Wizards to Introduce Third Level of Commander Banlist You Can Completely Ignore

Jon Ruggiero • March 5, 2025

Satire

Renton, WA - After creating a second, softer banlist called the Game Changers, Wizards of the Coast and the Commander Format Panel have announced that they are preparing to release a third, even-more-irrelevant banlist.

The new banlist, called Game Changers Plus, is filled with cards that can lead to unfun and repetitive deckbuilding, according to Wizards spokesperson Trent Crosby.

"We at Wizards want you to have as much freedom as necessary to flex your creative deckbuilding skills," explained Crosby in a long-winded press release we have edited for time. "To that end, we are putting even more restrictions on the cards you play. As you'll remember from our Commander Brackets 'beta' announcement earlier this week, we created the list of Game Changers that can potentially warp any game they're played in. These cards are so powerful most people don't even play them in their decks, which made us wonder 'why did we make Game Changers in the first place?'

"Instead of worrying about that, we decided we needed to make another category of Game Changers that is more inclusive to force more restriction, because as we all know, 'restriction breeds creativity', and we want our players to be creative. There aren't many cards that fit into what we call Game Changers Plus. In fact, it's only six cards that are actually widely played, so much so that we think people should be playing without them just to see what kind of impressive new decks they can make, even if we will never enforce a GC+ ban."

The press release spent as much time as possible not mentioning the cards in the GC+ list, potentially because Crosby and the CFP knew the choices would be controversial.

"We feel that putting the five basic lands and Sol Ring

into the Game Changers Plus category highlights how powerful these cards are and how important their contributions to deckbuilding are. But with many new options available, we think making these few cards Game Changers gives players the freedom to find other ways to make mana. Perhaps they could try the new series of Roads from the recently released Aetherdrift set? These new and exciting cards can be found in play booster boxes at your local game store, so be sure to buy them today!"

The end of the press release includes a link to Magic: Arena, where a new version of Brawl called Game-Changing Brawl will soon be included and ignored by most users.

Jon Ruggiero

Jon Ruggiero

Escape room designer, comedy show host, satire writer; Jon Ruggiero never misses an opportunity to do weird things for money. He's written for Cracked, Hard Times and Hard Drive, and hopes you enjoy what he writes here.