Kingdoms EDH: the hidden-role Commander variant, explained

Kingdoms takes a normal Commander pod and gives almost everyone a secret job. One player is the Monarch and is out in the open. Somebody wants to keep them alive, two people want them dead, one wants to kill them and take the crown, and one is only there to win. Nobody knows who is who, so the game is half Magic and half bluffing.

It is a fan-made variant, so there’s no official rulebook. Everything below follows the two best-known write-ups, Robin Kaas’s Kingdoms article on EDHREC (2017) and Draftsim’s Kingdoms guide, which agree on the roles, the setup and the Usurper swap. Where they leave a gap, this guide says so and suggests a ruling. The numbers that come from the real Comprehensive Rules (current to the September 2026 update) are marked with their rule numbers.

What Kingdoms is

Kingdoms is a free-for-all Commander game with hidden roles. You build a normal Commander deck, sit down with five other people, and each of you is dealt one basic land face down. The land is your role, and the role decides who you’re trying to protect, who you’re trying to kill and how you win.

Kaas calls it his favorite of all Commander variants and says it plays best with six players, though five works too. That matches how the roles are built: six lands, six roles, nobody left without a job. If you have a bigger group, our guide to hidden-role Treachery has role setups for up to eight players.

It sits next to a few other ways of changing the shape of a Commander game. The formats guide lists the main ones, and Kingdoms belongs with them in the “casual variants” corner.

What you need

• Six players, or five without the Usurper.
• A Commander deck each. Both write-ups start from the normal Commander ban list, and Draftsim suggests groups can unban cards by rule 0.
• Six basic lands: one Plains, one Forest, one Swamp, one Island and two Mountain.
• A way to track life where one player starts at 50. Pen and paper works, a life counter is easier with six people.

Setup

Shuffle the six lands face down and deal one to each player. Everyone looks at their own land and keeps it hidden. The player holding the Plains turns it face up. That player is the Monarch, takes the first turn and starts at 50 life. Everybody else starts at 40.

The Monarch starting at 50 instead of the regular Commander 40 is the only change to starting life. Normal Commander starts every player at 40 (rule 903.7). If you want to compare it with the other formats, starting life in every MTG format has the full table.

The roles and how each one wins

Monarch (Plains)

You’re the target. Your role is public from turn one, you go first, and you have 10 more life than anyone. You win if every other player is eliminated. There’s one exception: if the Knight is the only other player left, the Knight reveals their Forest and the two of you win together.

The Monarch’s job is working out who the Knight is, because that’s the only player guaranteed to be on your side. Everybody knows who you are from turn one, so you win by talking as much as by playing.

Knight (Forest)

You win by being the last player left alive alongside the Monarch. The Knight is the only role that doesn’t want the Monarch dead, so everyone at the table will claim to be the Knight. Kaas points this out directly, and it’s why “I’m the Knight” is worth very little at a Kingdoms table. Your job is to protect the Monarch without making it obvious that’s what you’re doing, and to knock out the Bandits and the Assassin.

Bandits (Mountain, two players)

You win the moment the Monarch is eliminated, unless the Usurper did it, in which case the swap happens instead (more on that below). Both Bandits win together, but you don’t know who your partner is. That makes Bandit the hardest role to play. Attacking the Monarch draws hostility from the whole table, and the Knight is there to defend them. Kaas notes that attacking a player who isn’t the Monarch rarely draws the same heat, so Bandits often start there.

Assassin (Swamp)

You win when every other player is eliminated. You’re alone, and you want the board to thin out before you commit. Kaas says the Assassin tends to go after the other players first.

There’s a gap here. If the Monarch dies, the Bandits win immediately, which ends the game before the Assassin can be last. So an Assassin who wants to win has to remove both Bandits before the Monarch falls, or make sure the Usurper swap changes who the Monarch is. Neither write-up says what happens if both Bandits are already out when the Monarch dies. The sensible ruling is that eliminated Bandits can’t win, so the Assassin’s real plan is to clear the Bandits first and then finish the Monarch. Agree on that before you start.

Usurper (Island)

You win by dealing the killing blow to the Monarch, either with combat damage or another effect like milling. When you do it you don’t end the game. You take the crown:

• You become the new Monarch and your life total is set to 50.
• The old Monarch stays in the game, becomes the Usurper, and drops to 1 life.
• Win conditions carry over with the roles, so the Bandits now want the new Monarch dead and the Knight is now protecting you.

That swap is the best part of Kingdoms. A game that looks over starts again, and the old Monarch is suddenly a 1-life player who has to work out who just betrayed them.

How a game plays out

Secrecy. The Monarch is the only role that’s public at the start. Everyone else keeps their land hidden until the game ends. That includes eliminated players: the write-ups say a player isn’t allowed to reveal their role even when they’re out, apart from a few exceptions. The Bandits reveal when the Monarch dies, and the Knight reveals when the game comes down to the last two. Treachery works the other way. There an eliminated player’s identity is shown to the table (rule 907.13 in the Treachery rules), which is a big reason the two feel different. In Kingdoms, a dead player’s role stays a mystery.

Attacking. Nothing limits who you may attack, so it’s all politics. Attacking the Monarch announces that you’re probably a Bandit or the Usurper, which is why so many players hit everyone else first.

