Magic: The Gathering‘s Commander Rules Committee (CRC) recently announced the banning of four cards from the Commander format, sending a shockwave of controversy through the player base. Commander is a unique, casual format of play in which each participant builds a deck of 100 cards, all centered on a single, powerful MTG commander. The Commander format (sometimes called by its old name Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH) encourages distinct creative playstyles, many of which border on the overpowered. Because Commander decks can be both preconstructed or perfected over time, it’s become a popular format with seasoned collectors and casual players alike.
As a casual, welcoming format, it’s rare for Commander to expand on its banlist at all. It’s even rarer for it to ban four different cards at a time, especially so many that were bound to cause controversy. The resulting outrage has led to a pair of petitions regarding the bans; one to overturn them, and one to fire the members of the Commander Rules Committee responsible for enacting the bans. The CRC also claims that its members have received threats of violence, of which no one is deserving over bans in a card game.
Every New Banned Card For MTG’s Commander Format
And Why They Were Banned
The four Magic: The Gathering cards banned from the Commander format on September 23, 2024, are:
- Dockside Extortionist
- Jeweled Lotus
- Mana Crypt
- Nadu, Winged Wisdom
Now, it’s worth noting that a large percentage of the player base has long since been clamoring for Dockside Extortionist and Nadu to be banned. Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt were unexpected, though, and have since become the main source of controversy. An FAQ document published by the Commander Rules Committee on X (formerly Twitter) explains the rules for all four bans.
Dockside in particular can generate multiple treasures easily and early, which might allow the player controlling it to pull off overpowered, mid-to-late-game plays in the first couple of turns. Nadu, meanwhile, is inexpensive to play and incredibly powerful. The player controlling it may also wind up taking very long turns, during which other players have few chances to interact, which can create drawn-out, boring games. While some may be upset by these bans, they’re aimed at removing cards that allow players to get too powerful too quickly, or create unpleasant games, and thus are generally accepted as beneficial.
Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus were both banned because they can create fast starts, allowing their players to rack up tons of mana very quickly. This allows them to use powerful abilities in the early game, leading to steamroll victories. These cards do have downsides, but the CRC ruled that they insufficiently offset their power. For example, Mana Crypt decreases the player’s life by an average of 1.5 points per turn, but since the Commander format only lasts a few turns, and players start with higher overall life points (40 verus Standard’s 20), this was deemed “not a significant deterrent.”
Of course, these bans only apply to officially sanctioned Commander events; if a group of friends casually getting together to play Commander wants to continue using one or more of them, that’s their right. Certain cards are also only banned in Commander – Dockside Extortionist, for example, is still permissible in other formats. Still, these bans have caused a great deal of controversy for several reasons.
Why Players Are Upset Over MTG Commander’s New Banned Cards
Sunken Cost, Similarity, & “Casual” Concerns
First and foremost, many players are upset at the bans because they can no longer use cards they’ve already paid for. Magic cards are expensive, even more so when buying individual cards, and even more so when buying chase rares like these. They’re hard to resell, too, without losing a significant amount of money. When a card is banned in any format, demand for it (and by extension, its price) tends to go down. Players may have spent hundreds of dollars on Mana Crypt or Jeweled Lotus while they were still viable for Commander, only to find out they’re no longer usable or salable.
New, rare versions of both Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt have also been released in the past year, in the
Commander Masters
and
Ixalan
sets respectively.
Some players have accused the CRC of liquidating their own copies of the banned cards just prior to the ban, in a sort of Magic: The Gathering twist on insider trading. The CRC’s FAQ denies these accusations, claiming that it has a “zero-tolerance policy for abusing knowledge of pending or potential changes.” Still others have accused the CRC of banning these cards specifically because of their steep prices, which it also denies.
Part of the controversy also comes from a lack of advance notice, which, the CRC admits, it could’ve handled better. While it formerly used a “watch list” to warn of proposed bans, it noticed that this slowed down the process of banning problem cards, upset players when proposed changes were reversed, and made it easier to take advantage of casual players who didn’t understand its inner workings. The CRC is considering the possibility of providing ample warning before future bans with those caveats in mind.
In a similar vein, many players criticize the CRC for rolling out these bans too quickly. Banning one card at a time is more common, and results in smaller losses for players who rely on these cards. However, the CRC admits, it decided to ban all four at once in order to send a strong message about the kinds of issues it hopes to avoid in Commander play.
Some have accused the CRC of catering to casual players with the latest bans. Although it’s a casual format by design, there is a community around competitive Commander, commonly called cEDH, some members of which feel alienated by the latest bans. To some extent, this is true; its FAQ states that “high-powered play ‘leaking’ into lower power groups is a recurring problem” that it hopes to avoid in part with these bans.
However, this is nothing new for Commander, which has always been designed to be welcoming to new players. The FAQ continues, “We have always been very clear that we would make changes based on helping casual players have the best play experience.”
Finally, some players have also pointed out that the CRC has yet to ban other problem cards, including those that are strikingly similar to the new bans. Cards like Thassa’s Oracle and Gaea’s Cradle can similarly lead to premature wins. Many have also discussed similarities between permissible cards like Sol Ring and Mana Vault, and the newly banned cards. These have similar functions and costs, so it’s difficult to understand why some of them have been banned and others haven’t.
What The Petitions Against MTG Commander’s Bans Mean
Overturning Bans & Firing The CRC
The controversy surrounding the recent Commander bans has sparked two separate online petitions, each gathering thousands of signatures. The first, posted to Change.org on the day of the bans, calls for the changes to be reversed. It has over 4,700 signatures of its goal of 5,000 at the time of writing. The second, also posted the same day via Change.org, calls for the Commander Rules Committee to be fired. It has over 1,100 of its goal of 1,500 signatures at the time of writing.
It’s worth noting that the CRC isn’t part of MTG‘s publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Commander is a player-created format, and as such, its governing body is composed of independent players, not paid employees. The petitioners seem to prefer that Wizards of the Coast take over Commander officially, but it’s unclear who would actually be doing the firing.
Ultimately, for whatever reason they’re upset, it’s clear large swathes of the community just don’t feel heard by the Commander Rules Committee. Still, the governing body has already stated that it has no plans to reverse these changes. Magic: The Gathering‘s Commander format will eventually recover from these changes, but some players will likely remain bitter for a long time to come.
Source: Commander Rules Committee/X, Change.org (1, 2)
