse?
It’s also a pretty fun way to add some ‘leveling’ to an uneven pod. The added variability/chaos helps disrupt the game plan of that tuned not-quite-cEDH deck, so the newer player with a tweaked precon has that little bit more of a chance. It’s not foolproof, but the effect is there and can be a fun thing to bring out if there's some imbalance at the table.
Can I Use Any Deck for Planar Draft?
Yes! There’s no restriction on the deck you use for Planar Draft. In fact, you probably don’t want to build around the planes to get the most fun out of it (although there’s nothing wrong with doing this as long as your pod knows you’re doing so).
You also don’t really have to restrict this to Commander. There's absolutely no reason why you can’t introduce a Planar Draft into a Constructed format or even Cube! If you like drafting, why not do two in one?
What Planes Do I Need to Play Planar Draft?
You can mix and match any planes from the over 130 printed. As previously mentioned, you generally need 16 per player, so in a four-person pod you’ll want at least 64. You can get away with fewer, though. Having only one of each plane is strongly recommended, but there’s no real harm in having duplicates as long as everyone knows what’s in the pile before drafting and the duplicates are sufficiently “generic.”
You could theme the planes to something specific, such as only using Doctor Who cards, or keeping it within the Magic IP if Universes Beyond isn’t your thing. It’s as flexible as any other part of Magic, and who doesn’t want to summon Gandalf on Gallifrey?
What Are the Best Planes to Use for Planar Draft?
As with any curated list of cards, be it a deck, a cube, or just a collection, personal tastes come into what's the ‘best’ of anything. For a quick guide, check out our rankings of the best planes, but I definitely encourage you to take a moment to look through the full list of cards. The newer planes introduced in March of the Machine and Doctor Who have been designed with more of a multiplayer/Commander focus, and you might find that these work better in pod play. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the original Planechase planes.
Where can I get Planechase Cards?
Planechase Anthology
The original Planechase set is difficult to find in stores now, but can still be found second-hand online, in trade and sale groups on Facebook, or if you’re lucky on somewhere like eBay and Amazon. The 2016 Planechase Anthlogy includes all of the original Planechase decks combined in one product, but it can be fairly expensive these days.
- Out of the box, the game is ready for two to four players to throw down in a game of free-for-all Magic with one big twist: you're actively walking across the many planes of Magic throughout the game, and each plane has its own rule-shifting effects.
- Planechase Anthology manages to collect tomes of Magic history and lore and pack them into one compact Magic experience.
- Four ready-to-play 60-card decks from Planechase (2012 Edition), each with eight rare cards
- 86 oversized Planar cards, including 78 plane cards and 8 phenomenon cards
Commander Precons
The newer ones come bundled with Commander decks from March of the Machine and Doctor Who, and can often still be found at your LGS as they’re pretty recent printings. Players who don’t play Planechase (yet!) are usually happy to flip their planes to recoup some of the costs of the deck and you can, of course, buy the planes individually on your singles sites such as TCGplayer, Cardmarket, or individual stores.
- Bundle of all 5 March of the Machine Commander Decks, with 1 Growing Threat, 1 Cavalry Charge, 1 Call for Backup, 1 Divine Convocation, and 1 Tinker Time
- Each deck set contains a 100-card ready-to-play deck (2 Traditional Foil + 98 nonfoil cards), plus 10 Planechase cards and 1 planar die to trigger unique abilities and jump across the Multiverse
- 2-card Collector Booster Sample Packs—each deck comes with a sample pack containing 2 special treatment cards from the March of the Machine main set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare and at least 1 Traditional Foil card
- Introducing 50 never-before-seen MTG cards to Commander—10 in each deck
- Accessories included with each deck—1 Foil-Etched Display Commander, 10 double-sided tokens, Life Tracker, and deck box
Wrap Up
The Fertile Lands of Saulvinia | Illustration by Lorenzo Lanfranconi
Planechase was all but forgotten by most Magic players for the longest time, but its rediscovery has brought out curiosity in players trying to find a way to use planes in their normal Magic games. Planar Draft is genuinely the best way I’ve heard of involving them, and it’s not just because of my love of drafting!
Combining the ease of inclusion of ‘Big Pile’ Planechase gameplay with the fun and decision-making of having your own Planar deck, Planar Draft is something I’d recommend you give a go if you have some planes lying around (or a pile of paper and a printer, of course!). Exploring some more of the flavor of the Magic multiverse (or Who universe!) whilst getting some games in is a win-win.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this very brief introduction to a super fun alternative way to play with your favorite Commander decks. Have you played this format before? Or used Planes in another way? Tell us about it down below in the comments and let us know some of the crazy interactions you've had on our Draftsim Twitter/X.
Until next time, may all your rolls be chaotic!
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