First Printed: 1993-AUG-05
Banned: —
Ancestral Recall was originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While it’s plenty powerful, it’s the effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. Ancestral Recall was an iconic and expensive card at the time it was banned, and removing it from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
On its face, Balance looks like a very effective catch-up strategy that’s mechanically very white, but in practice it leads to slow, long games with a low density of meaningful decisions or memorable events. Players are often left with little-to-no resources and little-to-no cards in hand, feeling like they don’t have any agency in the game they’re playing.

First Printed: 2002-OCT
Banned: —
As an eight-mana sorcery, Biorhythm can appear to deck builders as a fair and funny haymaker but the reality is that it usually results in a disappointing twist to the game, ignoring previous gameplay to wipe 100+ life off the board.   Wrath effects are a core element of casual metagames, and most often Biorhythm results in the accidental elimination of players rather than a strategic payoff.

First Printed: 2001-AUG
Banned: 2009-JUN (as commander)
2014-SEP (overall)
Braids has a tendency to create fully locked down boardstates and ends games early in a remarkably unsatisfying way. Braids removes resources aggressively, meaning players are unable to keep the resources needed to remove it. First banned as a commander in 2009. When ‘Banned as a Commander’ was removed in 2014, Braids was moved to the general banlist.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: 2010-JUN
Channel abuses two important aspects of the format:
1) Higher life totals make the life payment essentially trivial if this is played in the early game;
2) Players always have something to do with the mana (eg. cast their commander).
Channel often catapults its controller way ahead by producing huge amounts of mana.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
Cards that require manual dexterity present unique accessibility challenges for the format. We don’t want Commander to be a format that you can only play if you can engage in specific physical actions. Chaos Orb incentivizes players to physically spread their cards out over a large area in order to minimize the possibility of multiple permanents being affected. At best, this is awkward, and at worst it adds needless complexity to maintaining the state of the game.

First Printed: 2000-OCT
Banned: 2007-MAR
Coalition Victory threatens a strongly negative experience largely out of nowhere for a casual table where the game is expected to go long enough that a spell such as Coalition Victory will be cast. In general, tapping out at a healthy life total against an opponent with nothing but any 5-color Commander in play shouldn’t cause you to lose the game unless you have signed up for that kind of experience (in which case Coalition Victory is far from your biggest problem.) Steering folks away from this kind of experience is at the heart of what the banlist is trying to accomplish.

First Printed: 2019-AUG

Banned: 2024-SEP

Dockside Extortionist generates 4+ treasures very easily in a multiplayer game, which accelerates one player into midgame (or even late game) plays starting as early as turn two. As a creature it’s easy to recur, and often entire games would revolve around a two-drop.

.

First Printed: 2010-APR
Banned: 2010-DEC
Emrakul’s collection of game-warping abilities come at a high cost, but they have a tendency to effectively win games without explicitly ending them. Emrakul was banned due to overwhelming outcry from the community, who told us that ramping quickly into it was one of the most common and least-interesting ways to win. As an amazing colorless finisher, it was too tempting for too many decks.

First Printed: 2005-JUN
Banned: 2014-SEP
When played as a commander, Erayo leads decks that cast and flip her early, leading to games where even targeted removal is often ineffective. Worse, a flipped Erayo does not always send a strong signal to newer players that the game is essentially over. The natural result is a play pattern that is nearly always one-sided and oppressive.

First Printed: 1994-JUN
Banned: —
Cards that require manual dexterity present unique accessibility challenges for the format. We don’t want Commander to be a format that you can only play if you can engage in specific physical actions. Falling Star incentivizes players to physically spread their cards out over a large area in order to minimize the possibility of multiple permanents being affected. At best, this is awkward, and at worst it adds needless complexity to maintaining the state of the game.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: 2009-JUN
Fastbond exploits two unique and important aspects of the format: 
1) Higher life totals make the damage essentially trivial if this is played in the early game;
2) Players always have something to do with the mana (eg. cast their commander).
Fastbond often catapults its controller ahead by producing huge amounts of mana and landfall triggers.

First Printed: 1996-OCT
Banned: 2020-APR
Flash effectively allows players to evoke a creature in their hand for 1U. Many other formats have recognized that the mechanism that Flash uses to do this prevents meaningful interaction. Worse, because Flash’s power is tied to the creatures that are being cheated into play, its power increases over time as creature designs become more powerful.

First Printed: 2004-OCT
Banned: 2009-JUN
Gifts’ low U investment makes it splashable, and the instant speed means you can use it at the most opportune time with lowered chance for countering or interaction. The ability to tutor for two combo pieces and two ways to recur them generally makes this a one-card game-ender, and even in the most casual play is a double tutor.

First Printed: 2019-JUL
Banned: 2021-SEP
There are many problems with the card, but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle power level tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks. Its presence crushes the kind of diversity in commander choice which we want to promote.

First Printed: 2012-MAY
Banned: 2012-JUN
Griselbrand’s typical play pattern involves cheating it onto the battlefield early to draw an overwhelming number of cards. Its effect is amplified in Commander due to higher starting life totals, its constant availability as a commander, and by the fact that you get the cards in hand immediately after activating its ability. 

