Side Event: Oathbreaker Constructed

Friday at 6 pm and Sunday at noon

Featured TO: Josh Nelson, MTG writer and Oathbreaker community leader

• Oathbreaker Constructed format
• $20
• 3 rounds
• 45 mins. per round (3-hour event accounting for time on the round)
• 3-4 players per pod
• Prizes tickets based on final record

Welcome, Planeswalkers, to Commander Sealed’s Oathbreaker side event! In this casual event, players will assume the roles of the most powerful beings in the known Magic: The Gathering Multiverse as they vie for supreme victory over one another!

Players will bring their own Constructed Oathbreaker decks and duel each other in four multiplayer rounds each timed to 45 minutes, going to time if necessary.

To create an Oathbreaker deck, the rules are well-defined as such:

• Your deck’s color identity, similarly to Commander, is defined by the color identity of an Oathbreaker card (a Planeswalker card).
• Additionally, your Oathbreaker deck contains a Signature Spell, which will be an instant or sorcery card within the color identity of your Oathbreaker.
• The size of your deck is 58 in your library, plus 1 Oathbreaker and 1 Signature Spell, for a total deck size of 60.

Please refer to the Oathbreaker banlist (https://oathbreakermtg.org/banned-list/) for more information on banned cards. However, the following cards will also be banned as your Oathbreaker*:

• Narset, Parter of Veils
• Will Kenrith
• Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
• Jeska, Thrice Reborn
• Rowan Kenrith
• Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Furthermore, the following cards are banned from being your Signature Spell*:

• The Elderspell
• Jeska’s Will
• Mana Geyser
• Rousing Refrain

Finally, the following cards are banned outright at this event*:

• Mox Diamond
• Mox Amber
• Mox Opal
• Lotus Petal
• Chrome Mox
• Mana Geyser 

Please refer to the Oathbreaker website (https://oathbreakermtg.org/rules/) for more information on the rules of the format, but here are the details of Oathbreaker play:

• Each player begins the game with 20 life. The Oathbreaker and Signature Spell begin the game in their player’s Command Zone.
• Each time an Oathbreaker is cast from the Command Zone, it will cost 2 generic mana more for each time it has been cast from the Command Zone previously. This is also true of their Signature Spell.
• A player may only cast their Oathbreaker’s Signature Spell if they control that Oathbreaker. A Signature Spell can only exist in the Command Zone or on the stack, and therefore if it would normally leave the stack, it returns to the Command Zone.
• There is no Commander damage in this format, but any reference to a player’s Commander refers instead to their Oathbreaker (a Signature Spell is not an Oathbreaker).

*: The philosophy of banning these cards from this event is to foster a slightly more casual environment and allowing players to use their decks. Cards like Narset, Parter of Veils and The Elderspell are often seen as overly oppressive for the consistency of the Command Zone, while fast mana spells like Jeska’s Will, Mana Geyser, and Rousing Refrain are likely too aggressively powerful for such an environment to be allowed there either. As such, we are banning these as cards in the Command Zone, but you may add them to your deck if you so choose.

Furthermore, the boost in tempo of having 2 Oathbreakers, each with their own Signature Spell, is magnified more in this format than in Commander. Normally, this means that a player using partner Oathbreakers only has 56 cards in their library, adding to their deck’s consistency, which is considerably higher than Commander with partners, which yields 98 cards in the player’s library. To that extent we are banning partner Oathbreakers from this event, though you may add them to your decks.

Regarding fast mana such as the Moxen and Lotus Petal, these cards cannot be cast from the Command Zone but essentially equate to mana positive spells. Because of this speeding decks up to a certain undesirable point, we are banning these cards outright as well.

Finally, Shorikai, Genesis Engine is a card that, due to its wording, allows itself to be your Oathbreaker. However, as it is not a planeswalker card, this skirts the fundamentals of the format to a major degree. As such, we are banning Shorikai, Genesis Engine from being a player’s Oathbreaker.