TL;DR: Pauper Duel Commander (1v1 / PDC) rules won’t be listed on this site anymore.
Back in 2022, we were approached by a diverse group of players from various countries that wanted to better establish rules for playing Pauper Commander as a 1v1 format. The PDH Home Base team has always aimed our rules at 4-player games, so we agreed to host the rules the PDC group developed on the PDH Home Base website because of the overlap in communities. The idea was for them to always be an independent rules body that would eventually grow a large enough following to split off into their own site and community spaces.
Thankfully, the PDH community has been relatively free of controversies and format schisms over what the rules are. Unfortunately, however, the PDC community does have some power struggles going on. The group that we originally worked with has fractured, and now multiple groups are passionately promoting competing rule sets. We (the Home Base team) find ourselves at an impasse regarding who’s PDC rules, if anyone’s, we should be hosting and promoting. Just because we are the recognized authority on 4-player rules doesn’t mean we want to or should decide who the authority is on 1v1 rules. As a result, we are removing the 1v1 rules section from the Home Base site to avoid taking sides.
For archival purposes and for anyone interested in trying to pick up the pieces in the future, the last set of PDC rules that was hosted here was the same as the 4-player PDH rules, except:
- 25 life
- No commander damage
- No free mulligan
- The player going first does not draw on their first turn.
And the ban list consisted of:
- Agent of the Shadow Thieves
- Esior, Wardwing Familiar
- Loyal Apprentice
- Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh
- Oubliette
- All cards that bring a sticker or an Attraction into the game