With Wizards of the Coast taking over the Commander format, there’s a lot of speculation about how the format will shake up. Is it possible the recent bans will get reversed? How will the new power-based bracket system impact Commander play moving forward?
These questions are difficult to answer at this moment, but there’s definitely room for change on the horizon. With this in mind, I think this could be the perfect time to make some shifts in the banlist.
While we mentioned why going back and unbanning cards like Mana Crypt that were just banned is a bad idea, there are plenty of other cards that have been banned for quite some time that deserve to come off the list. The format needs more consistency, and unbanning these cards could certainly help in this regard.
Consistency is Key
In its current state, the Commander banlist is a bit of a mess. Some of the cards, like Channel, are banned for fairly obvious reasons. Cards like this do way too much for very little mana investment.
Similarly, incredible fast mana sources like Black Lotus and the original Moxen are banned because of the immediate advantage they provide to players that have them in their opening hands. With Mana Crypt added, Sol Ring remains the only absurdly efficient, ubiquitous mana rock that is still legal (and its legality is a hot-button issue).
Beyond seemingly broken engines, there are also a number of cards that are banned because they are extremely unfun to play against. Cards like Erayo, Soratami Ascendant, for example, can quickly make the entire game revolve around them and nothing else. This isn’t enjoyable.
Cards that fall into these categories make sense to stay banned. The problem I have is with cards that are banned that either cost a ton of mana or require immense setup cost to utilize. Sylvan Primordial encapsulates this perfectly.
As a seven-drop, it usually takes a long time before it enters the battlefield. It does have a strong effect, but unless you are blinking it repeatedly, there’s no real cause for concern. Even in that case, it’s not difficult to just remove Sylvan Primordial with a kill spell. It only gets Forests, so the ramp aspect of the card isn’t as concerning as something like Golos, Tireless Pilgrim that can tutor up Gaea’s Cradle and the like.
The reality is, the bar for cards that cost this much mana to be banned should be very high. Even something like Sway of the Stars that can singlehandedly change a game doesn’t really deserve to be banned. After all, Worldfire fits a similar description, and was unbanned a few years ago.
Plus, there are tons of cards that have a massive impact on games, like Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe, that come down much earlier on. I’d argue these cards are both more frustrating and more powerful than Sylvan Primordial by a wide margin. The banlist feels like it’s all over the place, and to help promote continuity, it’s in our best interest to see expensive, situational cards removed from the banlist.
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Alternate Win Conditions
Going off a similar idea, there are two specific eight-mana alternate win conditions that I think are prime candidates to come off the banlist. First up, we have Coalition Victory.
Coalition Victory is a weird card. It isn’t actually super difficult to set up a spot where you can cast this and have a good chance of winning. Controlling all five basic land types is trivial for five-color decks with access to Triomes and Dual lands. As for a creature of each color, a five-color Commander fits the description.
Even with all this being said, Coalition Victory’s mana cost is nothing to scoff at. You still need to put in the work of sticking a five-color creature to try to resolve Coalition Victory. All your opponents need to do is kill your five-color threat and Coalition Victory goes back to doing nothing.
Imagine you go to cast Coalition Victory and someone casts Swords to Plowshares on your Commander in response. Now, when your Coalition Victory resolves, you get nothing out of it. Between removal and Counterspells, Coalition Victory does not feel oppressive by any stretch. Its unbanning could even help convince players to run more interaction, which prevents games from completely snowballing out of control.
Biorhythm is in a similar boat. It also costs eight mana. Sure, it can win the game when it resolves, but this requires you to control the only creatures on board. As such, it still takes time and effort to set up.
There are plenty of cards that can make winning significantly easier if you’re ahead on board later in the game. If you’re the only person to have threats on board, Armageddon can end the game, for instance. Meanwhile, Armageddon costs half the mana, has the upside of comboing with Heroic Intervention effects, and is not on the banlist at all.
Furthermore, there are a lot of combos players can run in EDH that are stronger than Coalition Victory or Biorhythm. Setting up Thassa’s Oracle kills is trivial, and it’s one of the cards with the highest salt scores according to EDHREC (right behind Armageddon, funnily enough).
Moving Forward
At the end of the day, Commander is one of the hardest formats to curate. It’s impossible to please everyone. People play for different reasons and enjoy different styles of games. The new bracket system feels like a step in the right direction to help players balance their pod experiences.
Still, it’s important to have a banlist that players at new local game stores can turn to in order to keep gameplay consistent. Taking Sylvan Primordial, Sway of the Stars, Coalition Victory, and Biorhythm off of the banlist is a huge move forward in trying to keep things consistent.
With salt-inducing cards like Expropriate Legal that are excellent essentially no matter when you cast them, it makes perfect sense to free these cards that either need more work to maximize or tend to be less devastating when they resolve. It’ll be cool to see what changes Wizards of the Coast makes moving forward.
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