Why Is Magic Forbidden In The Tree Of Spells The Assembly?

Notably, the rules of Cascade were changed around the release of Tibalt’s Trickery. Orginally you could Cascade into either side of the modal Double-faced cards, which meant cheating the more expansive side. And of course part of the banning of various Companions came because originally you could just cast them. They didn’t have the “pay 3 to put it in your hand” requirement.

Coming from Yu-Gi-Oh, I always wondered if the Jar cards in that game were a reference to something. I now suspect that Morphing Jar may have been a nod to Memory Jar in Magic. Their effects are awfully similar. They also came out months apart. Memory Jar being first printed in February ’99 and Morphing Jar first being printed in the OCG in October of ’99. I suspect that someone at Konami was a fan of Magic.

well to go further with “once upon a time” it also needed to be banned in modern because its the same deal but it replaced “Ancient Stirrings” and made it to easy to get the missing tron lands. and Lurrus (forgive me if mentioned) that vintage ban forced the rules commitee of commander to change their policies of auto banned cards the original clause was “everything banned in vintage” and Lurrus was the First one that was not bannable in commander so they had to categorizes every single type of card banned in vintage instead of that shortcut.

Skipped a point with Memory Jar. Another problem was that it essentially milled your opponent for 7 cards since they rarely could even use what they drew. I still swear I remember it being banned earlier than this that though. I remember hearing about it being/going to be banned while at the prerelease for the set.

Yawgmoth’s bargain was banned the fastest. The story goes that in 1999 when Urza’s destiny was released. A guy made a Yawgmoth’s bargain deck in extended that went off turn one, almost unstoppably, with almost 100 percent turn one going off and winning. He mailed the deck into wotc to show them, before the set was even available for tournament play. They emergency banned bargain in extended format before it was even available. I was around for it.

I feel there’s a few longtime MTG players that are silently grinding their teeth with pronunciation or are confused. Here’s a few examples: Eldraine is practically said as “El Drain ” Bedevil is usually said like “Be Devil” Kaldheim is called “Called●hi●m” Just trying to help avoid confusion with discussions.

I’m still shocked that Tibalt’s trickery was banned that quickly since it wasn’t only for its sole power level. Honorable mention should go to Felidiar Guardian where it had to be emergency banned 10 days after its ban list it was supposed to be in. Luturi ban in EDH, yeah huge L for Wizards there. Actually they had to force it to work in EDH otherwise burning wish, and other effects like Karn creator has no effect in the format.

Haven’t played Magic since 2003 and other than article Game versions I’ve never played another TCG. What is the point of a ban list? I mean to me when you have a game that is constantly evolving there shouldn’t be anything banned because if you print something with a busted mechanic you can a) change the rules of said mechanic so it cannot be abused, b) reprint the busted card with restrictions so it cannot abuse the mechanic, or c) print new cards that can prevent the abuse and are playable in any deck. Edit: To explain a little bit with MTG everything has a mana cost with the majority of cards linked to specific colors, but some not linked to colors by being colorless. With that in mind the last card on this list could have easily been changed to colorless since the unfair advantage was noticed pre release, as a colorless card it could be added to any deck thus negating the unfair advantage. Also any card that requires 2 color mana is viable for any deck that uses those 2 colors because any deck built with multiple colors is going to have a lot of 2 or more color land cards to avoid having half or more of the deck being land. If you notice a busted mechanic that is getting abused you can reprint the card abusing said mechanic with a higher mana cost making it only playable later in the game giving the opponent time to potentially draw a counter for said card. If every card with a specific mechanic is broken then you just change the rules of said mechanic rather than ban cards that use said mechanic.

More spell checking needed. “buit it really wasn’t” is a fantastic end to a sentence. Also lovely audio splice at 3:44 and the set is pronounced “EL-drain.” All the mispronunciations immediately take people out of the article, just why do it? You sound more like a bad AI by doing it because a human would look up how some stuff are pronounced if you’re going to make a article with names you aren’t super familiar with.

Finally, someone said it. I see so many “why dont you Rule 0 them out of people’s deck’s” but bawk at the suggestion “why don’t you rule 0 them in?”. Like it is way easier for the 10% of players that slam these into every deck to ask if they can play them than for the rest of the players always check if the pod is randomly playing Jewled Lotus in their upgraded precon game. Also, it is generally easier to ask for permission to do something than asking for someone not do something.

