Commander, perhaps more than any other MTG format, has undergone some major design shifts in the last few years. What was once an offbeat way to make use of bulk rares from Drafts has evolved into the most popular way to play Magic. Precons have gone from a once-per-year affair to a four-times-per-set ordeal. There are even some Universes Beyond sets that are entirely made up of Commander precons.
This new focus on Commander has inevitably warped the rest of MTG around it. Even outside of precons, cards feel designed for the format in a way they never have before. This decision has managed to upset both those who play Commander and those who do not. It’s a hot topic indeed. Thankfully, following yesterday’s major ban announcement, it seems WotC is listening to the community on this issue.
A Long-Simmering Issue
The plight of Commander’s influence in MTG is not a new problem by any means. Rather, it’s one that has gradually grown in scale over time and is now reaching a head with the critical mass of Commander products being released.
Essentially, it all comes down to intentionality. More cards are being printed with Commander in mind now than ever before. You only need to look at the most recent sets, both of which feature three-color legends despite not being three-color expansions. Why is this a problem? Well, there are a few reasons.
Firstly, because it has a detrimental effect on deckbuilding. Some cards are so good that they’re essentially auto-includes in decks that match their archetype. Want to play Shrines? You might as well run Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin as your Commander. Running a Typal deck? You’ll almost certainly want a copy of Three Tree City from Bloomburrow. It’s much more common for cards designed for Commander to achieve auto-include status than those created with regular formats in mind. And the more of these cards that get printed, the less meaningful choices players have to make when deckbuilding.
Secondly, players perceive Commander designs as if they’ve replaced playable cards in other formats. As we’ll get into later, this is likely not actually the case. Nonetheless, it certainly appears that way when the majority of rares in any given set don’t make the cut in constructed formats. This was especially noticeable in Modern Horizons 3.
Basically, the way the community at large sees it, designing cards for Commander specifically hurts everyone. Commander players, and those who prefer constructed. Players have grown more and more vocal about this issue over time. So much so that Wizards is actually starting to respond to their concerns.
The Match That Lit The Flame
Yesterday, Nadu, Winged Wisdom was among the cards banned in the long-awaited announcement. This was a move that surprised no one, but what was surprising was the justification Wizards gave for this choice. They published a whole article on the subject, citing various factors that led to Nadu becoming the design mistake that it was. Within said article, the fact that Nadu was originally intended as a card that would excel in Commander cropped up.
For those who subscribe to the above theories about Commander design damaging MTG as a whole, this is pretty vindicating stuff. It’s hard to argue that this isn’t the case when the most broken card in years was created as a direct result of the Commander design methodology. Since this article dropped, there has been a flood of discussion on the Commander design issue, including a detailed question on Mark Rosewater’s Blogatog.
The question, which came from doesthewormthinkthatsthewayweall, essentially asked if all new MTG products were now Commander products, and whether Rosewater thought that was a good thing. Rosewater responded with the following.
“Two things:
1 – Commander is a huge part of tabletop play, being the most played format.
2 – Only a certain percentage of any set can be designed for top-end competitive tournament play.This means every set is going to have some cards designed for casual play, and whenever you think about casual play, you consider Commander (although not all casual play designs optimize for Commander).
Mistakes, often due to their power level, will impact whatever tournament format they’re legal in. The format that influenced their design has no impact on whether or not they’re a mistake.”
Mark Rosewater
There’s a lot of unfortunate truth in this answer. Given how big it is now, it’s pretty much impossible for WotC to stop devoting resources to Commander. It also makes sense to devote slots for casual playables to Commander instead, since it’s also the game’s biggest casual format.
As much as the overwhelming volume of Commander cards being printed doesn’t feel great, it is undeniably successful. As PleasantKenobi pointed out on Twitter, all of these Commander-focused products have been hits. Unless something major changes, the MTG Commander design philosophy is likely set for the foreseeable future.
Read More: Should Proxies Be Allowed In MTG Commander?
