Commander Rules Committee Dissolves

In what might be the final official announcement from the Commander Rules Committee (RC), the group revealed the decision to disband.

According to a post on the Wizards of the Coast (WotC) official site entitled "The Future of Commander," the RC has "given management of the Commander format" to the WotC design team.

This represents a wholesale shift of the format's previous structure of leadership, as the RC was comprised of independent members outside the hierarchy of WotC as a company.

Prior to this announcement, the Commander format was maintained by the RC, with the group "receiving input from the Commander Advisory Group (the CAG), a team of community leaders with diverse opinions and extensive contacts, who represent a breadth of perspectives on the format, while sharing the RC's vision for Commander," as per the RC's website. As of this writing, the CAG can be considered no longer an official entity involved in Commander decision-making. 

The RC was formed in 2006 as a method to foster the growth of the at-the-time new and community-created format that came to be known as Commander.

Wizards of the Coast released its first slate of official Commander products in June of 2011.

While WotC has been designing with Commander as a format in mind ever since, the RC had been the sole organization in charge of maintaining the health and direction of the format. 

The RC's official social media outlets confirmed this change, citing the threats members of the RC received following the controversial banning of four popular and expensive cards that saw significant play in Commander. 

Due to the threats, said the RC, it has "become impossible" for the group to operate as an independent entity. "We are sad about the end of this era, and hopeful for the future; WotC has given strong assurances they do not want to change the vision of the format," wrote the RC. "Committee members have been invited to contribute as individual advisors to the new management framework."

RC member Jim Lapage, who has been serving in that role since 2019, addressed the change via his Twitter, offering further reasoning for the shift to WotC control. "What's become clear to me is that fulfilling my committments requires a level of global connectedness, proactive and reactive communication, research, and skill beyond what I am capable of providing," wrote LaPage. "I don't think it's possible for a group of part-time volunteers to rise to this task."

LaPage continued, saying that the "inability to protect myself and the people I care about casts the whole situation in a different light." LaPage said last week, he reached out to WotC for help, and the RC and WotC began transitioning all management responsibilities for the format, with LaPage providing as much information, contacts and documentation to WotC to ensure that transition is smooth. "It's extremely important to me that the format's new leadership remains faithful to Sheldon (Menery)'s vision of a vibrant, global community with a strong focus on the people who play it," LaPage wrote. "I am truly devastated. This is not the outcome I wanted, but it is the only option that provides both appropriate care and attention to the community, and the safety that the format's leaders deserve as human beings."

In effect, the change erases nearly 20 years of RC control over the Commander format, and the shift to WotC in charge is leading many players on social media to express trepidation regarding the future of the format. However, an equally energized contingent online lay the blame for this change squarely on the feet of those who levied the threats to RC members stemming from last week's bannings. 

In essence, the structure of decision-making will remain the same, with members of the RC assuming the role previously held by the CAG, providing input to WotC design team members as they moderate the Commander format. 

The announcement from WotC addressing this change leads with a denouncement of the threats cited by RC members: "Over the past week, the conversation has escalated, culminating with unacceptable personal threats to the safety of members of the Commander Rules Committee. This is something we will not tolerate. No matter how you feel about something in Magic, it is never appropriate to threaten somebody. Everyone at Wizards of the Coast is united on this front--we will not hesitate to take action against individuals who threaten to harm community members or employees."

With the announcement, WotC explained that while the RC members and the community at large will still be involved in decisions affecting Commander, any future changes will be at the discretion of the WotC design team.

However, WotC explained that it's their intent to maintain the "vision" of Commander being a social format. Even so, WotC revealed an outline of an idea they intend to implement: "brackets."

The "bracket" idea is a "more objective approach" to deck power level. That's currently addressed by a 1-10 scale largely up to the interpretation by the player, leading to the cliche of every deck being a "seven" on the power level regardless of its 99 and commander. 

The "bracket" idea is explained like so:

"There are four power brackets, and every Commander deck can be placed in one of those brackets by examining the cards and combinations in your deck and comparing them to lists we'll need community help to create. You can imagine 'bracket one' is the baseline of an average preconstructed deck or below and 'bracket four' is high power. For the lower tiers, we may lean on a mixture of cards and a description of how the deck functions, and the higher tiers are likely defined by more explicit lists of cards.

For example, you could imagine bracket one has cards that easily can go in any deck, like Swords to Plowshares, Grave Titan, and Cultivate, whereas bracket four would have cards like Vampiric Tutor, Armageddon, and Grim Monolith, cards that make games too much more consistent, lopsided, or fast than the average deck can engage with."

The announcement of the in-the-works "bracket" system is one thing, but the timing is certainly a bit puzzling. With WotC sharing with the Commander-playing public that it is now in control of the format, dovetailing that announcement with topic of assessing power levels of Commander decks seems odd. Wizards of the Coast explained that this system can be considered "an open beta" with the details still in flux, which leads one to wonder if this "bracket" system announcement could have been postponed until after the fallout from dissolving of the RC was settled. 

It's also likely to very similar to the current method of determining power level at a Commander table, in Rule Zero, as WotC described: "Will this system guarantee perfectly matched games? No, and that might be fine at your table, but if it gets the conversation started from a shared understanding, that's already great for the table." Time will tell whether the "bracket" methodology will catch on.

Lastly, WotC said they'll be "evaluating" the current Commander banlist alongside members of the now-defunct RC, and clearly stated that this evaluation will not result in additional bans: "Immediate changes to the list are not our priority." That "priority," said WotC, is currently the "safety and well-being" of the members of the RC.