On September 23, 2024, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) announced a ban on several cards, including Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Nadu, Winged Wisdom, and Conspiracy. These cards are usually banned from play if they enable a deck or play style that heavily skews the play environment.
There are 45 cards officially banned in EDH, including Conspiracy, Ante, and offensive cards. While Conspiracy cards are not legal in Commander, players can still explore them in casual playgroups. MTG Conspiracy cards, including Adriana’s Valor, are banned in Commander and all other MTG formats.
Conspiracy is not legal for any sanctioned Constructed format, although they are legal in sanctioned Limited formats. However, Conspiracy and Conspiracy: Take the Crown booster packs are not allowed to be used in competitive level Sealed deck/booster draft events. All of Conspiracy is legal in Legacy and Commander, with the exception of the Conspiracy card types.
Supplementary sets like Conspiracy, Commander, or Planechase do not, and new cards from those sets are only legal in Legacy and Vintage. Assassin’s Creed has restrictions in various formats, including Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander.
In conclusion, the announcement of these bans has caused millions of sought-after cards to become worthless in the Commander format. Players should consider the potential benefits of Commander games with conspiracies, but it is important to note that all cards are essentially free value and start in the Command Zone.
📹 Absolutely Bonkers Commander Bans
Today’s bans are actually wild. Did not expect that. If you want to pre-order cards or decks from Duskmourn – why not check out …
Is Urza banned in Commander?
The following cards are prohibited from being used as commanders: Tasigur, the Golden Fang; Urza, the Lord High Artificer; and Vial Smasher the Fierce.
What editions are legal in Commander?
Since the game’s inception, all Magic: The Gathering sets have been permitted in the Commander format, thereby ensuring both enjoyment and unpredictability. It should be noted, however, that 25 cards bearing the “Conspiracy” card type are prohibited from being used in the context of legal Commander play.
Why is Black Lotus banned?
The Power Nine card, known for its power and limited print, is banned from most competitive Magic formats due to its power and scarcity. The only competitive setting where it is not banned is the “Vintage” format, where only one copy is allowed. The card was omitted from Revised Edition and none have been published in any subsequent set. Its power and limited print have made it the most expensive Magic card, with mint condition Alpha cards being among the most valued.
Publisher Wizards of the Coast stated that the card would not be reprinted, which would hurt its value among collectors. The 30th Anniversary set published by Wizards of the Coast in 2023 reprinted 15 cards from the original set, including Black Lotus, which are proxy cards with unique backs and use a modern card frame instead of the classic frame from the original version.
Is any card legal in Commander?
The Commander card pool includes all Magic cards released by Wizards of the Coast, except for those with silver, gold, or acorn-shaped security stamps. These cards are legal to play with as of their sets’ prerelease. However, the official banned list for Commander games requires prior agreement from other players and may guide playgroups to avoid similar cards. Short explanations for each banned card can be found by clicking on them, but these are not exhaustive and serve as a high-level overview of the experiences each card creates in Commander.
What are the rules for conspiracy?
In the United States, conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime or achieve a legal end through illegal actions. This law typically does not require proof of specific intent to harm any specific person, but rather that the conspirators have agreed to engage in a specific illegal act. However, the application of conspiracy laws requires a tacit agreement among group members to commit a crime. In most U. S. jurisdictions, a person must be convicted of conspiracy if they agree to commit a crime and at least one of the conspirators commits an overt act in furtherance of the crime.
However, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that this element is not required under the federal drug conspiracy statute, 21 U. S. C. section 846. Conspirators can be guilty even if they do not know the identity of the other members of the conspiracy.
Are any UN cards legal in Commander?
Unfinity is a distinctive set that is permitted in Eternal formats like Commander. Additionally, cards lacking an acorn stamp on the bottom are entirely legal in Magic’s most popular format, which distinguishes it as a unique offering.
Is LOTR legal in Commander?
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™ cards with the LTR set code are allowed in the Modern format, Commander, Legacy, and Vintage formats. New Commander cards with the LTC set code are allowed in the Commander, Legacy, and Vintage formats. The release notes have been updated to include cards from Scene Boxes and Jumpstart Volume 2, releasing November 3, 2023. The release notes also provide clarifications and rulings relating to the Magic: The Gathering set, aiming to make playing with new cards more enjoyable by clearing up common misconceptions and confusion caused by new mechanics and interactions. As future sets are released, some of the information may become outdated.
Is the MTG conspiracy card legal?
Conspiracies are a card type found in the Conspiracy sets, which start the game in the command zone and can contain hidden or double agendas. They are not allowed in the deck, but can be placed in the command zone as the game begins. Conspiracies do not count as cards in the deck for meeting minimum deck size requirements, and players can view any player’s face-up and face-down conspiracies at any time. A conspiracy’s static and triggered abilities function as long as it is face-up in the command zone. Conspiracies have no mana cost and cannot be cast as spells.
Despite being legal in sanctioned Constructed formats, Conspiracy and Conspiracy: Take the Crown’s booster packs are not allowed in competitive level Sealed deck/booster draft events. In hindsight, Mark Rosewater would have preferred Conspiracies to be silver-bordered/Acorn. Conspiracies are not allowed in any sanctioned Constructed format, and their booster packs are not allowed in competitive level Sealed deck/booster draft events.
Is Edric banned in Commander?
It should be noted that the individual in question is not prohibited from participating in the game in commander mode; however, they are only permitted to do so in 1v1 mode if they adhere to the established French rules. The player rating represents the overall assessment of the card, taking into account the collective input of all players through the rating system. Nevertheless, the majority of individuals engaged in playgroups do not perceive Back to Basics as degenerate and Fastbond as non-degenerate. Consequently, they do not consider it appropriate to instruct others in the game of Magic.
Can I use conspiracy cards in Commander?
Conspiracy, a set of cards released in Magic Online, was not included in the original set Unhinged. Instead, a subset of new cards, not of the “Conspiracy” type or having draft-related ability, were featured in the Magic Online exclusive set Vintage Masters. Nineteen cards not of the “Conspiracy” type or having draft-related ability are still not available on Magic Online. In 2016, Wizards of the Coast announced a sequel, Conspiracy: Take the Crown, which was previously known as Conspiracy: The Reign of Brago and Conspiracy: The Empty Throne.
The set features drafts of six to eight players, split into two groups for a free-for-all. Card mechanics focus on the adjusted draft format, such as Cogwork Librarian’s effect, which allows players to exchange cards for different drafted cards. A new card type, Conspiracy, was introduced, providing bonus effects at no mana cost. A new Planeswalker character, Dack Fayden, was introduced, marking the character’s debut on a card.
What cards are allowed in a Commander deck?