Not everyone has a dedicated regular playgroup. When that is the recurring basis for the conversation, you are excluding a significant portion of commander players. If the banlist doesn’t make sense for a playgroup, it shouldnt matter if it exists or not. The banlist is for those playing at an lgs or convention, or with new/untrusted players/groups. Dismissing the validity of a banlist citing playgroups is disengenuious.

Thank you for this!! So many people don’t see the bigger picture and apply everything to their own small ecosystem. I haven’t had a play group for 3 years since I moved, and these bans make me so happy because I have objectively better games without these cards. I play in pods with precons and pub stompers alike and squishing that variance of deckbuilding power is 10/10. Although I do disagree with the “nobody plays it so it doesn’t need a ban”, socially banning cards I think sets a bad precedent because everyone has their own definition of “casual” and “fun”

This opinion is 100% on point. I played with a new player at my LGS and we all played precons. This guy dropped a Mana Crypt he opened in a LCoI pack and the rest of us were taken back. It was later in the game so it didn’t have a big impact but who expects a Mana Crpyt when someone says “I just have this precon” and that was legit the only change the guy made to the deck lol

The rules committee should start thinking outside the box. Create a new type of restricted list, where you can choose one card from the list to put in your deck, but you can’t use any other card on the list. For example, put every broken fast mana card like Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault etc on the list, so you can choose which one to use and they all remain legal and retain some value.

We need a ban list. Countless times I’ve had rule zero conversations where people still have no idea how to adjust to power levels. I played a powered up gonti precon into a thoracle combo deck after a rule zero convo. My regular play group moved away north and I mostly only play pick up games at my LGS. I like the new bans and we need a ban list. People who are loud and salty about bans are just much louder than people who are fine with them.

> We don’t need a ban list to have fun. We figured that out for ourselves. That works when you’re already a solid group of players. But think about that sentence outside of card games. “We don’t need rules to have fun. We figured that out for ourselves.” Again, that works when you’re already a solid group of people. But the moment outsiders wanders in, then things change dramatically. Imagine you’re playing a game in the park. You’re a group of friends playing, you all know the unspoken rules of your game. Someone asks if they can join, and you say yes, assuming that they’re going to adhere to those unspoken rules. But instead of just playing football, they’re throwing in mixed martial arts and kicks someone in the head. You get upset, because why would you do that?! And they don’t get why you’re upset – you didn’t specify you COULDN’T kick people in the head!

The only thing that gets me is how they dumped Commander Masters and LCI in the festival in a box… Big fan of the ban (despite owning a copy of each of these cards) but talk about a rug pull. 🙁 MTG is not a financial investment. MTG is a card game. Yet, the company /treats/ it as if its a financial investment. They play into the philosophy. But this is a different conversation though. Good ban despite the implications.

It’s time the RC and CAG communicated better with the playerbase. All they had to do was say a year ago – when they started talking to wizards about these cards – that they were looking at the format with an eye on what was happening with the proliferation of fast mana. That would have reduced the upset felt by the player base by a major factor, because it wouldn’t have felt so random!

I’m usually in the camp of least bans as possible. There are so many cards that people don’t want to see in casual, the list would never end. So ban all the cards that are sort of banned like Armageddon, or unban everything and let people play. I’m also thinking a separate ban list with less bans for Cedh would be helpful. If casuals want to play with all the salty cards banned cool but let Cedh players use broken powerful cards. That’s my opinion at the moment.

The issue with rule zero is that people don’t ask the right questions. People ask “about what power level is your deck” which is meaningless. People should ask “how much fast mana”, “how many free spells”, and “how does your deck win”, and follow up with specifics about they type of game the table wants, like “fast and competitive” vs “slow and durdly”. That would lead to way more clarity about the type of game you are about to play.

Tomer is piling on the Ws recently with these articles about the bans and the recent one about basic lands. The one point I’d disagree with is when he said that problematic cards are fine if they’re not used very often. It may be the case that a card isn’t played often enough to really gauge just how bad it is for the format, but if a card is well known enough as a problem, it should be banned for the same reason of ensuring pick-up games are a good experience. A miserable game is no less infuriating simply because the problematic card(s) that caused it are ones people don’t play very often.

