Starting Column
Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.
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What it does
Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)
T: Add one mana of any color.
Max speed — T, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw two cards, then discard a card.
Rulings
6 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.
- 2025-02-07
If an effect needs to know what a player’s speed is and that player doesn’t have a speed, their speed is considered 0.
- 2025-02-07
Your speed doesn’t change until a spell or ability says so, such as the inherent triggered ability that cares about opponents losing life during your turn. Notably, losing control of permanents with start your engines! doesn’t affect your speed.
- 2025-02-07
“Max speed — [ability]” means “As long as you have max speed, this object has [ability].” If the granted ability functions in a zone other than the battlefield, the max speed ability does too.
- 2025-02-07
Start your engines! isn’t a triggered ability. Increasing your speed to 1 is something that happens as a state-based action as soon as you control a permanent with the ability. Notably, this includes gaining control of a permanent with the ability that another player controls.
- 2025-02-07
Each player tracks their speed (or lack thereof) separately. Increasing your speed has no effect on whether another player has speed.
- 2025-02-07
A player “has max speed” if their speed is 4.
Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.
In the 99
Every deck whose current list includes Starting Column, whatever its commander.
Every version of Starting Column
1 printing, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.
- Normal
- $0.24
- Foil
- $0.33
Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Starting Column — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.
Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.