The Commander format is a casual multiplayer format for Magic: the Gathering, centered around a legendary creature called the commander. Each player’s deck must contain exactly 100 cards, including the commander(s), and no cards in the player’s deck can have a color identity that does not match or is not a subset of the commander(s). The Commander variant is usually played in casual Free-for-All multiplayer games, although two-player games are also popular.
Each player starts at 40 life, and their deck is headed by a legendary creature designated as the commander. A player’s choice of commander determines which other cards can be played in the deck, except for basic lands.
📹 EDH Banned Cards Tier List | Ranking Every Banned Card in Commander #mtg
Mtg #trinketmage #thetrinketmage I’m sure I’ll get a lot of disagreement in the comments, but I am glad to hear it! Songs are all …
It’s worth noting that all 3 of the big cards were reprinted last year, with jeweled lotus in CMM, and dockside+mana crypt in LCI. It’s likely the RC wanted these bans for a while, but weren’t able to with the upcoming product using these chase cards for marketing, and had to wait for them to be far enough behind us to take action. I don’t know the timeline but these bans could have been set as far back as 2022 but held back.
As someone who owns 3+ Docksides and a Nadu, I really don’t feel bad for myself or anyone else. The game pieces were expensive to buy, sure. I’m “out” 150+ CAD now but I was never going to sell anyways. The price of the card only matters the second you cash out, not before and not after. All this really did was allow me to add Fear of Missing Out to my commander deck and a different treasure generator/dice roller to Mr. House. One less generically powerful auto include card makes more room for a more on-theme addition.
If there is one thing I’ve learned from these bans, it’s that the Commander community (EDH and cEDH alike) is much more fractured on what bannings in the format is supposed to accomplish than I initially thought. When nothing happens, the RC gets shit for being stagnant. But if they commit to a decision and direction, it feels like a third of the playerbase will rise up, tearing at them for ruining what they think the format should be.
I didn’t buy lotus and dockside as an investment, I’m just a new player who made the mistake of building a cedh deck 🫠 very upset by this. The fast pace of the game was what I was enjoying the most, you could always rule 0 these out if your pod wanted to have a slower game. Such a beautiful card jeweled lotus is too what a shame.
I am very unhappy with this and I might reconsider if I pay attention to the Commander Rules Comitee altogether, unless it is for rules changes (I dont see the banlist as part of the rules). The reason is simple: All cards have different floors regarding power-level, but the ceiling depends on the player and the pod. Everybody can break any card if they want to break it. I own a Mana Crypt and a Jeweled Lotus, both in a single deck. That deck has Darien, King of Kjeldor as a commander and the reason for those includes is just simply the high mana cost of the commander, specially if he gets removed. For Mana Crypt, I was specially happy because I found a place where the damage to yourself made sense (Darien gives you soldiers). Guess what: the most broken card in the deck is neither of those, but Strixhaven Stadium. Jeweled Lotus I have never casted really except once and it did nothing (I do not tutor in any way). Mana Crypt, while powerful, more often than not just drained my life-total away.
So… We can agree that the problem is not what cards have been banned but rather the RC’s philosophy right? They argued that commander is about creativity, but that creativity must be represented in slower decks. So… For people who like faster games, RC is kinda saying that optimizing style creativity is not quite for EDH. And that’s not really cool on their side. I was an advocate for the removal of fast mana for years. Me own group had forbidden all of them. We latter expanded and became the only magic format in the LGS and for that point onwards we just asked people (particularly new people) how did they play and what they wanted to play. And, you know, ir worked. With some exceptions, of course, but it worked. A bunch of us eventually picked up cEDH as a thing to play from time to time but as it’s own things with it’s own decks. And still, worked. I do not belive this banlist is good, not because those cards are getting banned, as one of the points of cEDH is to get the most out of the resources you can get. So the format will just change and adapt. But I do not like the RC’s philosophy. Many people claimed they did nothing, but sometimes less is more and if the alternative to nothing is to enforce specific playstyles based on their idea of what the format should be, then inaction is better than action. That being said, I’m interested in what Jim from spike feeders have to say, owing that he is part of the RC
I feel like the Rules Committee have painted themselves into a corner with saying that every game/pod/table/LGS should have a Rule 0 list or discussion, and that their banlist is just signposts, BUT THEN ALSO having a ban list. If you have a ban list, make a ban list and curate it frequently and clearly. If you have a suggestions list then you’re just another group of players and your suggestions shouldn’t hold the weight to cause such a drastic change.
I feel so, SO bad for my local game store. They’re kinda small,and i recently just sold my extra docksides and jeweled Lotus to them. (2 each) I felt i didn’t need multiple when i could shuffle my one real copy between decks and the owner was happy to get some big cards to flip. Now this smaller store is stuck with cards that will most likely NEVER go back up to the prices they were at.
As someone who is slowly perusal one of their most valuable cards just free fall (mana crypt) i can honestly say that i feel like it both sucks and is a relief… i love the card and wanted to play it so i bought one years ago… when it was more appropiate for decks at the time but after moving and going to a newer lgs where people are mostly playing precons and stuff its kinda a relief cause i was kinda torn on putting it into decks or finding decks that i could reasonably feel like if i got the magical christmas land start that i wouldnt feel bad… and while i am losing money even as i type this i think that the discourse has gone on long enough and that the cards being banned today are ultimately better to leave the format as a whole then continuing to continue to push the power level of even the most casual of decks…. so yeah im sad im inevitably going to lose money on the deal but the wider effect of this banning will hopefully send a message to wizards that people dont want these cards in OUR format… its NOT their format… Player created and player maintained format… stop printing obvious staples into OUR format and allow it to grow organically like it was when the format started… just stop wotc… just stahp!
I will miss playing Phyrexian Metamorph to copy my friend’s Dockside, then Sculpting Steel to copy mine, but I’m still happy to see it go. Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus are surprising, though. Nadu is Nadu and is the premier example of “Don’t design cards for Commander, let cards find their home in Commander.”
So, the Lost Caverns of Ixalan set just got released 10 months ago containing SEVEN super-sexy reprints of Mana Crypt that have been selling anywhere from $200 all the way up to $3,200 on TCGP, along with a ton of Collector Boosters I’d guess, only to ban that hallmark card less that a year later? I know Nadu had a shorter life span, and the Wizards have already admitted their mistake regarding that one, but it doesn’t have a ton of different printings for it either, and it also hasn’t been around as long as the game itself. Slimy stuff right here folks.
I’m with you Vince. These cards haven’t changed, they’ve existed forever, but I guess the philosophy of the RC I suppose? Lucky enough to have opened my crypt and lotus during mystery booster and commander legends drafts, but it stings. I guess I’m just filled with some general hesitation and worry because I’ve traded into a Serra’s Sanctum and it holds a lot of sentimental and monetary value. I would hate to lose it. /: But I guess also it’s odd from a communication point too, I do remember them talking about potentially banning Dockside… Two or three quarterly updates ago I think?? But this strike down on fast mana seems out of nowhere. Great article man.