What the banlist says to me is this, “We lack the creative energy to solve the power level of our game so instead we rely on exclusionary practices to undo the power level of our game rather than invent mechanics/zones of play to use those cards in another way.” Ideas: Print mechanics for from “outside the game” text actions, include banned cards. Or, a new way of play is to, exclude X power cards no geater than 5 or 10, begin the game without them. The player going second, shuffles power into their deck at the end of their first turn, while also choosing to skip their turn. A new token, hideaway tokens, one that exiles a concealed card face down until a condition is met, have the source of an exiled card come from a 10-15 card treasure deck, 1/2 land, 1/2 banned cards. And so on… Open for ideas of safe strategies to include unfair game pieces without banning them. If Wotc won’t do the R&D then why can’t we, we made Pioneer! We made Cube!

I agree completely with your sentiment. In the group I usually play with, the next consequences were a fifteen-minute chat where the two copies of these cards had their owners go ‘oh well’ and move on, since they weren’t invested enough to push for an exception. But this is NOT the point. A consistent group of people can actually have the good sort of rule zero where it becomes so accustomed that we almost forget what to tell new entrants until they try to play Stasis. This is here for public games, and it is at its most helpful in public games where you can’t entirely trust that all players will be realistic or even honest about their power. I have zero sympathy for pubstompers. People who went ‘oh well, I just pulled it’ and are telling the truth should have no more problem going ‘oh well’ and taking it back out. People who ‘need’ busted cards to make their decks work need to lose the crutches and learn to brew. And people in honest, open mega-power games can and should have their own groups with custom rules. My sympathies lie mostly with the independent stores who have lost a decent bit of value if they had bad timing.

I think the tenor of the backlash can be explained by the fact that Commander becoming less-friendly for pubstompers means that pubstompers don’t have anywhere else to win. If they show up to 60-card they’ll get stomped; if they show up to limited they’ll get stomped; you need to actually have friends for kitchen table; and won’t someone think of the poor pubstompers? What baffles me is how passionate and resourceful the community is, and how little that is actually put to use. At a minimum, the format should be split into cEDH and casual, with the former having almost-nothing banned and the latter being much more curated. And yes, kick out Sol Ring and implement the challenger/event-deck/trade-secrets rule of ‘if you’re just playing a precon, it’s fine.’ The idea that ‘I have to memorize an entire deck to make this rule work!!’ is nonsense: not only do all the cards in the precon have the same set symbol, but I also don’t think most people at a casual table are going to really care if a player genuinely doesn’t know it’s banned but has swapped out 3-4 cards. Prize-support play would just outright ban sol ring, and if someone really wants to precon there, they’d just replace it with a basic. But you could also have people curate suggestions of cards, such that playgroups can have easy house-ban references. Have someone curate all the cards that count as MLD. Curate all the ‘restart’ cards (Worldpurge is legal, lol). Curate cards that count as stax, etc. Now individual playgroups – or even stores – can say “we use the casual bans, and we also add in the MLD and Stax cards to that list.

I’ve played at LGSs on both coasts of the US. I’ve seen so many “casual” decks play mana crypts docksides and jeweled lotuses, backing up their early win attempts with free spells like pact, force, fierce, etc, and using 1-2 cmc tutors to improve their efficiency. When I played casually in college, games lastsed 7-9 turns and deck costs were <200$. At LGSes the average game of "casual" EDH ends on turn 5-6 and deck costs are 1000+. Why? Because decks include the expensive fast mana and overpowered staples at the LGS. T1 crypt, island, rhystic study is NEVER casual.

Like if your first reaction to a banlist is “consumer confidence” you’re in the game for the wrong reason. The loudest voice isn’t necessarily the popular voice. I don’t play commander enough to have my few games turn into nongames with fast mana so I’m personally all for these bans., I feel bad for the people that had personal investment but that’s card games. Blame the company printing the cards and not the people in a lose-lose situation; where people are going to complain whether or not they do anything.

Arguing against a ban list existing because you have a group of players who could have responsible discussions amongst themselves feels like advocating for removing seatbelts from cars because you, personally, drive carefully and safely: they’re not for you, they’re meant as safeguards against the people who can’t control themselves.

Tomer, your description of the effectiveness of Rule 0 is perfectly on-target and explains why the RC made a point to mention how they’re working on a way to cover and more effectively communicate Rule Zero discussions. They’re at their best with regular playgroups while an eye-rolling experience to sit through alongside randos, especially if there’s any dissension. Under that logic, the bannings do make sense but would’ve been infinitely more effective with a watchlist discussion like WotC has with rules description. And yeah, someone should’ve made a point to separate cEDH a long time ago. Yes, my Tromokratis deck will lament the loss of the Mana Crypt I’ve owned for a decade but I love bling so not having to worry about finally buying a fancy version of Lotus or Extortionist is a huge sigh of relief for my wallet.

