No. Commander tax counts how many times you have cast your commander from the command zone this game — full stop. The tax is two generic man...
No. Commander tax counts how many times you have cast your commander from the command zone this game — full stop. The tax is two generic mana for each previous cast from the command zone, and that count does not care where the commander has been in between. A trip to your hand, the graveyard, exile, or the library changes the commander's location, never the count.
The example card, read exactly
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan — Legendary Creature — Human Warrior (mana cost {1}{B}{G}):
Reyhan enters with three +1/+1 counters on it.
Whenever a creature you control dies or is put into the command zone, if it had one or more +1/+1 counters on it, you may put that many +1/+1 counters on target creature.
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner.)
Rules answers live and die on exact wording, which is why every card named on this page can be checked in the MTGBrew card database before you rely on it at a table.
How it plays out, step by step
Follow one commander through a game. You cast it from the command zone for its normal cost — count zero. It dies; you let it fall to the graveyard, then later return it to the command zone and cast it again, paying two extra — count one. This time it is bounced to your hand. From your hand you may cast it for its normal cost, because commander tax only applies to casts from the command zone — but if it returns to the command zone and you cast it from there again, the count is still one, so the tax is still two extra. The count also survives a commander changing zones a dozen times; it is a property of the game state, not of the card's current address.
When you build around interactions like this, the MTGBrew AI deck builder keeps the list honest — and the MTGBrew Learn guides collect more of these plain-English rules walk-throughs in one place.
If this topic is on your bench, keep going with Morophon, the Boundless Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins — it covers the neighbouring decisions from a different angle, and the two pieces together give you a fuller picture than either one alone.
The short version
Follow one commander through a game. Everything else in this article is the working-out — and at a real table, the working-out is what settles the argument, so walk the steps in order and let the text of the cards involved make the final call.
Keep reading
Keep reading: Morophon, the Boundless Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins and Guardian Project in Commander: What It Does and Which Decks Want It.
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