28, Jan, 25

Unusual Commander Bans Leave Players Confused

Commander is undoubtedly a fan favorite within the MTG community. Player interest in EDH far exceeds that of any other Constructed format. Most EDH enthusiasts particularly enjoy the casual, multiplayer nature of the format.

Even still, Duel Commander has been growing more popular in recent months. For those unfamiliar, Duel Commander is a singleton, 100-card format just like traditional Commander, but the format is one-versus-one and players start at 20 life. Duel Commander recently became a sanctioned format on Magic Online, which definitely helped the format garner more attention.

As you might expect, there is a refined metagame in Duel Commander and a completely separate banlist to help keep the format going smoothly. Today, a number of changes were made to try to try to improve the gameplay experience and overall diversity within Duel Commander. Some of these decisions are fairly straight-forward, though there are a couple head scratchers that have left some players befuddled.

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

The first change in the format is that Ezio is now banned as a Commander. Ezio’s dominance is a bit of an interesting case, considering that the Freerunning ability Ezio grants is almost entirely useless in Duel Commander.

Outside of Basim Ibn Ishaq, it’s rare for Ezio decks to utilize any Assassins whatsoever. So, what makes the card so popular? Mainly, this stems from two important factors. First, Ezio is a five-color Commander that can still be cast on the cheap. This means that Commander color identity restrictions are not a concern whatsoever.

On top of that, Ezio’s final ability allows you to threaten to end the game if your opponent can’t answer your Commander in a reasonable fashion. The combination of being able to play all the best midrange cards in the format while simultaneously being able to play an efficient one-card win condition in the Command Zone makes Ezio a reasonable choice for a ban.

Balance

Balance

Balance is another card whose ban in Duel Commander makes a decent amount of sense. On the surface, Balance looks like a pretty fair card. In practice, though, it’s often the exact opposite.

Against creature decks, it can act as a super cheap board wipe. It can set your opponent back if they’ve drawn a bunch of extra cards or dumped extra lands into play. Where it’s at its absolute best, though, is when you have lots of artifacts, Planeswalkers, or enchantments to deploy. These card types are not punished by Balance, so you can get further ahead on board without Balance setting yourself back at all.

Balance is a common inclusion in Aminatou, the Fatestitcher decks and beyond. Even though it isn’t overly oppressive, it’s a game changing play that is pretty unfun to play against. Considering the card is banned in many formats, including regular Commander, this ban seems reasonable as well.

Reanimate

Reanimate

Where the decisions start to get a bit more controversial is with the last two bans. The first of these is Reanimate. Reanimate is obviously a very strong card, but the life loss associated with Reanimate is a real cost in a 20-life format that’s this assertive.

It also isn’t exactly the easiest thing to set up a quick reanimation of a huge threat. Instead, Reanimate is more so used as an efficient way to resurrect a midrange threat that bit the dust.

The explanation given by the panel that oversees the Duel Commander bans focuses on the fact that Reanimate has become ubiquitous in black decks simply due to its efficiency. This point, coupled with the fact that cheaper threats have become much stronger (hence, you pay less life from resolving Reanimate), has ultimately caused the panel to take action.

Regardless, some players still find the ban “confusing,” as the card isn’t overly oppressive by any means. After all, there are tons of homogenous designs that one can argue have a more harmful effect on individual games (Psychic Frog goes in every Dimir deck, for example).

White Plume Adventurer

White Plume Adventurer

This segues nicely into the last card to be banned from Duel Commander: White Plume Adventurer. White Plume Adventurer is another card that is a bit ubiquitous, as most assertive white decks play it.

In this case, White Plume also suffers from the fact that it can singlehandedly take over a game for only three mana. While other Initiative and Monarch creature cost four or more mana, White Plume Adventurer costs three. You even get to untap one of your creatures to play defense and offense, which goes a long way towards keeping the Initiative.

All that being said, the ban is still a bit peculiar, considering the sheer power level of other cards that remain legal. One Magic Online Duel Commander player mentioned that they “didn’t even know these cards were good” in the format, while another player stated that outside of Balance, the newly banned cards are bad in Duel Commander.

There’s no denying the power level of these cards in a vacuum, but clearly these ban decisions are questionable.

Akiri, Line-Slinger

Akiri, Line-Slinger

Lastly, moving on from cards that were banned, we do have one card that was unbanned. Akiri, Line-Slinger is now back on the menu.

According to the panel, the decision was made in part to try to make artifact strategies more popular once more. Akiri initially entered the banlist mainly because, as a Partner Commander, players were able to get too much mileage out of the card advantage provided by the mechanic (running two Commanders instead of one).

Things have changed drastically since then, with more potent Commander options and threats for players to deploy. With a current lack of synergistic artifact strategies in Duel Commander, the hope is that unbanning Akiri will help create a more diverse environment.

It’ll be interesting to see if these bans have a major impact on the metagame in the coming weeks. There’s definitely a risk that the ban to Ezio only makes Aragorn, King of Gondor a more popular multicolor option, as Aragorn was already the most popular Commander option in the format according to mtgtop8. Only time will tell how these decisions will play out.

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