Tomer you’re the best. “Playgroups can figure it out and house ban ” works both ways. Playgroups can house UNban cards. A ban might be an argument against a house UNban, but thats good context for why the card shouldn’t be played. Like Tomer said, “the ban list is a guideline.” — I also really appreciate you recognized not everyone has an entrenched playgroup, “in pickup games, you dont have that luxury.”

Even asking the question is madness. We need a baseline. I say this a lot when questions come up about the banlist, but when I first started playing, if Panoptic Mirror hadn’t been banned, I would have made quite a few games absolutely miserable by imprinting a wrath before I got the message and pulled it out. And if you weren’t there, you wouldn’t believe how many people thought of Iona, Shield of Emeria as a big Timmy angel, when it’s actually a vicious stax piece. The number of conversations I had with people at my generally laid-back LGS about Iona was maddening.

As someone that travel A LOT and has absolutely no consistent playgroup, i’d love a better ban list which reduces the amount of rule zero chat that i have to do. When i am the newcomer at random LGS during a work trip, it feels incredibly awkward to try pushing for the restrictions that i like. At the same time won’t have all my cards and decks with me in order to adapt to the local meta.

On the subject of Sol-Ring, I’ve seen a lot of comments across the web saying “Ban Sol Ring, and if someone is running a pre-con, let them run sol ring” I already don’t trust people who give me a deck assessment. I’m not going through their deck list to make sure they haven’t altered it or spiced it up.

I showed up to the LGS cpmmander night and one of the guys asks if stax was okay. Everyone said they would rather not tonight. Guy said okay no problem and grabbed out another deck. This same dude proceeded to drop tangle wire and smoke stax. To say the least my faith in rule 0 to create a fun play experience is non-existent. The culture at that LGS was toxic and people got their kicks from pub stomping.

I want to address the impact of the recent bans on high-power Commander gameplay, a space that often feels overlooked in discussions about power levels. While cEDH (power level 10) is the pinnacle of competition, where winning is the primary goal, high-power Commander (levels 8-9) is where I find the most enjoyment. It strikes the perfect balance, allowing me to play strong commanders, powerful staples, and dynamic strategies without venturing into the hyper-optimized territory of cEDH. In this space, fast mana like Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus fuels big, impactful plays, such as casting a Lord Xander, the Collector or big splashy spells early on. This style doesn’t necessarily dominate in cEDH but allows for high-impact, fun, and interactive gameplay. The recent bans, however, feel like a blow to this approach. Cards like Mana Crypt and Dockside Extortionist aren’t exclusive to cEDH; they also support higher-cost, non-Green decks that rely on them to stay competitive. For instance, my three high-power commanders—Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Zhulodok, Void Gorger, and Niv-Mizzet, Parun—utilize these cards to function in a high-power setting. These commanders aren’t viable in cEDH but thrive in the 8-9 power range, where they can shine without overwhelming the table. The bans have weakened these decks, especially those lacking access to Green’s and to a lesser extent white’s natural ramp tools. What’s more concerning is that decks like Jodah, the Unifier or other Green/White-based commanders remain largely unaffected by these bans.

Here’s a hint: you’re never “ready for it.” It’s 100-card singleton, if it’s going to show up, you probably don’t have the one of in your own 99 at the same time. People need to quit relying on someone else to solve their problems (in a casual game). Oh no! You lost to a Voja on turn two! Whatever are you going to do? You wasted so many 10 minutes. Just shuffle up with another group or ask that person to play another deck. You don’t need mom and dad to step in and tell that player, “Okay, Johnny, you can’t play with that card anymore because it hurts my daughter’s feelings.”

100% agree with you. I have a regular group since more than 10 years and we have to constantly check house rules to prevent some of our friends to break the meta. They are friends that I love very much, but they still want to win whatever it takes. We need a ban list that prevents Casual commander from breaking. cEDH players can play whatever they want.

