Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois.  This week Thorne looks at Wizards of the Coast's recent announcement of the new Commander set.

First of all, a thank you to Ted Yee of Comic Land Toys and Games for his comments on last week’s column and I agree with his points.  Branding the events rather than the company works better from the retailer’s point of view.  Also, thanks to Wizards of the Coast, which emailed answering several of my concerns about the program and mentioned several unspecified promotional plans under consideration at the company.  I also really need to thank WotC for their timely announcement of the new Commander set as it gives me another topic about the company for this week.  Other companies, please take note.

For those who haven’t caught the latest news from WotC, Commander is the company’s new name for what players currently call Elder Dragon Highlander, and the company will start support for it with five Commander legal decks releasing next summer at $29.99 each.  Most stores should welcome the move to more official status for the format; Elder Dragon Highlander is the third most popular format for pay at Castle Perilous Games and Books, only beaten by Standard and Draft.

From WotC’s point of view, the name change to Commander needed to occur, likely for two reasons.  The first is that Commander more clearly describes the format than does Elder Dragon Highlander; that name does sound much cooler.  The name doesn’t have the same immediate recognition that terms like Draft and Standard do, even among players who play regularly.  I have lost track of the number of customers who spot the store’s EDH binder and ask what it is for.

The second reason is due to copyright/trademark concerns.  There’s also a Highlander trading card game out there, originally published by Thunder Castle Games (and using one of the most elegant game mechanics of any TCG ever published), as well as the Highlander movies.  Unfortunately, Thunder Castle Games is long gone and the movie franchise is currently defunct, but at least one other company has tried to publish Highlander, so I’m not certain what the status of the rights are.  Likely, WotC decided that retailing the name Elder Dragon Highlander for the format was not as important as keeping the format and avoiding a messy lawsuit from whomever currently holds the rights.  Don’t think it would happen?  Look at the history of Apple Records vs. Apple Computer lawsuits, which sued and countersued each other over trademark infringement ever since the launch of Apple Computers.  The argument Apple Records made was that a consumer could reasonably confuse Apple Computers with Apple Records and that, to avoid this, Apple Computers should change its name.  Usually the suits wound up with Apple Computers paying a fee to Apple Records while admitting no liability.  The suits got even more heated when Apple, no longer Apple Computers, launched first iTunes, then the iPod.  Now more of a music company, the fees and fines got larger and Apple Records refused to license Beatles music for download on iTunes.  It’s only in the past couple of weeks that the three-decade-long legal battle came to an end with the companies declaring a truce and the Beatles coming to iTunes.

While not likely that whoever currently holds the Highlander trademark, either for TCG or movie, would mount a lawsuit against the company, I’m betting WotC decided that the name change was the better part of valor, so to speak.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.