Cards
A couple major things have happened in the Magic world since our last quarterly update in April:
On May 13, Wizards of the Coast banned all cards that bring a sticker or attraction into the game from all tournament formats in which they were previously legal. This action did not ban stickers or attractions in Commander, and we’d like to reaffirm their legality here.
Modern Horizons also brought us Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
Nadu has become synonymous with drawn-out, non-deterministic turns that may or may not end the game. In a lot of ways, this card resembles Paradox Engine, but it remains to be seen whether Nadu’s impact on the format will rise to that level. We’ll be closely monitoring Nadu (and the online conversations about it) to see if it self-selects to tables and pods that are prepared to deal with it. If you want to share your experiences playing with or against Nadu, reach out to folks on the Commander Advisory Group or hop into our Discord and join the discussion.
No cards are being banned or unbanned in Commander at this time.
Rules
No changes
SIlver-Bordered Cards
Last month, inspired by the Sticker and Attraction changes in other formats, we started a project that’s focused entirely on Silver-Bordered cards. This includes UN-set cards, as well as a number of promos that are not officially legal in Commander.
The intent of this project is to equip players with the tools they need to communicate their preferences and arrive at a shared set of expectations.
We know that silver-bordered cards are often contentious (and often with good reason), but we want to put the collective expertise of the Commander Advisory Group and Rules Committee to work in classifying the cards that are generally fine, the cards that can be fine with a little work, and the cards that people should generally steer clear of. There’s a group of folks out there who love playing with silver-bordered cards, and we want to remove as much friction as possible in their pre-game conversations.
This project is set to conclude at the end of August, and we’ll hopefully have more to communicate in September’s Quarterly Update alongside Duskmourn.
Bloomburrow Rules Notes
By all accounts, Bloomburrow looks to be an exciting set packed with incredible art and a strong thematic framework. We don’t anticipate any format-level changes being necessary as a result of anything in this set.
Our next quarterly update will be September 30, 2024.
If you’re going to just keep saying “self-select for a table that can handle it”, why do we even have a banlist in the first place? After all, a format with no banlist can self-select just as easily.
Karakas, Tolarian Academy, and Library of Alexandria could be unbanned under the logic of “it just self-selects for tables that run lots of targeted land destruction and nonbasic hate”, but that’s not going to happen for extremely obvious reasons. They’re extremely low-committment cards that win the game if not answered.
Coalition Victory is apparently such a problem it needs to be banned despite folding to any instant speed removal, but a card ruining Modern because it has no answer is fine because we can “self-select” for it? What tables can handle Nadu? It has a higher winrate in cEDH than blue farm and Kinnan. Nadu is a card better than the best of the best and it’s showing up at casual tables because “funny bird works great with lightning greaves”.
Even trying to keep the banlist as small as possible (which I feel is becoming a less and less tenable position with the increasing prevalence of outlier cards in the format), it’s long overdue for having cards on it swapped out for ones that are far more problematic and prevalent. Yeah sure I’m not exactly pining for most of the current banlist to come back, but I’d gladly put a -8 back in the pool (or in some cases, a card that used to be a -8 but has since become a -4) to remove a -9 or -10.
I don’t know if it’d be of any use to y’all but a couple months back I went through all the Un-cards myself and made a “silver border but I believe most playgroups would actually let you play them” list like the one you are currently working on. Made a set of rules like automatically banning all dexterity cards and “outside players” cards.
Let me know if you’d like to take a look, and if I can help in any way.
Ban some fast mana pieces so games don’t end too fast or one player loses too fast please. It would also prevent mulligan spam for one of these pieces.
Proposed bans: Mana Crypt, Gaea’s Cradle, Serra’s Sanctum.
Are there any cards that you would consider unbanning due to the rising power level of the format?
nadu works good in 99 of the deck
it sucks to play against as a commander
Hey there, I just wanted to leave my opinion regarding Nadu as someone who is primarily a cEDH player, but also as a casual player.
From a casual perspective, I think that this is a card that should not be seen at casual tables as commander. I think the paradox engine comparison is incredibly valid, but recognise that this does in turn carry greater deck building restrictions than a colourless card offering unconditional value.
This is possibly a localised issue, but I have found that players in the LGS space across my state are increasingly building decks to as full a power level as their budget can allow, and as such are essentially building unpowered cEDH decks in the process. To try and address this for the health of the format on a local scale I’ve started introducing players to cEDH to show them that they can play really cool, really powerful stuff that they enjoy at tables that can handle them, instead of simply steam rolling Timmy who has just bought his first precon and is now wondering what the return policy is. However, increasingly I am finding that players with less than two years experience within this format are completely numb to the idea of a tailored and balanced gaming experience, and are instead simply interested in winning. Similarly, commanders that are win conditions in themselves or enable a specific strategy or as some around me have described as ‘self building’ are increasingly appealing to new players, whilst more open ended commanders reflective of an earlier format such as Riku are confronting to them and beyond their comfort level.
What I find difficult with Nadu in the cEDH context however is not the power level, but more so the issue of time parity – especially in a tournament context where players are utilising a shared clock. Whilst I play with some incredibly efficient pilots of the deck, I find that the time available for other players can be reduced by 20%, and even more so when less efficient players are piloting the deck. This is in part due to the resolution of triggers leading to a non-deterministic value spiral, as well as the added complexity of resolving powerful land ETB’s such as Talon Gates of Madara and the associated table politics that comes with these as well as through the revealed information of interaction.