I agree with everything except for the part about Wizards being upset about losing reprint equity. You can’t tell me that there isn’t a line that if the committee crossed wizards wouldn’t veto and take full control of the format. The truth of the matter is that dockside was a design mistake, jeweled lotus was made intentionally bannable to push commander legends, and mana crypt is just a dated pre-edh overpowered card that wizards has already milked to death in the past decade. It’s clear by the modern horizons sets, they will just make “tribute” cards that are just nerfed versions of these. Let’s not forget that jeweled lotus is essentially a “tribute” black lotus in the first place. The rules committee should have shown some spine when jeweled lotus came out in the first place.
Kenobi identified the main issue that other content creators seem to be missing: these cards simply sat far too long without action by RC and were allowed to become highly sought after chase cards. It felt so sudden that cards sitting for years without any identification from RC that they were even remotely being looked at, let alone ban worthy. I hope RC learns from this and begins more aggressively taking action on any new cards printed that are obviously too busted or un fun for commander. I think Dockside and Lotus banning were inevitable over time as the format grew, and the RC should have realized they would eventually be too much to keep around and banned it much earlier before that point, saving many people and LGSs alot of money.
I agree with Crypt being the least offensive of the group, and I’m not entirely sold on the necessity of a ban on it. That said, I do get the reasoning on all of the bans and think the ban announcement is good for the casual side of the format. I do agree with the cEDH players saying that getting rid of Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, and Crypt guts a couple of strategies that compete with Oracle combo decks. Banning them risks making Oracle the only real solution to cEDH. Time will tell on all that, but it’s certainly a concern at the moment.
I think the biggest issue with the bans is that while all of the cards that were banned have problematic play lines no one was really indicating them as a problem in the format (dockside being an outlier here). However other cards that have been pointed out as real problems for gameplay and fun ex. Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study weren’t even mentioned as considerations.
Honestly, I own some of these and I am not even upset. Mind you, I never went and bought these cards, only opening them in packs. However, I am a big supporter of slower games with slower mana bases, so I wouldn’t have been upset if Sol Ring got the axe, though I would have been shocked for sure. I think it would have been nice if there was a watchlist of cards that the Commander Rules Committee (CRC) gave us so we have an idea of cards they are looking into banning, just so there is some warning. Like, if Nadu came out and was placed on the watchlist immediately, I don’t think many would go out and buy it as much, but then again, maybe the CRC wants to see how a card is played without any influence from them.
You seem to be one of the most level headed and logical people I’ve seen talk about this recent “drama”, even simply seeing the problem and pointing at WotC’s creating of cards and limiting their access instead of trying to blame the Commander Rules Committee for wanting a casual format to remain casual. Also, unlike most others, not getting confused and trying to state that RCR and WotC are separate one minute and then are the same the next. Bravo, and thanks for the great article!
The biggest of my complaints with this ban is their reasoning. There’s other fast mana that remain untouched. The game, via power creep, is just getting faster and faster even without fast mana, which makes their argument moot. 3 mana mana rocks aren’t as playable as they once were, a lot of decks don’t run any. Same with ramp spells. So blaming crypt and jeweled lotus for speeding up the format is just mental gymnastics. This ban just hurts cEDH and proves that the RC philosophy of Rule zero solves issues is a lie
So much gets me angry about these bans is that I’ve spent the last year or so building into a cEDH deck, and the only fast mana I had for it was Crypt and Lotus. I now don’t have a cEDH deck. I was barely hanging on in the pods I was playing and now its too strong for casual pods. The £2K+ i spent, opened and traded into feels wasted and the last year trying to get into a format feels wasted. I have no confidence in the CRC/CAG in how they run the format for cEDH anymore, It feels like were being told that we have to play casually or lose the effort we spent on deckbulding, it shoes that we need more cEDH players on the committee so that they don’t kill our format or make our own committee for cEDH The other thing that REALLY gets me angry about this is that WotC knew this was coming for months, and decided to include Commander Masters and Lost Caverns Collector boosters in the Festival in a Box. They knew these bans were coming, and included what would have otherwise been high value product that’s now worthless because the chase cards are no longer in the only format that they were legal in. Like squeezing the last few drops out of these cards before they stone cold unplayable.
Yeah it sucks financially for people that spent a lot of money on these cards but I think that fundamentally having really expensive cards that give a huge advantage sucks for everyone not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card. And a lot of people are not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card because if it gets banned or even reprinted you spent all that money for nothing.
I honestly saw this coming since Sheldon Menery passed. Not specifically these cards per say, but I knew the committee was going to become more proactive with bans, and maintaining the format. Just had to have a nice grace period to not come off as disrespectful to his memory by immediately upending things.
I remember when commander legends came out, me and 2 friends split 2 boxes, and we were all so glad no one got a JLo, bc it would have made the occasional game miserable. The likes of Apex Devastator, Scroll aracks reprint etc were welcome, but a card that was specifically designed as a chase for EDH was unwelcome to us then, and remains that now.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: can completely take out an entire player if they’re playing a mono deck. Tolarian Academy: unfairly extreme amount of mana for having artifacts. Mana crypt: makes two mana on a potential turn one. The ban list should be for cards that can ruin games or have such an immense unfair advantage. Mana crypt and Jeweled Lotus gives a slight advantage that can be more impactful in early games. This shouldn’t have been cards that were up for debate on banning. This hurts my trust for the rules committee.
My jaw hit the floor when I heard about this at work today. The LGS I work at dodged a bullet because we were bought out of all of those cards. (Well except nadu, but there wasn’t much value there.) It is legitimately insane that they banned all of these at the same time, and while I agree with the reasoning behind all of them, I think maybe these bans should have been stagnated.
Missed out on a Dockside literally this past Saturday because I was a little too late getting to the store. So happy that I missed it! Also, this seems insane to me that fast mana is the problem to the RC and yet the win condition of 60% of EDH decks being Thassa’s Oracle that they just refuse to touch.
My most beloved and sentimental card, my DCI (Judge Promo) Mana Crypt, is now unfortunately nothing but a pretty card to see every once in a while when I open my binder. Feel bad for all the people who only recently obtained cards like this, feel like they hit a milestone in their collection, only to be told that their most recent awesome pull or big buy was a bust.
Rough for the dedicated players. Seems like a monkeys paw case. People wanted commander to be managed and official, but also keep the same niche small town charm it had in the start. But you can’t have it both ways. The tighter commander lists get across the board, the more it pushes the “good fun time casual game here for 4 hours” players away from the format. You can not build a deck for a format when the laws of the format are different at every table, every time. EDH needs managed like any other format, OR it needs to remain unofficial with no dedicated precons and people just do it up like they used to. But you can’t do both.