Wholeheartedly agree. I think the EDHRECast said it best a few weeks or months ago, when they had the topic of what cards you could/should ban/unban. Those 3 cards in particular just found their way into places, where they shoudln’t and people didn’t have the discipline to self-regulate, similar to for example Paradox engine. Unfortunately, the playgroup I have does have some… stubborn people, who don’t really give a damn about other peoples enjoyment or what powerlevels we want to play, and discussions always lead to ‘Well, they are not banned, I bought them, so I am gonna use them.’ While this isn’t specificly for those banned cards, in this case it is Cyclonic Rift, such a ban solves at least a symptom, even though it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. And if you don’t have other playgroups, but also don’t enjoy getting to know new people by visiting LGSs or using Spelltable… well, what other choice do you have? Honestly, if the community wouldn’t instantly misuse it, I would recommend to just ban EVERY card with a salt-score over 1.5. People who want to play with those cards probably will find similar minded people to rule 0 obnoxious cards like Vorinclex or Tergrid, but that way games at LGSs would be way more harmless and comfortable for new players. But like I said, I assume the community would misuse it and EDHREC would see a huge number of new votes next year, where suddenly half the viable cards have a score of 2+ because even though the founder of commander was such a kindhearted person, nowadays people are getting more aggressive and demanding.

Absolutely ridiculous. What about the new player who has 1 deck and the crown jewel is one of these cards. People are gonna say “sorry, that card is banned, you can’t play with us”. Now that player who either bought an expensive pack or an even more expensive single, has to go out and build a new deck from scratch.

All these bans do is make the actually low-power commanders UNPLAYABLE and make it harder to play fringe decks because of all the pushed cards WotC has been printing that the RC complains about it being reached too fast with the ban cards. Who cares if a game ends in 15 mins if some one pops off with dockside or JLO one in every 10 games, get over it and move on to the next game. It’s just a game.

What I hate about the new ban is that they want you pod to last +12 turns to become close to ending the game. It’s crazy because each turn takes forever, I can go and use the bathroom and my opponents are still working on triggers. I don’t mind banning Manacrypt but Jeweled Lotus is meant for commander and that is IF you top it, then you’ll get a big edge. It’s not that common.

The issue I have is that WOTC had exclusive information a year in advance related to this ban that was not given to the public and was information that negatively impacted millions of people as they couldn’t make informed decisions. Their decision was grossly negligent. Then thiers the whole issue of WoTCs bundling and marketing decisions they made with this fore knowledge as well as whether this knowledge should have been disclosed in the risk factors of Hasbros annual 10k report.

I agree with this 1M percent. We do this usually in our play group. For new players or random players, we also discuss what kind of decks they have. So i think banlist limit players to have fun. Maybe they can create a list of cards that they can discuss that these cards can be powerful in a game and should be considered in the rule 0 conversation. Players also wants to play fast games time to time, play fast combos, or fair games (slow). Besides players i doubt only have one deck, most of the players have multiple decks base from power level or what kind of games a group want to play.

I think what Im trying to wrap my head around with these bannings is what is the ultimate goal for edh. Most people are talking about keeping the format more casual but like other people said, it can become a slippery slope. Maybe it just stops with these 4 cards and they leave everything else alone. I wonder too if instead of bannings, they just make a new format for commander like pioneer for modern. They can have a new banlist for it and leave edh alone for the people who want to play with all the cards.

If your gonna play in a tournament there has to be rules to keep stuff fair. There are things that arent gonna be allowed to keep things fair. If you have a tournament with no rules then things arent gonna work well. You need a rule/banlist to keep stuff fair. In casual play there is rule 0 or house rules so this banlist doesnt have to affect casual play. The only reason a small group is pissed is cause of the price drop of 4 cards. They forget when u invest in something you can loose money. But whay about people who had mana vault they are happy cause their card just doubled basically. Just part of the game. And thats the most inportant thing here people forget this is a game just play and enjoy it.

I completely agree with your sentiment. Mana Crypt in particular is something I used to see less in LGSs because of it’s cost and everyone knows it’s busted. Playing on MTGO where the social consequences for pub stomping is much lower, Mana Crypt was EVERYWHERE because it was dirt cheap on the platform. I’m so glad they hit the biggest offenders and wish they had officially axed Sol Ring but am thankful they at least officially stated that it’s a sacred cow that they won’t ban but it deserves to be which IMO now finally gives players who want to refuse to play against it justification. So often when I tried to broach that conversation before, people would site random things claiming that in content creator games it wasn’t an issue and other nonsense despite that those formats are intentionally manipulated for content. Now there really isn’t a good argument. RC has said that it shouldn’t be legal and that is more than enough justification to actively choose to never want to play with it in a pod.