Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware of the Commander bans that took place a few weeks ago. Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom left the Commander format. Following this, the Commander Rules Committee handed over the keys to the Commander format, leaving Wizards in charge.
Some players were majorly displeased with these bans. After all, Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, and Dockside Extortionist are all costly MTG cards. Anyone with a few copies of these cards is out a lot of cash. That said, things should never escalate to the point of threats and harassment. Sadly, that is what occurred.
As a result, Wizards of the Coast now has control over the Commander format ban list for the first time in history. While Commander started as a community format, it is now more official than ever. When taking the reigns, Wizards of the Coast stated they’re looking at the Commander banlist ahead of officially creating a tier system.
While nothing is set in stone, aside from a statement that there is some potential for Commander unbans, some players predict, or desire, that the recent massively controversial bans could be reversed. I think this is the worst decision that Wizards could possibly make.
Blindside Caused by Inaction
Personally, I would benefit if the recent Commander bans were reversed. I have a few Mana Crypts, Dockside Extortionists, and Jeweled Lotus in my collection. While I, and many others, would likely benefit monetarily from Wizards of the Coast reversing the recently made bans, I still think that this would be a mistake.
What Commander players need right now is reliability. We haven’t had a ban in the Commander format for the last three years. Suddenly, players were served an absolutely massive haymaker out of nowhere.
All of the previous claims of cards appearing on the Rules Committee’s watch lists fell on deaf ears because no one really believed that a ban could possibly happen. Not only has a ban suddenly appeared, but there was little to no warning that any of these cards would go. Well, except Dockside Extortionist.
Strangely, even Dockside Extortionist’s ban is somewhat controversial. The card is undeniably broken, but it was also one of the best catch-up tools cEDH players had if they started in the ladder half of the turn cycle.
A Problematic Message
Regardless, these bans were absurdly controversial, but undoing them would deliver an even more problematic message. A few aspects of this case make it a bit difficult to engineer a perfect solution. Firstly, because threats and harassment are involved, reversing the bans could send the message that players can threaten their way to the result that they want. After all, it was this vocal and very problematic minority that caused the Commander Rules Committee to give control of Commander to Wizards. If the bans get reversed, the bullies get what they want.
The other aspect that makes this difficult to solve is that the Commander Rules Committee went forward with these bans despite Wizards’ reported insistence that they shouldn’t. From this perspective, it makes complete sense for Wizards of the Coast to partially or completely reverse the bans. After all, they never wanted them to happen. However, this does seem pretty unlikely.
Regardless of what decision Wizards of the Coast ultimately makes, the recent bans for the Commander format were executed poorly. Future bans need to be handled differently.
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What Needs to Improve
Now that players know that Commander bans are a possibility, Wizards of the Coast needs to warn players in advance of bans. This has already been a massive problem for competitive Magic, and Wizards is constantly improving the ban decision-making process. This is done to keep players informed and impact both players and formats as positively as possible.
We now know far in advance when the next competitive bans can take place, and they’re timed with both set releases and competitive events in mind. For casual competitive players, this means that a new broken combo shouldn’t overwhelm and ruin a format’s metagame for too long. Professional teams, meanwhile, can rest assured that the decks they’re testing won’t be disrupted out of the blue.
This needs to happen for Commander, as well. We need a predetermined ban window for which Commander players can prepare themselves. We also need to be aware of what potential cards are on the watch list for bans. This can give players time to offload cards that could take a massive financial hit as a result of the bans.
The second half of this might be a bit tougher for Commander since it’s a casual format. If there’s a problem in a competitive MTG format, it’s pretty clear to the player base. This may not be the case for Commander.
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The Best-Case scenario
Considering how complex the situation is, one potential solution for Wizards of the Coast may simply be to encourage players who want to play with the banned cards to do so in a Rule Zero setting. This might be the best compromise to the current situation. Players who really want to use their Mana Crypts are invited to do so. Only cEDH players will likely get affected by the ban list in this case.
Even this decision, however, needs to be addressed. Commander players need to know that Wizards of the Coast will continue to communicate with them now that their cards could potentially be banned from the format.
If Wizards of the Coast decides to reverse the bans, then the harassment must be addressed. It needs to be made perfectly clear that the bans are being reversed because Wizards of the Coast doesn’t agree with them, not because some bad actors got their way or because the Commander community complained.
The Ideal Situation is Close
Commander players need reliability. We need to know that bans will not be reversed at the whim of the game’s creators. We need to know when bans could take place, and some communication regarding what cards may be getting axed would definitely improve the feeling of being blindsided.
While I think reversing the recent Commander bans sends a really bad message, the recent bans also appear to have had a positive effect on cEDH play. A lot of decks that weren’t viable pre-ban are now seeing play. Slower, Stax-ier effects are a lot more viable now, for example.
No matter what Wizards of the Coast decides to do, I have one final request. It shouldn’t be too unrealistic, either:
If you do decide to reverse the bans, for the love of god, do not unban Nadu, Winged Wisdom. That mistake of a birdbrain deserves to be relegated to the Legacy format (where I can continue to play with it).