Rules

Aetherbound uses the Commander rules in full. The only change is the card pool, and that pool has no Universes Beyond cards.

Deck construction

  1. 100 cards exactly, including your commander.
  2. Your commander must be a legendary creature (or a card that says it can be your commander). Partner and similar pairing rules work as in Commander, as long as both cards are Aetherbound legal.
  3. Singleton. No more than one copy of any card except basic lands and cards that say a deck can have any number (or a set number) of them.
  4. Color identity. Every card's color identity must fit within your commander's color identity.
  5. Every card must be in the Aetherbound pool (see below) and not on the banlist.
  6. No Universes Beyond. No card from Universes Beyond may be your commander or appear in your deck.

No Universes Beyond. Ever.

Aetherbound is Magic's own multiverse and nothing else. Every Universes Beyond card is banned, no matter which product it came from, including Universes Beyond sets that were Standard legal like Final Fantasy, Marvel's Spider-Man, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel Super Heroes, The Hobbit, and Star Trek.

Magic cards that were reprinted inside a Universes Beyond product are still fine, because the card itself comes from a legal Magic set. A Sol Ring from a Lord of the Rings Commander deck is still just a Sol Ring. What's out is every card that exists only because of Universes Beyond.

The card pool

A card is in the Aetherbound pool if it has at least one paper printing in either:

Pre-Standard sets

The sets released before the Standard format existed: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Revised, Legends, The Dark, and Fallen Empires.

Standard-legal sets

Any set that was legal in Standard at any point in Magic's history, from Fourth Edition and Ice Age to today's newest release.

Reprints don't matter, origin does. Once a card is in the pool, any printing of it is fine to play. Sol Ring from a Commander precon is legal because Sol Ring was printed in Alpha. A card whose only printings are in Modern Horizons, a Masters set, or a Commander product is not legal, even if you own it.

Always excluded

Game rules

  1. Each player starts at 40 life.
  2. Your commander starts in the command zone. You may cast it from there, paying {2} more for each previous time you've cast it from the command zone this game.
  3. If your commander would go to your graveyard or exile, you may put it into the command zone instead.
  4. A player who has been dealt 21 or more combat damage by a single commander loses the game.
  5. Free-for-all multiplayer is the standard way to play. One-on-one games work too.

Banlist

Aetherbound follows the official Commander banlist, plus any Aetherbound-specific changes. See the banlist page for the current list.