As Commander Week wraps up on Daily MTG, we’d like to reveal our biggest surprise yet – a new variant to the Commander format! Elder Dragon Highlander Extreme (EDHX) is super exciting, and you will be able to get products for it starting in August of 2011.

Extreme: To the Max!

You can probably tell that EDHX is extreme, but why is it that way? We’ve removed all of the dusty old rules for no-fun-havers, and replaced them with interesting, insightful, interactive rules that just make more sense. We hope you’re as excited about this new format as we are, because frankly, we’re frustrated by the stagnant and restrictive EDH rules that were dropped in our laps.

Card Restrictions: Breed Creativity

You get 200 cards and an Extreme General. Each card must be unique! The general has to be a Legendary Creature.

Bonus extreme rule: You can have two Kawasaki Samurai if they are your Extreme Generals, as well as any number of Relentless Rats, and up to seven Squadron Hawks.

Color Identity: It’s me, God. What color am I?

Each card has a color identity tied within its mana symbols and text, but sometimes things aren’t so clear. What about snow and Phyrexian mana? Hybrid mana? Purple mana? This is an easy area to be confused about, so we’ve redone everything. The only thing that stays the same is that the color identity of your Extreme General has to be the same as every other card in your deck.

Every spell has a cost – imagine paying that cost! It turns out, sometimes you can pay it in different ways. All you have to do is choose one of the legal ways, and lock that in as part of the color identity of the card. This means that hybrid can be either or both colors, alternate costs can go either way, and Phyrexian mana can be treated as colorless – but only if your general includes life payments as part of its color identity.

Costs as part of abilities on a card also count as part of the color identity, with a couple of caveats. If no one is ever known to have used an ability, ever, then you can skip over it. Armorer Guildmage’s green ability is an example of one of these. Remember, if you skip over one of the abilities, you have to cross it off with a marker.

If an ability is actually paid by your opponent, such as that on Quenchable Fire, then your opponent has to play with a General that includes that color. This rule is included for fairness, because wildfires are a serious problem, and if left unchecked, many people could become homeless.

Get a Life: I wonder how many times people wrote that in MTG articles?

Players in a game of EDHX start with 29 life, and take 14 poison counters to become poisoned.

Summoning your Extreme General: A new creature is born!

Your Extreme General starts in the Extreme zone, and you can summon it as if it was in your hand. Each time your General dies, put it back into the Extreme zone – unless it died in a really lame way, like to Snakeform and a 1/1 Citizen token.

Each successive time that you summon your Extreme General from the Extreme zone, it costs an additional 2 colorless mana.

Extreme Generals do an additional type of damage to players – not only does the helpless defending player take regular combat damage, but they get Extreme General Face Ouch tokens, one for each Extreme General damage. (A player with 17 or more Extreme General Face Ouch tokens loses the game.)

FAQ

Q: What is EDHX?

A: Elder Dragon Highlander EXTREME.

Q: Like EDH, but EXTREME?

A: Yes.

Q: In EDHX, can I use a Sharpie to change my general’s name to “He Hate Me”?

A: Of Course!

Additional Rules

• Players must have a glass of liquid next to their deck at all times (no lids or sippy cups)
• Rickety card tables are optional, but recommended
• You have to play with Planechase and Archenemy cards
• … and Vanguard
• … and Old Vanguard
• The entire time you must have both feet standing on a skateboard
• Life totals must be kept on over-sized 30-sided dice
• At all times you must have a slim jim in your mouth
• If your deck falls over, each card becomes all Chaos Orbs
• For each game you must have a separate general
• You start with 1 additional life per foil card in your deck
• To determine who goes first, hold a round-robin arm-wrestling tournament
• If you only have one card in your hand you have to shout Uno
• You start with 15 cards in your hand
• You can play unglued cards, but only if their mana symbols match EXACTLY to your Extreme General
• At the end of each turn, you must assume form of the something, and strike the appropriate pose
• Whenever there’s a coin flip, you have to use a POG slammer instead of a coin
• If a card is exiled, it is dipped in your glass of liquid
• Rhys, the Exiled starts in your glass
• Whenever you sacrifice a creature to Devouring Strossus or Doomgape, you must eat it
• If you would create a copy of a spell or a token that is a copy of a permanent, you must immediately produce another actual copy of the chosen card or else the copied spell or token is not created.

Bannings

• No sleeves allowed (on cards or shirts)
• Commons are banned, except in some cases
• Edged weapons (Maces and nunchaku are encouraged)
• All other spells are legal in the main deck, except Shahrazad
• Shahrazad is automatically cast when your life hits 20, then again when it hits 10
• Subgames are played in the nude
• 60-card decks are banned in EDHX, except for the event deck that has two Stoneforge Mystics