Nadu was just a mistake, so let’s ignore that one. The other 3 were all egregious mana accelerants that had one thing that separates them from the last crazy multi turn mana accelerant (sol ring) – they were all near $100 or more. Everyone has a sol ring, almost everyone has multiple, and it’s like a dollar rare at this point. Everyone plays it, so everyone can get that crazy turn, but rarely in a 100 card singleton format. And then there’s the 3 that were banned. Crazy expensive, hard for the average player to afford, but with the recent reprints to all of them were showing up enough at local game stores to really start causing a problem. And yet they weren’t getting more accessible for the average player, all of them literally increased in price after their reprints. They were just getting more accessible for people with money who were beating up on everyone without money. And when playing all of those crazy mana accelerants, the rare “1 in a 100” turns weren’t all that rare anymore. I couldn’t be happier with these bans, and I’m someone who HAS a dockside that just got banned out of my favorite deck. I’ll slot something else in and enjoy better games all around.
Won’t be supporting wotc again they made there millions using jeweled lotus as the chase card in multiple sets and now that they made the money they ban it… jeweled is a literal coaster now terrible ban the other cards can have different homes in formats… will be proxying 100% of decks I build terrible precedent
The bannings hurt my collection since I had 4 Mana Crypts, 1 Masterpiece Mana Crypt, 3 Jeweled Lotus, and 2 Docksides. Overall, this stings since I collected them during their release, but overall I do accept this will make games more enjoyable from a non cEDH POV. Now I hug my Ancient Tombs and Mana Vaults more closely since those will start to see a spike left from the bannings.
I think the sol ring debate is not necessary at all, and they shouldnt have brought it up. Crypt is WAY better. Just because of: Explosive starts. With ONLY a sol ring in hand you can drop it t1 and make a 2 mana play without colored pip. With ONLY a mana crypt in hand you can drop it t1 and make a 3 mana play with 1 colored pip. Especially on the top end thats insane, but also in casual. you can play a cultivate for another ramp and secure another land drop. You can play a turn 1 chromatic lantern. You can a turn 1 thalia or other piece of tax, tocasias welcome. In competittive you can turn 1 rhystic study. Najeela. Malcolm. Sissay. Wheel. Basically the only thing you can cast of the sol ring is another piece of artifact ramp or a hate piece (like gravediggers cage or sth). There are not many advantage pieces for 2 colorless mana. Crypt will cast you a lot of great value pieces that start providing card advantage or secure other plays of yours. I think they are not even close. I agree that among the remaining fast mana cards probably sol ring is the best most of the time. There will be a mentionable ammount of situations where despite of the pitch card mox diamond or chrome mox are better, because they provide colored mana. But on avarage, its gonna be sol ring
I wonder what prompted such a big change from the RC? I’ve been following their updates over the past few years, and they’ve purposefully pointed out cards they are evaluating for potential bans. They could’ve easily said something along the lines of, “Nothing yet, but something big may happen at the next quarterly update!” The fact that no one expected this feels like a big middle finger to everyone. I’m curious to see if further communication comes out over the next couple days.
Card price problem can be fixed by the psychological realization that these are maybe 5 cents worth of cardboard and ink and if you had a printing shop with the right ink and press you could print your own and it would probably be hard to tell if it is a counterfeit. Maybe almost impossible if done right.
my big issue with these bans is the fact they printed alternate rare art versions of these cards THIS YEAR…. as people have said here in the comments when some new player or whatever opens up a collecter booster or buys a commander deck from the store thats been on the shelf for a year to find a card they cant use, what are they going to do, if they wanted to ban these cards they should have wait, stopped printing copies of the cards and banned them when it was more unlikely for the cards to be in rotation
These bans don’t go far enough. Yes people are mad about the money (I have multiple Mana Crypts and Docksides so I feel your pain). Can we please ban Thassa’s Oracle? How is that a fun card? I got to 3 mana so I win, shuffle up is a desirable play pattern? And if so why is Coalition Victory banned then? Thoracle is the worst win condition in the entire game. My friends also suggest banning the cards that make you win for having an empty library.
If they were really having those internal discussions about banning them they should have communicated that when they were announced as chase cards. They as stewards of the “by fans for fans” format should have said “were aware this is getting reprinted as a chase card in the next set but were going to be banning this in the upcoming ban list. adjust purchases accordingly” the fact they didn’t tells us they do not have fans or collectors best interests at heart and are at best an extension of WoTC that can and will happily take us for a ride
As a casual commander player, this ban announcement was a good one & overall a positive step for the format. We don’t need excess fast mana and turn 6 wins in the only casual mtg format! That being said; it is strange timing, there was definitely market manipulation/ insider trading, and it will impact how players spend their money in mtg. Truly being honest; if you were buying $70+ cards for a casual format, then you’re probably taking it too seriously. Precons are $40 and anyone can make a solid edh deck for sub $100. Choosing to play degenerate cards that see competitive play was a choice, not a necessity.
This reminds me of what LSS did when they banned strong game design/philosophy breaking cards recently. They got rid of cards that broke the intention of the game. I think the RC took a page out of their book and made their statement clear and the intentions known. I do think they could have gone harder on the bans, but they are likely testing the waters.
The part of this ban that really gets on my nerves is the undertone of “We need to slow down commander”. This ban hurts non-green decks the worst and won’t do much in regards to slowing them down at all. I play decks that are mostly high powered without being in the realm of CEDH and one of my favorites is mono-blue Azami, Lady of Scrolls. I was going to get a lotus or crypt so I could keep up with the green decks in my meta but at this point I guess my only option to buy a force of will and other counters and be the guy who counters the nature’s lore and other ramp they play to make it even. I honestly think this ban is going to do nothing good for the format and really just manage to annoy all the CEDH players who still use the same banned list. Honestly, if you want to slow down the format ban all the green ramp that costs less than three mana. Also, green is one of my favorite magic colors, I just figure if you are going to cite game speed as a reason for a ban, ban the right things. I have enjoyed the format lately and was okay with the RC not banning anything until Nadu released but even then banning cards because they are not fun for some people is not a way to go when Rule 0 is a thing.
I seriously cannot understand the anger arising from buying into expensive cards, that are expensive for being ludicrously powerful and then them getting banned for it. If that amount money is a serious investment for you, maybe you shouldn’t have bought into them in the first place. Mind you, this isn’t coming from a “The poors shouldn’t play MTG” perspective, but instead from a “Game pieces shouldn’t be this expensive”. If you decide to commit to speculative investment on an inherently volatile commodity and then can’t handle the red, you make terrible financial decisions. You’re just a delusional gambler at that point. Edit: As an addendum, I still really feel bad for the stores, though. Such losses shouldn’t make or break you and they are a cost of cost of the business, but getting shafted by purely third party driven market changes on a buy-in you practically have to make really stings.
