The Ultimate Guide to PreDH

Last updated on March 14, 2024

Ancestral Recall | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

It’s often said that Commander is Magic’s most popular format, but increased popularity often comes with increased scrutiny. Just ask any female pop star from the last 20 years. It seems for every player that likes Wizards’ increased focus on the format, there’s one that misses how things used to be, and they sometimes have a good point.

Modern Commander has some qualities that take away from the original intent of the format. What used to be a casual place to use some of your underpowered pet cards is becoming increasingly competitive. As more cards are printed specifically for the format, deck construction is also becoming more monolithic. Not only does this cut down on the number of unique creative builds, but it also means certain cards like Dockside Extortionist cost insane amounts of money. Suddenly this “casual” format is costing the same or more than Standard or Modern.

Luckily, some players who miss the old days of Commander have found a solution: PreDH. This new fan-made format seeks to correct some of these more common complaints and create an atmosphere similar to when the format just started. As someone who misses my Reaper King deck’s ability to keep up, I’ve definitely found this format to be a nice change of pace. If you’re looking for a good Commander alternative, I’ll tell you exactly how PreDH works and why it might be the format for you!

What Is PreDH?

Cast Through Time | Illustration by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai

PreDH is a variant of Commander that doesn’t allow cards printed after New Phyrexia. This set was specifically chosen because it was the last one before Wizards of the Coast started officially recognizing Commander as a format. This meant there weren’t a bunch of legendary creatures being printed with Commander in mind, nor were there any Commander-exclusive cards.

Who Is PreDH For?

PreDH’s primary audience is people who miss Commander as a more casual format. Maybe there’s an old deck you wish could still compete, or you just aren’t a fan of super pushed Commander cards like Jeweled Lotus or Fierce Guardianship.

Of course, nostalgia isn’t the only attractive quality of PreDH. Anyone who’s looking for a unique deck-building challenge or would rather comb through their bulk than EDHREC will likely be excited by PreDH. It can be a lot of fun to see some of the wacky builds people come up with when there isn’t an obvious roadmap to victory.

PreDH-Legal Sets

All sets up until New Phyrexia are legal, with a few exceptions. Since PreDH uses the same ban list as Commander for now, you can’t use any cards from any of the Un-sets, even those printed before 2011.

PreDH Rules

PreDH uses the same rules as Commander. The only difference is the cards you’re allowed to use.

PreDH Ban List

PreDH also uses the same ban list as Commander, though a few cards on the list are already out just because they were printed after New Phyrexia. Players can’t use cards with silver borders, gold borders, or acorn stamps. The ban list for PreDH is:

• Ancestral Recall
• Balance
• Biorhythm
• Black Lotus
• Braids, Cabal Minion
• Channel
• Chaos Orb
• Coalition Victory
• Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• Falling Star
• Fastbond
• Flash
• Gifts Ungiven
• Iona, Shield of Emeria
• Karakas
• Library of Alexandria
• Limited Resources
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Panoptic Mirror
• Primeval Titan
• Prophet of Kruphix
• Recurring Nightmare
• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
• Shahrazad
• Sway of the Stars
• Sundering Titan
• Sylvan Primordial
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Tinker
• Tolarian Academy
• Trade Secrets
• Yawgmoth's Bargain

Additionally, any cards referring to the ante mechanic, cards with the conspiracy type, and cards removed by Wizards for sensitivity issues are all banned.

Where to Play PreDH

As of right now, PreDH hasn’t really carved out a big enough niche for itself to be played as its own format. This makes it both easier and more difficult to play, depending on your preferred method of finding games.

If you’re playing Commander online, whether through MTGO or third-party clients like Xmage and Cockatrice, you can play PreDH in Commander lobbies. Just set up the game like you’re going to play Commander, title it PreDH so people know what the deck building restrictions are, and you’re good to go. The only real issue is if someone either misunderstands or intentionally breaks the deck building rules since there isn’t a built-in way to prevent those cards being included as of now.

PreDH can be a bit harder to play in person than online. Sure, you can play your PreDH decks at any local Commander night, but it can be hard to find a pod that’s all running PreDH decks. If you aren’t attending with an established play group, try bringing a typical Commander deck as well as your PreDH deck to the event. Alternatively, if you have four PreDH decks, you can always suggest trying it out for a game once you’ve sat down with other people to play with.

It’s also worth checking if any of your local stores are running PreDH events specifically. Though I couldn’t find any in my area, there’s always a chance a store near you might be trying to set itself apart by running unique events. You can also try talking to the staff at your local store and see if they’re willing to organize anything.

