2022 August RC Quarterly Update

Cards

No Changes

Rules

No Changes

Administrative

Commander Advisory Group (CAG) additions

At the moment, there are no cards which we feel need banning.  We recognize that there has been a fair amount of discussion of both Dockside Extortionist and Thassa’s Oracle.  For the moment, we believe that both of these cards have been self-selected to the appropriate tables.  Dockside Extortionist is far closer to the line due to the recent uptick in Treasure-related cards; it will remain firmly in our sights.  Thassa’s Oracle remains distant enough that we don’t consider it a serious cause for concern.  When it comes to evaluating cards for banning, it’s not just what a card does (its power), but what a card does to the broader format (its impact).  We don’t currently see a negative enough impact

Quite a bit of energy has gone into discussing one of the community’s most talked-about issues, untrusted games—those in which you don’t know the other people you’re sitting down with.  This is a tough nut to crack.  Foremost, we don’t believe it’s an issue that we can ban our way into solving.  What we think we can do is help not just players, but LGS owners/managers and event organizers, with some best practices and other advice on how to craft the kind of Commander environment they want.  There isn’t a single, homogenized view among all the people who are running Commander in various places, so one of our new efforts going forward will be to provide those folks with some living documentation that will help them get to where they’d like to go.  

One of the other things we’ve spent time on is RC expansion.  We’ve conducted two rounds of interviews over the last few months and are on the verge of making  a decision.  We aren’t going to make it at the moment, but we expect to announce the addition(s) before the next quarterly update–likely some time in the middle of September.  As we’ve been thinking about RC membership, we’ve taken the opportunity to talk with some folks that we’d love to hear more from.    

To that end, welcome three outstanding individuals onto the Commander Advisory Group:  Rebell, Benjamin Wheeler, and Tim Willoughby.  Rebell brings deep knowledge of the format across all levels of play and she combines it with an insatiable drive for building high-quality, inclusive communities.  Few people know community-built formats better than Wheeler, who was responsible for crafting both Canadian Highlander and Gladiator, then bringing them to the Magic forefront. His propensity for building oddball Commander decks is now legendary.  Tim was an early adopter of EDH, jamming games with Sheldon and other judges as early as 2005 in the after-hours of professional Magic events.  His essay on why each card is banned is commonly regarded as the best of its kind and will be adapted for inclusion on the RC website.  Each of our new members brings to the table a unique voice paired with a first-rate Magic and Commander mind.  We look forward to their advice on both existing and new projects.  You can check out their bios over on the RC website.  

There’s a specific channel on the Commander RC Discord server dedicated to discussing the quarterly updates.  We look forward to you stopping on by and discussing it, as well as a host of other topics, with now more than 7,000 friends.