Commented this on another vid about this, but Jeweled is LITERALLY black lotus, just for a commander, in a format where lotus is banned…and there’s a billion oppressive 3-4cmc commanders it can turn 1, yeah, it was numbered the second it was committed to cardboard. It was a card designed, printed and intended as a format-breaking chase card to sell product, and it was inevitably getting banned as one too. Mana crypt hurts more overall i think (At least it has 2 drawbacks, colorless only and damage potential) but it also has an additional step – a coin flip, and that is a game-slowing missable trigger in a game with potentially DOZENS of states to keep track of already. Edit: On the proxy comment as well, this kind of thing is the reason my playgroups have never allowed proxies (And never will) it’s always been more fun to just build with what we open from packs/boxes or have on hand than to just go “I’m running red, better proxy an extortionist” with every deck Our advice always has been if you’re gonna spend “Big” money on commander, just buy a couple boxes not super-expensive singles, if you get one cool, if you don’t, you still got a ton of stuff to build cool decks with. If you REALLLLLY like a certain commander and want to buy some absurdly expensive print version of it, go off, but cards like these (Crypt, exto, lotus) aren’t worth it.
It’s concerning that this, as the first banning since Sheldon’s death, hit a card that’s been in the format for over a decade. At best, it’s poor optics, at worst, it’s confirmation that he was the only reason it wasn’t banned sooner. If the goal of the bans was to slow down games and limit the amount of explosive starts, they should have banned two of the cards, and explained that they may hit more if they think they need to.
My local shop easily lost $1000 today. They are a small book store that offers magic on the side. This will hurt game shops a lot. I think a better idea would have been for the RC to float the idea of these bans and get player feedback. Lotus needed to go, but the rest was fine. They all needed a $40 unlimited printing secret lair.
The funny thing about this banning is, they had talked to wizards of the Coast personally a year before making this band and yet in the last year to six months, they have literally flooded the market with all four of these cards all four and now they’re on the band listand one of the commander advisor committee members is a CEDH player. All these cards are on the CEDH I have never once seen any of these cards played at any of my local LGS except for on a competitive night this is clearly a hit against competitive commander. They’re out to destroy the format
A format that is largely ruled by a handshake agreement by the players should not have heavy handed bans like this. As someone who was affected by these bans it makes me want to perform malicious compliance by creating decks that can win as fast as possible. At the end of the day there are countless ways to make unfun and fun decks. I strongly belive that a deck with the three banned cards in it could still be a 7 if you are building jank enough. Conversely decks with non of these cards can win extremely quickly or make the table miserable. The rules committee should not be the one who dictates which ways to have fun are okay and which ones are not.
Just want to say that official bans on a format that is entirely casual and that you play with your friends is utterly meaningless. My friends and I always end up rebalancing cards anyway if we feel they aren’t to our liking. We changed Nadu to be a hard twice per turn for example because we didn’t feel the card was fair. We changed the way atraxa grand unifier worked because it was too powerful. We buffed all vanilla cards to have some cool effect. For example scathe zombies has an effect where you can sacrifice a swamp to return it from your graveyard to your hand. We got rid of anything that allowed you to play it for free if you discard because we felt the mechanics were dumb. In fact we avoid most ways of cheating things out because we realized quickly that it was only fun for one person. I’m writing this to remind people that they aren’t stuck with playing the cards in the way wizards designed them. In a casual format you get to decide what’s allowed and how the cards work. You just need imagination and creativity. If your play group thinks a card is unfair or boring, redesign it. I have also been experimenting with putting lands in a separate deck and flipping one onto the battlefield each turn. My play group finds this to be much more fair as it gets rid of all the uses with mana screw and mana flood. It keeps bad luck from ruining the play experience of one player at the table who simply misses her land drops repeatedly while another player is bullying everyone because they didn’t.
This ban, imho will have a consequence. As a business owner, when a third party directly negatively impacts your business economics, there will be consequences. Not immediately, but if I was WOTC, I would begin to look at replacing the third party commander rules comm with something that the company could control. Lets extrapolate… if Dockside had been banned on Day 1 years ago, it would have meant that a PRE-CON would not have been legal in the format and millions of $$ of product would have been unsaleable…. I cannot see WOTC allowing such a vulnerability to exist in the long term. The rules comm have inadvertently weaponised their influence.
Its crazy because I could compete in my cedh pods. Now I need to pick up mox diamond, cradle, grim monolith and more expensive cards than what these cards were to play in the pods. Dockside being banned tips the scales severely in the color pool and removes a tooooon of diversity in decks. Jeweled lotus being banned destroys big commander diversity. We will see how this works. At this point i need to change every deck I own.
Welp, that draws it for me. I loved the fancy collectability of mtg and that’s what drew me to it. With hundreds of dollars out of my hands, I now realize how irrational and stupid my addiction to cracking packs and chasing cards was, and it’s gonna be hard to get rid of that addiction, but yeah, good luck to me I guess.
Theres two ways this can go. WOTC reprint less. Expensive explosive cards that are out of reach of 90% of players don’t get banned. Cradle and workshop are the go to examples. Scarcity and reserved list prestige keep them safe. Or everything gets reprinted into the dirt hurting consumer loyalty. Which I kinda think is what is happening now. I used to get excited about collecting that cool rare thing. Now everything is that cool rare thing. Reprint fatigue is at it’s highest. Personally if you have anything base valued at 100 – 300 get rid of it if it’s not rl. Proxy those if you have too, most people rule 0 allow proxies especially in cEDH. I haven’t played my real cradle and workshop and duals in years because it’s too much of a risk. Also i find low power more fun. The rules committee had to rip the band aid off eventually. 100% too late. Today is better than tomorrow. Now WOTC can’t throw another crypt in a standard set to sell packs. The bright side of bans is it puts the community spotlights on other cards that fill the void.
legit got a signed JL Friday. havent even drawn it in a game yet and it gets baned. Im no longer excited for new cards or cards i worked so hard to get. i preordered the new esper precon. these will be the last cards i ever buy. been playing since 1999. F the RC. i get Nadu but the other cards should have been banned years ago when they first came out or not at all. i worked so hard getting my MC, JL, and DE just to see them banned all at once.
For me accessibility is the most important factor. Having such absurdly expensive cards catapult players who can afford them so far ahead is just not healthy for the game. I think the rules committee needs to have a much, much heavier hand on this, and take things like Gaea’s Cradle, Mishra’s Workshop, and original duals out of the format. Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study at least get some reprints, but not enough to avoid at least having an eye kept on them. Yeah, bans are going to hurt players who’ve invested in these cards, but there’s no way out of this issue without problems, and maintaining the accessibility of the game is, in my opinion, much more important. There should also be a cedh ban list separate from the main one, so players who want that crazy, explosive kind of game can still have it.