PreDH Decks

Borborygmos

Borborygmos | Illustration by Todd Lockwood

This Borborygmos deck is a great example of a simple PreDH build. This deck is built around stompy creatures and ways to give them meaningful upgrades. Cards like Anger help you to attack more quickly with big creatures and cards like Greater Good allow you to benefit from your strong creatures in other ways.

You’ll see big creatures here like Pelakka Wurm and Knollspine Dragon which don’t see as much play anymore due to power creep. Not only can it be fun to play with different cards than the ones you see all the time, these cards are both dirt cheap since they aren’t as competitive.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth | Illustration by Michael Komarck

This Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck is a good build if you’re looking to test out a PreDH build that you might later convert to Commander. Plenty of the cards here like It That Betrays, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, and Wurmcoil Engine still see a decent amount of play in normal EDH, meaning this deck won’t feel like a waste if you aren’t feeling the format.

This deck includes a lot of colorless ramp since your mana curve on creatures is pretty steep. This helps you to cast your commander and other bombs like Pathrazer of Ulamog faster than the 10 or 11 turns you’d have to wait with just lands. They can also help cast major spells like All Is Dust or Karn Liberated, the latter of which is very powerful in PreDH thanks to there being less planeswalker removal.

Phelddagrif

Phelddagrif | Illustration by Amy Weber

Phelddagrif embodies everything that’s appealing to me about PreDH. The first time I learned about the Commander format was from another player at an LGS telling a funny story about his friend’s deck that was purely focused on giving other people hippos. It very much came from a place of liking a card and wanting to make a deck around it instead of choosing which commander was most optimized for a given strategy.

This Phelddagrif deck is a bit more powerful than one that just gives your opponents tokens. Cards like Angel's Trumpet encourage players to attack, while cards like Propaganda and Ghostly Prison mean they’re less likely to attack you. This way you can spam out a bunch of Hippo tokens and watch your opponents fight with them while you remain relatively safe.

Getting Started with PreDH

For veteran Commander players, getting started with PreDH might be as easy as dusting off an old deck. But if you’re looking to get into PreDH for the first time, there are some tools to help get started.

While there are no precons to buy, you can easily find PreDH builds on sites like MoxField. If you’re looking to build your own decks, Scryfall makes it very easy to check if a card is PreDH legal or not. Simply type in “f:predh” then put a space and any card name and if it shows up, it’s legal in the format. You can also search for PreDH commanders by typing “f:predh t:legendary t:creature” into the bar. You don’t have to worry about there being any exceptions like planeswalker commanders, since Commander didn’t yet exist and there were no planeswalker commanders.

If you aren’t completely sold on PreDH, one good way to simply test it out without sinking too much money in is by choosing a commander that still sees play in current Commander. For example, Sen Triplets and Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker still see a good amount of play and are also PreDH legal.

If you do this for a color identity and theme that you already have staples for, you can easily convert this deck into a normal Commander deck later if you don’t enjoy PreDH. For example, Rhys the Redeemed is a PreDH legal commander who still sees play. If you already have modern cards like Anointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus, you can easily make your PreDH Rhys deck into a decent Commander deck later on.

PreDH Products

The idea of there being any Wizards of the Coast products printed specifically for PreDH would kind of defeat the purpose of the format. I also couldn’t find any third-party sellers selling any PreDH products like preconstructed decks.

That said, any accessories you might buy for Commander are the same you could use for PreDH, like command zone mats or individual command zone accessories.

PreDH Communities

PreDH is still a relatively new format to Magic. It started making waves in February 2023 after Brian David-Marshall and Sheldon Menery tweeted about it and invited players to check it out at MagicCon: Philadelphia.

Probably the best place to find other players interested in PreDH is on the Commander Rules Committee's Discord channel. The channel has a separate chat channel specifically dedicated to PreDH where you can talk deck building ideas and more with other players. As of right now, there are also some discussions of PreDH on r/EDH, as the format doesn’t have its own subreddit yet.

Wrap Up

Time Walk | Illustration by Chris Rahn

PreDH is a format dedicated to recapturing the magic of old school Commander. By taking out format staples, players are forced to be a bit more creative with their builds. While you certainly can still make powerful PreDH decks, a big appeal of the format is to revisit not just the pre-Commander card pool, but also the old deck building ethos that was more about fun builds using cards that didn’t have a home in other formats.

Do you have any PreDH commander recommendations? Do you think the format can help reshape the way players approach deck building? Let me know in the comments, or on Draftsim’s Twitter/X.

Thank you for reading and I’ll catch you next time!