Life totals and damage. All the usual Commander loss conditions still apply. A player at 0 or less life loses (rule 704.5a), a player with ten or more poison counters loses (rule 704.5c, covered in poison counters), and commander damage works as normal:

903.10a A player who’s been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

That last one matters a lot in a game with a 50-life Monarch. Fifty life takes a long time to chew through, and commander damage is often the cleanest way to bring it down. Our commander damage guide covers how it’s counted, including partners and backgrounds.

Conceding. A player can concede at any time and leaves the game immediately (rule 104.3a). In a hidden-role game, that has real consequences. If the Monarch concedes, they’re out of the game, so the sensible ruling is that the Bandits win. Decide at the start whether a conceding Monarch counts as dying.

Playing with five players

Take out the Usurper. You deal from Plains, Forest, Swamp and two Mountains, and the roles work exactly as above, but there’s no swap and the Monarch’s death always means the Bandits win. That makes the Monarch’s death a clean ending: the Bandits win and the game is over.

Rules gaps worth settling before you play

Since there’s no official rulebook, these come up at almost every table:

1. What counts as the “killing blow”? Draftsim says combat damage or another effect, with milling as its example. The cleanest reading is that the Usurper has to be the player whose damage, effect or ability ended the Monarch. If someone else ends them, the swap doesn’t happen and it’s the Bandits’ win.
2. Who gets credit for a combined blow? If the Usurper and a Bandit both hit the Monarch in the same combat, the sources don’t say. A fair rule: whoever’s damage took the Monarch to 0 or below.
3. What if the Usurper is already out? Then there’s no swap, and the Monarch’s death is a plain Bandit win.
4. Do eliminated Bandits still win? As above, we suggest no, which gives the Assassin a real path to victory.
5. Life after the swap. The new Monarch is set to exactly 50, whatever they had before, and the old Monarch is left at exactly 1.

These are table rulings, not facts from a source, so treat them as suggestions and agree on them first.

Monarch the role vs the monarch designation

Magic has its own mechanic called the monarch (rule 725): the monarch draws an extra card at their end step and loses the title when a creature deals combat damage to them. A Kingdoms Monarch is a different thing. It’s a role, not a designation, and playing a card that says “you become the monarch” doesn’t make you the Kingdoms Monarch or change your role.

The names collide, though. Queen Marchesa and Palace Jailer both say “you become the monarch” when they enter, and at a Kingdoms table someone will ask whether that makes you the Monarch. It doesn’t. Our monarch guide covers how stealing works, and the initiative is the same idea with a dungeon. When you explain the rules to new players, say “the Monarch role” for the land and “the monarch” for the card mechanic.

Building a deck for Kingdoms

You don’t know your role when you sit down, which shapes what a good deck looks like. The write-ups agree on a few things:

• Pick a flexible deck. Kaas says non-linear decks are more flexible. Combo decks built around one engine, like Nekusar, the Mindrazer or Purphoros, God of the Forge, have a hard time in a game that’s mostly diplomacy.
• Avoid decks that end the game by force. A deck that can eliminate the whole table in one turn makes the hidden roles pointless, and you may be the wrong role when you do it.
• Think defensively. Most roles want to survive until late in the game. Draftsim suggests Ghostly Prison, Propaganda and Asceticism. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda both say creatures can’t attack you unless their controller pays for each attacking creature, which makes you a less attractive target without drawing attention.
• Staples are fine. Sol Ring goes in everything, Kingdoms included.
• Watch edict effects. Kaas’s example deck uses cards like Merciless Executioner, Fleshbag Marauder, Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos. They make every opponent sacrifice a creature, and in Kingdoms that includes the Monarch, who will not thank you. Kaas calls them tough to play for exactly that reason.
• Fog effects have a role. Spore Frog can protect the Monarch (or you) from a lethal combat once.
• Typal decks are cheap. Draftsim points out that tribal decks build strong boards without much investment, which suits a game where you need to be threatening but not terrifying.

How strong the decks should be is a separate conversation. If your group uses Commander brackets, match the bracket across the table before role deals matter. A hidden-role game with one bracket 4 deck and five bracket 2 decks isn’t hidden for long.

Kingdoms vs Treachery

Both formats give every player a secret role, so people mix them up. They’re built differently:

Kingdoms is the quicker one to set up. You need six basic lands and no printing. Treachery is the deeper one, with 62 identity cards and a lot more going on once someone unveils. If your group likes bluffing and doesn’t want to learn card abilities, start with Kingdoms. If they want unveils and surprises, go with Treachery.

Keeping track at the table

Kingdoms is a normal Commander game with one player at 50 life, and with six players you’re tracking six life totals, plus commander damage, which is how a lot of these games end. The hidden roles themselves live on paper, in the lands you dealt.

Lotus doesn’t have a Kingdoms mode. Its Treachery mode deals Treachery’s identity cards, not these five roles, so for Kingdoms you still deal the lands by hand. What it does do is the counting. Tap a player’s life total and type a new number to set it, which is how you give the Monarch 50, and how you do the Usurper swap in a couple of taps (50 for the new Monarch, 1 for the old one). It tracks commander damage per commander for every seat and knocks a player out at 21 damage from one commander or at 10 poison, for up to 10 players. Commander games can also be tagged as Shogun in the game history.