First Printed: 2020-NOV
Banned: 2021-JUL
Hullbreacher creates an environment of asymmetric resource denial in the early game. Its ability easily combines with several other cards to strip opponents’ hands, and keep them empty. This creates an environment where players don’t have agency, but doesn’t outright end the game. Combined with its easy splashability, it was an attractive and popular card to include in decks that were played in environments that couldn’t handle it.

First Printed: 2009-OCT
Banned: 2019-JUL
Iona’s ability to lock entire colors out of the game makes it brutally efficient at removing agency from other players at the table, especially when opponents are playing 1- or 2-color decks. This often has the effect of totally negating one or more players’ involvement in a game and creates unnecessary social friction.

First Printed: 2020-AUG
Banned: 2024-SEP

Jeweled Lotus accelerates big commanders, but also accelerates 4-5 mana commanders even more and those have become increasingly powerful since 2020.  Often drawing cards or otherwise yielding value, they offset the disadvantage of lotus, which contributes to explosive starts which are difficult to catch up with.

First Printed: 1994-JUN
Banned: 2008-SEP
Commander is a format that focuses on legendary creatures that tie together decks thematically, and Karakas is a land that can both prevent a player from having consistent access to their commander AND allow its controller to consistently save their commander from removal. It does both of these things for a negligibly low activation cost.

First Printed: 2016-AUG
Banned: 2017-APR
Leovold – as a commander – creates an environment of asymmetric resource denial in the early game. Its second ability protects itself and other resource denial pieces in play, and its first ability easily combines with several other cards to strip opponents’ hands, and keep them empty. This creates an environment where players don’t have agency, but doesn’t outright end the game.

First Printed: 1993-DEC
Banned: —
Library was for a long time considered the 10th piece of power in Vintage play. Like those, it was banned to avoid the perceived-barrier-to-entry, but was strong enough to be a candidate for banning even without the optics – especially in long games where the card draw yields inevitability over time.  Combined with its colorless nature, allowing it to go into every deck, and the occasional difficulty for inexperienced players to realize that Library is the reason they’re losing, its place on the banned list is very secure.

First Printed: 1998-JUN
Banned: 2008-JUN
Limited resources is probably the easiest card on the ban list to justify.  It does not scale with the number of players, so as early as turn two it effectively reads “Players can’t play any more lands” on a one mana enchantment.

First Printed: 2020-APR
Banned: 2020-APR
Lutri is in a unique category of banned cards that interact poorly with the structure of the format. In general terms, companions encourage creative deckbuilding and reinforce the idea that self-imposed restrictions can be fun and novel. Lutri’s restriction is met by nearly all Commander decks, so it allows all decks with blue and red to have a 101st card in deck and 8th card in their hand.

First Printed: 1994
Banned: 2024-SEP

Mana Crypt is an extremely powerful accelerant which, if drawn in the first two turns, immediately moves its controller to midgame spells.  The drawback of losing 1.5 life per turn is not a significant deterrent in a game which ends within 5-6 turns and starts with 40 life.  It is banned to lower the number of available mana-positive rocks in the first few turns, and in doing so decrease the frequency of extremely fast starts.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
The five coloured Moxen were originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While they’re fairly powerful, it’s their effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. The Moxen were iconic and expensive cards at the time they were banned, and removing them from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
The five coloured Moxen were originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While they’re fairly powerful, it’s their effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. The Moxen were iconic and expensive cards at the time they were banned, and removing them from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
The five coloured Moxen were originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While they’re fairly powerful, it’s their effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. The Moxen were iconic and expensive cards at the time they were banned, and removing them from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
The five coloured Moxen were originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While they’re fairly powerful, it’s their effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. The Moxen were iconic and expensive cards at the time they were banned, and removing them from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
The five coloured Moxen were originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While they’re fairly powerful, it’s their effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. The Moxen were iconic and expensive cards at the time they were banned, and removing them from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 2024-APR
Banned: 2024-SEP
Nadu is an inexpensive commander, in popular colours which very easily yields an overwhelming resource advantage.  Even without building around it, it leads to long, non-deterministic turns with little opportunity for fruitful interaction.  Worse, it’s not obvious how powerful Nadu is and the temptation to play it quickly led to a lot of miserable games.

First Printed: 2004-FEB-06
Banned: 2005
Panoptic Mirror’s presence on the banned list serves to remind players that most things are fun in moderation. It was (and remains) banned because of the incidental, often accidental, uses which lead to repetitive, boring games.  Beyond the obvious extra turns-combo, it’s a “trap” for casual deckbuilders because it seems like a fun value engine; however, too many different 4+ mana spells, when imprinted, will grind the game to a halt. Wraths, tutors, discard, even card draw can yield insurmountable advantage and lock up the game. 

First Printed: 2017-JAN
Banned: 2019-JUL
Paradox Engine can be played in any deck, and creates large amounts of mana at little-to-no deckbuilding cost. Its play patterns often involve long, drawn-out turns of tapping and untapping permanents, drawing cards, and generally monopolizing the chess clock of a game.

