Comprehensive Rules

906 Tiny Leaders

906.1 – In the Tiny Leaders variant of Magic: the Gathering, each deck is led by a legendary creature designated as that deck's commander. This format’s rules are maintained by an independent rules committee, who can be contacted via email at: overlords.TL@gmail.com; on Discord at https://discord.gg/zuKcyBsU7h; or by direct messaging the Tiny Leaders Facebook page, or Reddit moderators at https://facebook.com/r/TinyLeaders and https://reddit.com/r/TinyLeaders respectively.

906.2 – The Tiny Leaders format is a two-player format. It may also use multiplayer rules, in which case the default format is multiplayer Free-for-All, see 806 “Free-for-All Variant”.

906.3 – Each deck has a legendary creature who represents the deck and is accessible to its owner from the beginning of the game. This card is called the commander. This is not a characteristic of the card, rather it is an attribute of the card. A commander that is a copy of another card is still a commander, and a card copying a commander doesn't copy being a commander. This creature also determines which cards may be played in the deck – see 903.4

906.4 Tiny Leaders uses the concept of colour identity (see 903.4 for a complete explanation of colour identity). In short, the colour identity of a card is the colour of each mana symbol on that card, any colour granted by a characteristic defining ability, and the colour of any colour indicators on that card. A Tiny Leaders commander or partner pair may have a maximum of three (3) colours in their colour identity.

906.5 Each Tiny Leaders deck is subject to the following deck construction rules.

906.5a Each deck must contain exactly 50 cards, including its commander(s).

906.5b Each card must have a converted mana cost of three or less. Cards with {x} in their mana cost count X as zero for this purpose. Split cards are legal only if the combined converted mana cost of both halves is 3 or less mana.

906.5c Other than basic lands, each card in a Tiny Leaders deck must have a different English name.

906.5d A card can be included in a Tiny Leaders deck only if every colour in its colour identity is also found in the colour identity of the deck’s commander(s).

906.5e A card with a basic land type can be included in a Tiny Leaders deck only if every colour of mana it could produce is also found in the colour identity of the deck’s commander(s).

906.5f Each player may also have a sideboard (see rule 100.4), which may contain no more than ten cards. The singleton rule (906.5c) applies to both the combined deck and sideboard.

906.6 At the beginning of the game, each player places their commander face up in the command zone where it is visible to all players. Then each player shuffles the cards in their library so that the position of no card can be determined by either player.

906.7 The starting player is then determined by any mutually agreeable random method. Once the starting player has been determined, each player’s life total becomes 20 and each player draws a hand of seven cards.

906.8 Players may then mulligan (see 103.4). Each player draws a number of cards equal to their starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player’s starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with their initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether they will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles the cards in their hand back into their library, draws a new hand of cards equal to their starting hand size, then puts a number of those cards equal to the number of times that player has taken a mulligan on the bottom of their library in any order. Once a player chooses not to take a mulligan, the remaining cards become that player’s opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. A player can take mulligans until their opening hand would be zero cards, after which they may not take further mulligans.

906.9 A player may cast their commander(s) from the command zone.

906.9a Players must pay an additional {2} to cast their commander(s) from the command zone for each time that commander has been cast from the command zone that game.

906.10 If a commander would enter any zone from anywhere, its owner may choose to place it in the command zone instead.

906.11 If a card is put into the exile zone face-down, and a player may look at that card, that player does so. If that card is a commander owned by another player, that player reveals that card and puts it into the command zone. If that card is their commander, they may reveal it, if they do they may put it in the command zone.


Authors: Matthew Turnbull- Level 2 Judge, Steven Hamonic