Why Do Commander Games Run Long? More Turns or Slower Turns

The short answer

Both, but slower turn cycles mattered more than extra turns. Our longest games did go a few turns further. The larger gap was that each trip around the table took nearly twice as long. And about a tenth of all turns ate a third of the clock.

Questions players are asking

• Why do some Commander games take two hours?
• Are long EDH games caused by too many turns or slow turns?
• How long should a turn take in Commander?
• How can a pod speed up Commander games without rushing anyone?

Anonymized PodLog data

• 5.5 to 10.1 min per cycle — Four-player games: Shortest quarter of games to longest. The median game grew from 36.7 to 121.1 minutes, while turns went from 7 to 11.
• 3.7 to 7.7 min per cycle — Three-player games: Shortest quarter of games to longest. The median game grew from 27.1 to 91.1 minutes, while turns went from 8 to 11.
• 34.0% of the clock — Turns over five minutes: They were 9.2% of 3,451 timed turns. The median turn took 1.3 minutes.

Anonymized sample: 140 completed Commander games from one rotating PodLog group with a gameplay clock and a final turn count, February 27 through October 9, 2026: 79 three-player and 61 four-player games. Games were split into quarters by length within each table size. A turn cycle is one trip around the table. Single-turn figures come from 3,451 timed turns in 126 games; a turn timer includes other players' responses during that turn. These results describe this group, not Commander as a whole.

Two ways a game gets long

A Commander game can run long because it goes a lot of turns, or because each turn takes a long time. They feel the same at 11pm. They are different problems with different fixes.

Our earlier look at game length found that a typical game took about an hour and that games reaching turn 11 ran well past that. This time we split the clock in two: how many turns the game went, and how many minutes each trip around the table took.

The longest games were slower more than they were longer

We sorted our four-player games by length and compared the shortest quarter with the longest. The shortest had a median of 7 turns and 36.7 minutes. The longest had 11 turns and 121.1 minutes.

Four more turns is a real difference, 57% more. But the time per turn cycle went from 5.5 minutes to 10.1, which is 84% more. Three-player games showed the same shape more sharply: turns rose from 8 to 11, while the time per cycle more than doubled, from 3.7 minutes to 7.7.

• Four players, shortest quarter: 7 turns, 36.7 minutes, 5.5 minutes per cycle.
• Four players, longest quarter: 11 turns, 121.1 minutes, 10.1 minutes per cycle.
• Three players, shortest quarter: 8 turns, 27.1 minutes, 3.7 minutes per cycle.
• Three players, longest quarter: 11 turns, 91.1 minutes, 7.7 minutes per cycle.

Same ten turns, 27 minutes apart

The middle of our four-player games made the point on its own. The second and third quarters both had a median of 10 turns. One took 60.1 minutes and the other 87.3.

Nothing about the turn count explains that. Those games simply moved at different speeds, 6.4 minutes per cycle against 8.8.

A tenth of the turns took a third of the time

Looking at single turns, most were quick. Across 3,451 timed turns the median was 1.3 minutes, and 42.5% finished in under a minute.

The slow ones did the damage. Only 9.2% of turns ran longer than five minutes, and together they used 34.0% of all the time on the clock. A game does not need everyone to be slow. It needs a handful of very long turns.

A long turn is not automatically one player's fault. The timer runs while opponents respond, while a board wipe gets sorted out, and while the table works through a pile of triggers. It tells you when the game slowed down, not who slowed it.

What a pod can do about it

If your games are long because they go many turns, the fix is in the decks: more ways to close a game out, fewer resets. If they are long because the turns are slow, the fix is at the table.

For slow turns, the useful habits are small. Plan your turn during other people's. Announce a long sequence as one action when the outcome is clear. Keep triggers in a visible order. And when a turn is going to take a while, say so, so the rest of the table can go and get a drink.

Where this leaves the table

For our group, long games were mostly slow games. They went a few more turns, but the bigger change was the pace of each trip around the table, and a small share of very long turns did much of it.

Before your pod bans a deck for making games drag, check which problem you have. A game clock and a turn count will tell you whether to change the decks or the habits.