First Printed: 2010-JUL
Banned: 2012-SEP
In a format where 6-mana spells are par for the course, a card which tutors for any two non-basic lands and then demands an immediate answer to prevent its owner from further accelerating from mid- to end-game is problematic.  Even if it’s removed immediately, the lands it gets are hard to interact with.  The result is that it decides, but not ends, the game frequently, and, when it doesn’t, will often become the focal point for the rest of the game as players fight over it.  We want Commander games to be decided by who casts the best big spells, and Prime Time easily tips those scales.

First Printed: 2013-SEP
Banned: 2016-JAN
Prophet of Kruphix creates a gameplay pattern where the controller of the card can interact and meaningfully play during each other players’ turns. This inevitably leads to one player monopolizing play time without definitively ending the game.

First Printed: 1998-JUN
Banned: 2008-FEB
Outside of countermagic, it’s nearly impossible to stop this card from doing its thing once it gets going because returning it to its owner’s hand is part of the cost of activating its ability. If your graveyard is sufficiently stocked, it’s entirely possible that once you draw Recurring Nightmare, it is the only spell you’ll want to play for the rest of the game.

First Printed: 1999-JUN
Banned: 2014-SEP
Rofellos is unique in its ability to consistently provide access to 6 mana on turn 3 as a commander, regardless of which cards are played in the rest of the deck. This card is banned for doing too much too fast, with minimal deckbuilding restrictions.

First Printed: 1993-DEC
Banned: 2011-SEP
Shahrazad seems like the kind of fun, wacky spell that Commander wants to promote in the format. Unfortunately, resolving it is something of a logistical nightmare in most circumstances and the spell ends up causing a lot of bad experiences as players seem to love copying and recurring it, turning the game into a slog.

First Printed: 2004-FEB
Banned: 2012-JUN
There are many lands that players would love to see leaving the battlefield, but Sundering Titan doesn’t target those. Decks that blink or bounce Sundering Titan can utilize its effect repeatedly, leading to an environment where it’s nearly impossible for opponents to keep basic lands in play. Basic land destruction is a predictably unpopular mechanic, especially in an environment when you don’t know the people you’re playing against.

First Printed: 2004-FEB
Banned: —
Casting Sway of the Stars has the effect of completely negating the game that was in progress before its resolution. Sway adds time to the game and takes away action – you might as well shuffle up and play a new game.

First Printed: 2013-FEB
Banned: 2014-FEB
Sometimes considered an attempt to “fix” Primeval Titan, Sylvan Primordial ended up being just as bad and sometimes worse. It can only get Forests, but accelerates by 2-3 lands while knocking other players even further behind.  Often flickered out to repeat the effect, the resulting “Mana Gap” is usually insurmountable, and Sylvan Primordial is yet another example of a card which looks fun for the builder but makes games repetitive.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: 2008-DEC
Time Vault is a card that saw many changes to its rules text over the years in an attempt to remove the ability to easily take infinite turns with simple untap effects like Voltaic Key or Twiddle. Wizards finally reverted the card to its printed (and broken) text just prior to its banning in Commander.

First Printed: 1993-AUG
Banned: —
Time Walk was originally banned for poor optics, rather than power level.  While it’s plenty powerful, it’s the effect on perceived barrier-to-entry that really posed a problem because casual players watching Commander games in passing could reasonably assume that they needed hundreds (now thousands) of dollars in Power-9 mana as table stakes, just to join the format. Time Walk was an iconic and expensive card at the time it was banned, and removing it from the card pool was intended to combat the notion that Commander is a prohibitively expensive and inaccessible format.

First Printed: 1999-FEB
Banned: 2009-MAR
Tinker’s ability to get high-cost artifacts into play in the very early game often results in games ending extremely quickly, or being locked down to the point where players cannot interact meaningfully. Because Tinker’s power is tied to the artifacts that are being cheated into play, its power increases over time as artifact designs become more powerful.

First Printed: 1998-OCT
Banned: 2010-JUN
Tolarian Academy’s power is tied to the abundance and ease of access to cheap artifacts in the earliest stages of the game. This often creates two or more colored mana on turn one, and continues to scale throughout the game with no downside or additional ‘costs’ at untap. 

First Printed: 1998-OCT
Banned: 2013-APR
Trade Secrets is a flag-bearer for the banning principle of “Cards which interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format”, as it’s a cheap spell that allows two players to collude; draw unlimited cards, and then box the other players out of the game.

First Printed: 2001-AUG
Banned: —
Games of Commander are expected to go long; it’s not uncommon to see players cast spells for 10+ mana. Upheaval is both an emergency reset which leaves the game right back at square one, and a way to get way ahead in the game by floating mana. Bouncing everything, then replaying your hand while leaving everyone else stuck at nothing, gives no real way to interact with it besides countermagic.

First Printed: 1999-JUN
Banned: 2006-MAY
Yawgmoth’s Bargain abuses Commander’s higher life totals, making the life payment essentially trivial. It too easily allows for access to a large portion of one’s deck, without having to guess how far you need to go, and leaves the mana up for casting the cards drawn right away.