Announcing Herald Commander! A New Format With a Ban List Determined By Thorough Review of Our Online Store

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — The Herald staff is proud to announce our brand new format, Herald Commander, where all unbans will be carefully selected to be fair, balanced, and also on our list of cards to sell.

As a revolutionary new way to play Magic: The Gathering, Herald Commander will truly give power back to the players. At the very least, Mox Emerald, we have a bunch of them around the office.

Designing this new format from the ground up, we on the Herald staff took our time examining why certain cards have been banned and whether they should continue to be. With the changes we’ve made, we hope to encourage self-expression, memorable gameplay, and the rapid liquidation of our store’s inventory.

When playing Herald Commander, you can expect to see your old faves take center stage once again.

Take, for example, Primeval Titan. For years, scientists argued that Prime Time “warped games” and led to an “overrepresentation of heavy ramp strategies.” However, we think about things a little differently. After conducting a rigorous analysis of our own, we discovered dozens of the 6/6 giant collecting dust in the back of our warehouse.

Likewise with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. The Rules Committee evaluated their ban based on Golos’s ability to “effectively reduce the commander tax to one.” Taking a different approach, our committee evaluated our unban based on ability to effectively reduce our 146 near-mint copies before Q4.

Now, we know there are critics out there who think that some cards are simply too broken and must stay banned. We agree! After careful consideration by our staff, Jeweled Lotus will remain banned because of really unhealthy play patterns and because we weren’t able to get our hands on any copies before this announcement.

We also know that new formats often face criticism over things like transparency, accountability, and toxic Discord servers. Ours will be different–our Discord server is venomous.

Nevertheless, we do affirmatively commit ourselves to transparency and accountability, both now and on all future decisions. Every unban announcement will include a link to the newly legal cards to purchase immediately before everyone else realizes. And if enough players demand the unban of a card we already own five hundred copies of, we will gladly be the responsive stewards of the format you trust us to be.

The ban list needed to change, and by launching Herald Commander, we hope to change things for the better. Because we should all agree that the healthiest format is one where everyone gets the chance to play the cards they love. Provided, of course, that we have them in stock.