Sol ring case is extremely simple. It already comes in every precon. You arent going to ban a card thats in every single precon cuz now you have to break bits off precons to make them legal for commander night and wotc is going to keep printing solring. If they tried banning solring they’d get a phonecall.
I’m happy with the ban for the format because the cards are so strong. I never played the deck I had lotus and dockside in because they made it too powerful for my table. Thankful I didn’t pay $100+ for either of the cards, I pulled lotus in commander legends and I got the dockside precon on sale at a gamestop. However, it does hurt knowing I could have sold them for a couple hundred… I could definitely use that money right now. edit to say: I definitely will be joining the proxy group for expensive cards. also looking at all my other pricey cards that i own and thinking of selling, rhystic study price keeps rising…
Hopefully this comment gains traction here as the RC deleted it when I posted it a few mins ago. I have followed the RC chat all day since the ban announcement and the locking of the other websites to keep the discussion in one place. My comment was I believe that is there is a chase card upcoming in the next sets that seems “powerful” in the RC’s eyes for commander that they have had discussions with WoTC about banning the card but have held off so WoTC can sell more product. Based on the RC posts for some time today it was garnered that the RC and WoTC have discussions frequently about banning cards. Two of the cards banned have recently been printed as chase cards in speific sets and I fully believe now that the RC has discussed banning upcoming cards only to push it back to a later date after product numbers have been hit.
Although the rules committee probably waited too long on some of these cards, and the insane fact that they banned them all in one day, it could be some high level backlash from a team that wizards will actually see and listen to. Nobody will be chasing these cards anymore, which makes WOTC less money. I wouldn’t say this is the best way to go about it but it will show the game designers that printing cards like these is dangerous, practically and financially, and that reprints aren’t a bad thing. Holding the secondary market to these arbitrary values is only going to make the divide between casual and competitive decks a fucking canyon. I think that they should have officially considered EDH and cEDH as separate formats with similar but unique ban lists – 1 so the cards retain some value and 2 so that the power levels of decks can be more clearly communicated.
Didn’t expect to agree with you…. and then you said most of the exact things I think/feel/believe about all of this. Jlo never should have been printed. RC should have banned it the second it was spoiled. Crypt and Dockside should’ve gone a long time ago. RC should be more hands on, IMO. Some warning would be nice. I have 3 docksides, a Crypt, and a foil Jeweled Lotus, all worthless overnight. Big sad for my wallet, ultimately good for the format.
I’m glad I sold my collection a few months ago, but I feel for the people who lost hundreds. Ofcourse that’s always been the case in magic and just about everyone feel it at one point or another. I think WotC is more to blame for this than the RC, as they’re the ones who’ve pushed commander, commander exclusives, chase underprinted mythic staples and so on, so blaming the RC feels stupid. I personally think the RC have always been to passive when it comes to the ban list, hiding behind the “your playgroup can just ban something if you don’t like it”, but an increasing amount of people don’t have a regular playgroup, instead meeting up with and playing with people from a larger community and/or strangers. I don’t think I’ve played a single game night with the exact same people once in my near decade of playing commander, resulting in our community being dependant on the official ban list to have an easily shared set of rules to follow.
The reason they banned the cards was not for any logistical reason, that’s just wizards talking through them to peddle bull s****. The rules committee are just a microphone to filter Wizards voice and try and fool the sheeple. The real reason is simple. For years they have been selling $16 premium boosters for modern/commander sets and put all of the three in at mythic rarity, this functionally made the re-printing function-less for accessibility. Why they banned these three is because now the majority of people who can and want to buy them, either by cracking boxes or buying from the third-party market have already done so. You only need one for commander and they project that less and less people are buying product because after so long many people don’t need to buy premium product. Once people have it, they won’t lose it. It’s a slot in their 100 card decks they can’t try and entice people to spend $400 on a booster box. I feel like this is a very bad omen, because its -$360 dollars of value for people who have built up commander staples, and god knows what they will hit next. The one good thing about commander was that you pretty much had security in your value, the biggest part of mtg is that what you buy is for the most part an asset. Things can make it rise/fall, but this destroyed a lot of value for a lot of people. There is no longer the security that commander offered and they will start the reprinting in mythic in $16 boosters for new staples, and in years time after they have printed it enough, ban them to keep players buying more.
While I can sympatheise with people who were saving up and sicne commander is their main format, decided to commit to picking up some of these cards, but I do feel some vindication that the people who want to play magic the stock marketing and not magic the gathering that are why these cards hold such obscene prices (alongside wizards not reprinting them properly of course, literally every other card game would’ve reprinted these staples into the ground by now like sol ring) I’ve seen so many “oh no my 5 alternate print crypts are worthless now” why were you buying so many of them, a healthy game should come before your inheritance being tied up in shiny cardboard. I do agree though better communication from the rules committee that they are willing to be a bit more hands on for protecting the environment of random lgs play groups, which is a good thing, just the ban jumpscare can cause problems.
I’d argue that maybe having the cheapest version of any single game piece being as expensive as entire decks in a casual format is bad for the game actually. Cards that reach such high prices should either be printed enough to crash the price or banned before they can get to that price. If you’re willing to spend $100+ on a single card imo you’ve signed up for it to crash, because those are the cards that should crash in price, whether through aggressive reprints or banning, especially because if you’re anywhere but at an official event nobody should care if you’re running proxies of cards that you’re priced out of. And to be clear I was hit by this ban as well, but because I’m not treating my favourite game like the stock market, I’ll live with it I will say the the CRC did fuck up though, they should have told people such cards were on the watchlist to be banned, and I hope that eventually we’ll get a separate casual vs cEDH banlist so people can still play with busted cards but keep people who are playing for some casual group fun split from people playing to win for fun
Honestly, a huge draw to this format was its stability. The trust that your purchases would last the test of time as it was a format that allowed you to play your favorite expensive cards. I honestly believe rule zero was dealing with these fine, most people understand their power levels and won’t play them unless discussed. Honestly, as a collector, I have no trust in the RC. I don’t see the point of enjoying any of my cards as they might just get banned.
WotC makes thousands of cards, and a lot of them are designed for commander, but most of the time they get the balance right so we don’t complain about it. They do make mistakes, and they do make some greedy choices, but most of the time they do a pretty great job. These are the most egregious examples of bad design choices, but credit where it’s due, most of the time they make fun game pieces.
Here’s the absolute truth about TCGs. When collecting you have to think of everything as Stocks. You can invest $20 or $1000. The amount you are investing is directly related to how much you could make. It is also directly related to how much you can lose. If you invest more in powerful you take the risk of losing more. It’s not “fair” but it’s a fact of life.
