ADMINISTRATIVE

Appointments to the Commander Advisory Group (CAG): Kristen Gregory and Elizabeth Rice.

Welcoming Kristen and Ellie to the Commander Advisory Group

Kristen and Ellie are both deeply invested in Commander and possess excellent Magic minds.  You may have seen them on recent episodes of the Commander Rules Committee (RC) Twitch stream and elsewhere, or checked out some of their other work, so you’ll know how much they love the format. They bring the kinds of complementary and diverse voices which will make them outstanding additions to the CAG.  You can check out their full bios here.

RULES

Slight modification to Rule 11 to clarify dungeon legality.

Dungeons

Dungeons are a little wonky from a rules perspective since they’re more like emblems than other cards. Once they’re ventured into, they even live in the command zone; they then leave the zone when they’re completed.  They have to be considered cards so that other rules can work, but they’re not otherwise cards in the traditional sense.  They can’t go into your deck; their main function is as a specialized process marker.  To that end, Rule 11 is now worded like this:

Parts of abilities which bring other traditional card(s) you own from outside the game into the game (such as Living Wish; Spawnsire of Ulamog; Karn, the Great Creator) do not function in Commander.

CARDS

Hullbreacher is BANNED.

Hullbreacher

Hullbreacher has been a problem card since its release. Its ostensible defensive use against extra card draw has been dwarfed by offensively combining it with mass-draw effects to easily strip players hands while accelerating the controller. That play pattern isn’t something we want prevalent in casual play (see the Leovold ban), and we have seen a lot of evidence that it is too tempting even there, as it combines with wheels and other popular casual staples. The case against the card was overwhelming. 

There remain a few similar cards that are still permitted, notably Notion Thief and Narset, Parter of Veils. The additional hoops required (an additional color pip for Notion Thief, and sorcery speed for Narset) appear to be keeping them to the appropriate level of play, though we’ll continue to keep an eye on them.