Formats and Sub-Formats Supported
Format and Sub Format are two separate dropdowns on the record-game form, and they answer different questions. Format is what you were playing. Sub format is how the table was arranged. Together with the player count they decide which decks you can pick and how much the result moves everyone's rating.
Formats
Ten options: EDH, Standard, Historic, Pioneer, Brawl, Historic Brawl, Pauper, Pauper EDH, Draft, and Pack War.
The format you choose filters the deck dropdowns underneath it. A deck saved as EDH will not appear on a Pauper game, so if a player's deck is missing from their list, the format on the deck and the format on the game have drifted apart.
Competitive Commander does not have its own entry. A cEDH game is recorded as EDH, and what makes a league competitive is its rules and its members rather than a separate format — Running a cEDH League covers that in full.
Sub-formats
Seven options, describing the shape of the table:
- Multiplayer — the default. A free-for-all with one winner. Most Commander pods are this.
- 1v1 — two players, one winner.
- Two Headed Giant — two teams of two sharing a life total. Tick both teammates as winners.
- Multi Two Headed Giant — the same idea with more than two teams.
- 3v3 — two teams of three. Three winners.
- Emperor — three-per-team with an emperor behind two generals.
- Sphere of Influence — for pods playing with a limited range of influence, where you interact only with the players nearest you.
Nothing enforces a shape. Nerd Leagues does not know the rules of Emperor and will not stop you recording five players in a 3v3 — the sub-format is a label on the game plus an input to the rating math, so pick the one you actually played and the numbers come out right.
Number of players
Two through twelve, four by default. This is the count that matters for ratings: the form works out how many sides were at the table from the player count and the number of winners you ticked, and that figure feeds both the ELO change and the +/- Spread. A win over five opponents is worth more than a win over one.
Choosing between them
Two cases people get wrong:
- A two-player Commander game is format EDH, sub-format 1v1 — not Multiplayer with the count set to 2.
- A team game needs every winning seat ticked, not just the player who dealt the last damage. One tick on a Two Headed Giant game rates it as though one person beat three.
Where to go next
How ELO Works on Nerd Leagues explains what the player count does to the size of a rating change. For a pod that always plays the same way, Running a Commander Pod League sets the format expectations up front.