No, Mana Crypt absolutely did not need to go. It’s a gamble card that is capable of losing you games as easily as it is winning and that’s what makes it interesting. “Christmas Land” happens in both directions with this card, and I’ve played a game where I had it come down on Turn 2 and then lost the coin flip every turn for the next six turns. Roughly half my life total for that game disappeared due to my own mana base. You absolutely hit the nail on the head in that the problem with this ban is that Sol Ring is nearly as powerful and explosive as Mana Crypt so it should logically be banned for the same reason. But we aren’t doing that because Sol Ring is “iconic” or some ridiculous shit. They just admit right there that this ban is not actually based on the mechanical effect but rather purely on vibes. And if you want to argue that it’s a frequency problem and the format is harmed by having both of these cards in it, then I could make the argument (again, based solely on their logic) that Sol Ring should be the one card banned instead of Mana Crypt because it’s almost the same power and effect but for zero drawback. Of all the cards in this announcement, this one is so problematic to me is that their reasoning does not in any way justify getting rid of one card over the other. If one is too strong, then both of them are, and the only functional difference is that the price point on one of them relegates it almost exclusively to competitive play (more on that in a bit). IMO, putting Dockside Extortionist in here is a textbook example of getting the right answer using the wrong formula.
I just hope they continue to ban degenerate staples if they’re going to take this approach. Hoping for a lot of the reserve list (gaias, duals, grim monolith, etc) and stuff like thoracle and rhystic study. I see a surprisingly large quantity of these things in my random pods at FNM, and its a fairly casual scene for the most part. The biggest problem is that wizards will keep printing power-crept commander staples and people will just run them instead. Hurts because this heavily targets mono-red and artifact-reliant decks, especially in CEDH, while leaving the control/combo/landfall stuff basically untouched. Time for the age of proxies I guess.
The ban list is, was, and always had been a joke. My pods have never abided by them, rule 0 IS the way cards are sorted out. Finally I can acquirea few more of some highly desirable cards for decks my decks, rather than proxies. Remember, the rules committee only has as much power as the community is willing to acknowledge.
Banning these cards feels… idk, kinda like not a huge deal, tbh. Of those 3, the only one that I’ve seen semi-regularly was Dockside Extortionist. In, idk, hundreds of casual commander games, I think I’ve seen Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt show up less than 10 times combined. The vast majority of players I’ve played with recognize that those are extremely high powered cards that don’t belong in anything designed to be less than 10 power. Casual commander also tends to be less proxy friendly than cEDH, so a lot of people couldn’t afford to run a Lotus or Crypt, again leading to them rarely showing up. Most times when I see a Lotus or Crypt in cEDH, it’s a proxy, so the price tags are meaningless. My issue with something like Dockside is that it kinda skates by without as much scrutiny for how strong it is, but is basically free to play in any red deck, like Jeska’s
outside of Nadu, the problem comes down to accessibility. they really need to be less stingy with reprints. honestly, lets consider both sol ring and mana crypt were banned for the last 12 years. lets say jeweled lotus was included in every pre con since its creation. i do not think people would be that upset by its existence. itd be 50/50 on its contention just like sol ring. and this goes for the others. WOTC is just too scummy with their reprint equity. they treat mtg like baseball cards instead of children’s trading cards
Well, maybe instead of having a RC banlist Wizard should play test their cards more to prevent a power creep that makes cards balloon in the hundreds now in the scope to be banned. If you want to play fast mana that’s fine, just rule 0 the level of your deck. I love to play and see high level magic when everyone is on the same level
I always hated the involvement of wotc in commander. It was perfectly fine as a casual format made by players. Then, they started designing cards for commander and there started the worst part. Designing chase cards that’ll increase in price to then being banned in every format, or just in commander, since the freaking jeweled lotus can only be played there.
Honestly imo most people who are upset are those who liked the fast paced games and trousing other newer players with these cards. I havent seen a good argument as to why these should be unbanned yet. Sure Jewled lotus can no longer be played again, and? WOTC should never make a card that is a black lotus for commander. 0 mana leading to potentially 5 mana turn 2 in a 4 player format? At that stage of the game you become either unstoppable to a degree. In the new Etali for example, with three of these cards you have the potential on turn 2 to gain a ETB trigger that lets you play 4 cards for free. On turn 2. These bans were a long time coming. Way to long in fact. Had crypt and jeweled been banned when they should have then we wouldn’t be mad about it now. Those bans are way to late. Dockside is the same way. Nadu was the only ban well timed.
y’know, hot take – can I just say that everyone complaining about fast mana is just straight-up wrong? There’s a commander-like format that exists without fast mana. It’s called Oathbreaker – oh wait that format died. (I still play it. I know nobody else who does.) There’s LGS that have rules against fast mana – oh wait nobody plays at them unless they have to. There’s big systems that people can put in place against fast mana – oh wait nobody uses them. Cause nobody REALLY enjoys the game with hard rules against fast mana, whenever a version of the format is made without it it fails to take off. We meme on the rules committee for doing nothing. It’s best it DOES THAT. Rule 0 exists and talking with your table is a must to ensure a good commander experience – table politics, who’s the threat, what do you have, deals… If you can talk about what you wanna do IN game, you can certainly talk about what you wanna do OUT of the game. The cards of your deck aren’t meant to be some forbidden dark-arts secret when odds are high in a few matches your whole group will know most of them anyway. These rules only really affect the competitive tryhards that actively like the highest power they can get, and the people that DON’T KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE THEIR DECKS POWER. Just cause you’re the latter doesn’t mean you should backhand the former. And that’s before we get into the financials of the “bait and switch” that we’ve now been hit by thanks to the printing decisions in recent WOTC sets.
Here are my thoughts on Commander/100 deck format. I strongly believe the that the most popular format (Commander) is under regulated. What i mean is this. I hate going to ….most local game stores and being asked prior to the game what the “power level” of my deck(s) are. Me personally, Ive been collecting my library/collection for quite some time now 12 years. The majority of the my personal staples have been found just by opening packs. Other cards not so much. Cards prior to 1999 I was fortunate to purchase prior to them exploding in cost. I feel extremely bad for a lot of you that had multiple copies of the recently banned cards. I think someone at the rules committee should show leadership and realize that when players are asking other players the “power level” of their deck maybe the format itself needs tweaking. for the 60 deck format we have Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, and Standard….for the most part. This is exactly what commander needs now to satisfy the “cEDH players” and “Casual Players” (whatever that means). A tier system that specifies what cards are allowed in casual, high power, cedh….etc. I think this can be easily accomplished and will clarify game play so that players know what level/power (tier) they are playing against. It’s not that difficult of a solution and will retain the value of the cards. It’s a no brainer really.
There’s no way to manage cards this expensive in a game this commodified without pissing people off. If the RC is on the hook for anything, it’s the years of complacency that let Wizards and their whale target audience set the tone for a casual, kitchen table format. Sure, there are communication fixes they can work on in hindsight. That said, it is far more important that they get this done, stick to their guns, and start rebalancing the relationship between Commander as a product and Commander as a game.
