"Elder Dragon Highlander," is played with the Singleton format (in other words, except for basic lands, each card in your deck must have a different name), and each player starts with a life total of 40 rather than the usual 20.

Most importantly, the centerpiece of each deck is a legendary creature that serves as that deck's commander. To build a deck, you first choose a legendary creature, called a "commander" or "general," then construct a Singleton deck around it containing exactly 99 other cards. Only cards of the commander's color(s) and colorless cards may be included in the deck.  In fact, if a card contains a mana symbol anywhere on it that's not one of your commander's colors, you can't include it in that deck! Within the game, if you would add mana to your mana pool that's a color not shared by your commander, you get colorless mana instead.

Your commander works differently from other cards in the game. Before the game begins, each player removes his or her commander from the game. You may play your commander from the removed-from-the-game zone (no matter how it got there) for its normal costs plus an additional {2} for each previous time it has been played this way. If your commander would go to the graveyard from anywhere, you may remove it from the game instead. In addition to the normal Magic loss conditions, if a player is dealt 21 points of combat damage from a single commander over the course of the game, that player loses the game!

 

Gnome Games will host a few of these great games in December then start a Elder Dragon Highlander League in January!