Huge Announcement from Commander Rules Committee - Four Cards Banned
Holy Crap, They Banned Dockside
Let's get the big stuff out of the way. The following cards have officially been banned in Commander:
This announcement, which was just posted on the Rules Committee's website and effective immediately, is perhaps one of the most consequential bannings we've seen in a long time.
The Rules Committee gave thorough explanations in the announcement, but we'll paraphrase here. Mana Crypt (503,251 decks) and Jeweled Lotus (338,331 decks) are getting the ax due to their overwhelming effect on the game when played early. Dockside Extortionist (347,983 decks), while not as powerful in the early game, is taken out because of its ability to snowball into massive amounts of Treasure tokens. Lastly, Nadu, Winged Wisdom (leads 5,903 decks, in 13,074 decks), which has already been banned in other formats, is proving to be too problematic for EDH as well. The announcement draws specific attention to the Nadu players' tendency to take long, drawn-out, non-deterministic actions with the commander that lead to unfun games that go against the philosophy of the format.
This announcement, which was reposted on Magic's website as well (in case you were concerned about the announcement's legitimacy, because it's hard to believe), will have a massive impact on the format and community, particularly on the competitive, or cEDH, side of things, as these are all staples of the sub-format.
The announcement also alludes to the "silver border project," which was mentioned previously as a way to gauge the impact of the currently non-legal cards on the format if allowed in. The project is still in progress, and there's no news to add on it at this time.
Many Questions Need Answering
The announcement leaves important questions unanswered. The biggest, of course, is why now? Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, and especially Mana Crypt, have been around for years. So why are they getting banned after all this time?
With the effect that this will have on cEDH, is there an implication here that cEDH could potentially get its own ban list? Or break off into a new format entirely?
How much money (or perhaps value is more appropriate) are people losing from this banning? Jeweled Lotus is now an unplayable card that was over $100. And it's not even the most expensive card in the announcement.
Sound off below with your theories and reactions to this huge banning announcement. And stay tuned for more updates.