The golden days of EDH were when people were playing Jarad, Marchesa etc. once a million and one cards were printed with the format in mind, too many people were after the same cards as eachother. Arcane signet is arguably the worst offender, it started turned the 99 into the 98 (cards like sol ring weren’t even played everywhere at that point). Precons hurt the format, Legends started to kill it, Horizons sets having cards designed for a format other than the format originally in mind were the straw(s) that broke the camels back.
They should make 2 ban lists, one for competitive and one for casual. They should also ban cards as commander but not part of the 99. Nadu is not that bad as part of the 99. I feel like banning Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus was wild though. That will piss off some people. They man as well ban sol ring too. Dockside makes sense.
Dockside has always been a “problematic” card, that much was obvious from DAY ONE. Allowing people to get used to it, build decks around it and make combo lines around it for 6 YEARS before banning it just seems tactless. Also insane that they are never gonna ban Sol Ring, even though it would be bannable for alle the same reasons. “It’s just too iconic”, and “We’re not against fast starts, we just don’t want them happening all the time” are laughable reasons for not banning Sol Ring, but banning the others. It kind of sounds like “we don’t want your decks to be too consistent”, which is NUTS, when the REAL reason is that every single precon would be illegal out the gate, and the logistical nightmare that would follow. It woudld also completely invalidate the intention behind the product
Its funny to me that they targeted high $$ cards and left stuff under $50 (smothering tithe, thassa’s oracle, rhystic study, sol ring etc) that casual players have been complaining about for just about ever. It seems to be less about game play, and more about accessability. Meanwhile, the only people that can really control access are WotC. Having the rules committee and WotC separate is a problem.
A better design would be similar to the original Nadu in my opinion, maybe limit the flash to once per turn, and limit the target spell/ability to 1 or 2 per turn for all creatures not each creature individually. At least that would be my take on a more balanced version, and also maybe uptick to mythic instead so lower pull rate
I understand Nadu as it tore a hole in the fabric of space and time. But why ban Jeweled Lotus? As a colorless card it can be in every deck and as long as it isn’t in a deck with a Commander that can’t benefit from its mana ramp it can help nearly every deck in existence. Most importantly this card is an enabler in that it can kick start a strategy that would otherwise take more turns to begin. The fact that it only works with the Commander itself limits its capabilities especially when the Commander is already on the field. Its not like the card itself is breaking the game. Why not ban cards that actually need it like Platinum Angel, Avacyn Angel of Hope, or Omniscience, you know, cards that are so overpowered they basically unfairly change the rules in your favor or can be exploited to the point that playing against them turns you into a punching bag rather than relying on an actual strategy to win the game.
What I think might happen out of this is that CEDH will become it’s own separate format with a different ban list, which I think is a good thing in the long run since the CEDH player has a completely different mindset (when intending to play this way) and will stop problems when the different types of players clash when half the pod is expecting one type of play and the other isn’t.
I don’t mind those cards being banned because honestly no one in any of my play groups and just a small amount of players in my LGS plays either Lotus or Mana Crypt. When someone does, it always leads to people thinking “Uh, here comes the tryharder.” Dockside on the other hand I just try to avoid. I think it’s busted and lame. I only saw it once or twice winning a game. All the other times it puts a target on your head. For cEDH or Archon they could have been kept in the format. But still, that is not my play stile.
They want to have it both ways. They want to have cards that are huge draws to sets like Lost Caverns of Ixalan and Commander Masters, and they need big expensive cards to do that. But at the same time, they don’t to put this several hundred dollar price floor on a “decent” deck, so they ban shit like this. I don’t know how much the Commander Rule Comity is influenced by WotC, but yea – if these were really a problem, they should have been banned a long time ago – it’s not like some new interaction caused these cards to get way better in the last year. It wouldn’t surprise me at all of the CRC was asking to ban Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt like 2 years ago, but WotC vetoed the idea because they had those exact cards as huge selling points in upcoming sets. Lol remember when they got all angry about Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines when it was previewed? It doesn’t seem like it wound up becoming a huge problem, yet the CRC was worried about it. To me, that kind of shows where they sit philosophically about card power level, so I feel like it’s a pretty safe bet that Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt were on their list, but they were asked/forced to wait until Lost Caverns of Ixalan and Commander Masters sold through most the initial wave(s) of inventory. And whether or not WotC feels bad about the banning – I have a feeling they might be okay with it. If they made cards that are functionally similar but maybe just a tad under powered (or overpowered), they’re going to rise up to take the place of these cards quickly, thus selling future packs.
Great article Vince! Really enjoyed it 😊 In my experience, Dockside is one of those cards that warps the game around itself – people kill it and reanimate it, clone it, flicker it and fight on the stack at every interaction with it. That’s a play pattern we used to see a lot of when Prime Time was legal. So from that perspective, I think this was definitely a good ban.
The bans themselves don’t annoy me. It;s the 4 years of “that’s just a conversation you need to have with your table” over problem card after problem card after problem card, only to finally act out of absolutely nowhere and ban… checks notes fast mana, but not all fast mana, or even a fraction of the fast mana in the format, just the expensive premium fast mana. And Nadu, who feels like a spite ban to send a message to WotC about designing broken cards and blaming commander for it.
Their reasonings show, they are not game devs and do not understand how to keep bias out. These are not problematic cards, Nadu maybe, but it’s still legal in Brawl. When assessing a card(s) whether it’s warping a format, you have to ask how consistent is it? In the 99, these three cards are not very consistent (Lotus, Dockside and Crypt). Also, given their reasoning, yet not banning other forms of fast mana is very strange, Sol Ring, Lotus Petal, Mox Amber etc. there are many more that provide a similar benefit. These cards by themselves do not win you the game, they have been around for a long time which shows they are not problematic. The reasoning’s are all biased opinions, let player’s decide for themselves, if they want to or not include them in their deck(s). Implementing your own rule zero aside, now sanctioned events will not allow them. Thanks rules committee, you let your own bias enter, and now what can we expect for the future of this format more bias?
I think JL should have been add 1 mana or add an extra 2 (3 total) if you’ve cast your commander already. I think DS is balanced no matter what you say Vince, a DS on turn 5 for 8 mana because everyone has a few rocks is fine, a DS on turn 3 for 3 or 4 because everyone has one or 2 rocks is fine, no better than the rate of dark ritual. Crypt I get but I hate it.
This hurts so much… I just got a lotus and didn’t get to use it with how busy I am with getting my life together. I finally feel like life is going my way and now they ban the op card I literally got only 2 or 3 weeks ago and ban it. Feels like yugioh all over again. Oh you got a good deal on >insert 100$ card here