The Commander community and the overall MTG community experienced massive turmoil recently. The biggest bans in Commander history hit the format out of nowhere. These were the first bans that Commander has experienced in the last three years. Many of the banned cards had massive financial weight on the secondary market, resulting in stores and fans losing monetary value in their collection.
This caused a lot of strife. Sadly, that strife got out of hand in an unhealthy way, and the Commander Advisory Group, responsible for the bans, received threats from bad actors. This inexcusable behavior resulted in the Advisory Group handing over the keys for the Commander format to Wizards of the Coast.
Players are nervous about this transition, but Wizards of the Coast is doing its best to ensure Commander sticks to its community roots. In that vein, a new Commander Panel has been announced.
The Commander Panel
Gavin Verhey from Wizards of the Coast announced the Commander Panel, a new group comprised of personalities from the MTG community assembled to help Wizards of the Coast manage the Commander format. According to Verhey, this panel will work similarly to the Pauper Panel, another community-based panel that helps Wizards of the Coast manage the Pauper format.
The group includes 17 members. Some members are veterans from the Commander Advisory Group, while others are new faces. These community members will be more than just volunteers on the panel, meaning Wizards of the Coast will pay them for their work. Notably, all of the members from the Commander Advisory Group were offered a seat on the new Commander Panel.
Here is the list of members currently in the Commander Panel:
- Attack on Cardboard
- Bandit MTG
- Benjamin Wheeler
- Charlotte Sable
- Dequan Watson
- @Deco_PDC
- Greg Sablan
- Ittetu
- Josh Lee Kwai
- Kristen Gregory
- Lua Stardust
- Olivia Gobert-Hicks
- Rachel Weeks
- Rebell Lily
- Scott Larabee
- Tim Willoughby
- Toby Elliot
All of these individuals have a deep standing in the Commander and MTG communities worldwide. You can learn more about them by reading the write-ups in the official Commander Panel article.
The Importance of Commander-First Decision Making
The Commander Panel was created to ensure that the opinion of the MTG community would be represented when making decisions regarding the Commander format. Commander has always been a community-centric format, and Verhey stresses the importance of keeping that focus intact when making decisions about the format:
Gavin Verhey
“When I first started playing Commander, one of the things that struck me was how community focused the format is. It’s a format played avidly at homes or at game nights with friends. It was created by community members. So, it’s absolutely critical to me that the decisions around Commander always remain in touch with the community of Magic players around the world.”
Verhey was straightforward in saying that game designers at Wizards of the Coast would make the final call with Commander changes. Still, he expects the Commander Panel’s majority opinion to win out most of the time. Should members of the Commander Panel disagree with Wizards of the Coast’s decision-making, they are encouraged to make their opinion known:
“To that end, I’ve also told the members of the panel that they’re not just welcome to express their own opinions publicly but are encouraged to. They’re here because they’re community members, and it’s important they can be honest; they shouldn’t feel beholden to back up whatever decisions the panel or Wizards of the Coast makes. I don’t want them to have to act or speak inauthentically. Stating their own opinions in public is totally fine. Disagreeing loudly is totally fine. Loudly and publicly taking issue with our decisions is totally fine.”
Gavin Verhey
This is amazing to see. One of the larger concerns about the transfer of Commander’s oversight to Wizards of the Coast was that decisions made for the format would be driven by business interests instead of community interests. We now know a panel of players who prioritize the health of the Commander format have direct communication with Wizards of the Coast. These players should have heavy sway in future decision-making for the Commander format.
What About the Tier System?
Verhey did discuss the tier system idea that Wizards of the Coast initially spoke of when officially taking over the Commander format. While there were initial plans to have a prototype of this system ready for MagicCon Vegas, the decision has been made to slow this process down. This will allow those on the Commander Panel to take their time and explore the finer details of the system.
Notably, Verhey did mention that the tier system will not be a required aspect of Commander that players need to follow. It is intended to act as a helpful guide that can create more structured power-level discussions at a Commander table. This should, hopefully, help prevent the commonplace scenario where everyone states that their Commander deck is a ‘seven,’ but then everyone’s sevens are entirely different power levels.
The Commander Panel will first examine this idea. Then, they will evaluate the current Commander ban list.
It has been stressed that changes to the Commander format will take a long time, but a lot of work and testing will be done before something is proposed. While some players may wish for faster change, this should help ensure that each decision made by the Commander Panel is a heavily informed one.
Personally, I’m happy to see the creation of the Commander Panel as a positive first step towards Wizards of the Coast’s management of the Commander format. This should help reassure players that decisions made regarding the Commander format will consider its health.