As someone who is organising their first tournament at the end of this coming month, I do not look forward to navigating this issue of time parity. Whilst it is reasonable to police the time it takes for a player to resolve a Necropotence trigger or other such information intensive game action, it appears far more difficult to police the time given to a Nadu player resolving their gameplay loop, especially in instances through which they are taking place through another players turn. As of late, our local online meta has been somewhat marred by a large number of draws which I believe disillusion players especially in instances that they believe they could win. Whilst extra time could be given to resolve this, I believe it is far more reasonable to address the issues that lead to time running out than to add additional logistical concerns to an organisers plate. For these reasons, I would firmly support a ban to Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
I apologise for such a long winded essay, but hope that my experiences and observations might be helpful in navigating a way forward with this format. I’m incredibly appreciative of the work that you do, and admire your groups resolve to continue driving conversations about this format and promoting it in spite of pronounced internet hostility.
what about the wheel of potenial
As a person who loves upsets and building uncommanders i am so excited about this. Hopefully it will be like the list when unstable was legal for a few months but expanded on all the unsets with similar rules.
Please ban nadu and thassa’s oracle, it ruins commander very annoying.
If you genuinely care about Commander as a format, please be more aggressive about banning cards.
Commander has a community that plays at the highest power levels, and they follow commander’s rules to the letter of the law, including the banlist. Rule Zero would ruin the integrity of competitive games at that level and for that I ask that you tune the ban list to the highest power levels specifically.
Every other power level can ride on rule zero for people to decide what they do and don’t like. CEDH’s rule zero is that you are playing a legal commander deck and you are playing to win. For the format to survive healthily, the ban list has to exist for power level purposes only (except for the weird cases like conspiracy, dexterity, and offensive stuff)
On that note, I will be 100% honest on my ban opinions being Nadu, Thassa’s Oracle, and Dockside Extortionist.
Thassa’s Oracle is everything about why Coalition Victory is banned except it’s 2 mana and arguably easier to set up. The other empty deck wins are fair due to needing to draw that last card, while Thoracle does it as a ETB trigger.
Dockside is simply just too powerful of a mana engine. It has the Primeval Titan issue where games can revolve around copying/flickering it across all players and at the worst case scenario makes a nigh-unbearable mana advantage.
Nadu… This is everything about why Paradox Engine is banned, except it’s 3 mana and IN THE COMMAND ZONE. Pods may be equipped to deal with it, but they were also equipped to handle Paradox Engine, and we all know how that went.
Please ban at least one thing from among those three cards, preferably all three. If you really believe Rule Zero is a core part of the format’s philosophy, you’d understand that CEDH is the only power level that matters for the actual banlist.
I think it’s wonderful that you’re working on a project for varying Silver Border Legalities, and I’ve done something similar myself (which is mostly complete at this point but sadly has not been finished as a result of Moxfield not allowing more than a certain number of cards on a single page).
Here’s what I have, with the Primer containing details on each category and the requirements to fall under them: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/8f7EYeEGxEqDh3rFAVEurA
If you have questions, I would be happy to answer them. Similarly, as a veteran game designer myself I would love to lend any knowledge I have to this project.
Thank you and have a wonderful day
Matt
Dockside vs non dockside decks have a win rate of 59% vs 41%
Nadu is terrible to play against because they take 10 minute turns to sometimes fizzle
Bowmasters has killed green dorks and it isn’t because green is drawing, but because the blue players are with Rhystic Study
Please do something about this format
Nadu is out of control and table talk ends (at least arou d me) with ” i will play until is banned”.
The soft bans don’t work for quite some time.
Some time has passed since the arrival of Nadu, the error made in relation to the writing of Nadu’s haility becomes clear. The possibility of generating value without the need to spend mana or cards from your own hand is absurd, creatures that target themselves or that trigger abilities and generating tokens to become the target of abilities and continue triggering are out of control . In my humble opinion, you are obliged to have answers in your deck, but directing answers to a specific deck points to the problem in the [Nadu] deck, removing Nadu from the table after the cast can trigger several triggers, which can play lands on the field , or cards in your own hand, this is absolutely ridiculous.
In the last tournaments in my locality, Nadu has been a problem, always being at the top, in addition to the time factor for the plays, the chances of a response that his skill creates are absurd.
Link to our playgroup:
https://www.instagram.com/galera_do_mesao?igsh=dTBmOWh1dmwxeXJi
Since nadu’s arrival, we have always had him in first place in tournaments (our tournament limits budgets). A large part of our community is dissatisfied with the card’s design, even the players who decided to play NADU share the same thought.
Thank you for your attention!
We speak directly from Brazil, Belém- PA (Amazon region).
Hi folks,
I’ve recently had this brought up in my playgroup and I’d appreciate knowing your feelings on this. My friend asked us about the legality of Rusko, Clockmaker, as it has recently been printed in mystery boosters. From what I’ve researched, alchemy cards are not currently explicitly banned in commander, and neither has WotC chimed in. This is currently generating quite a bit of friction as some of us believe this card fundamentally breaks the singleton rule. Thanks for your consideration, I look forward to hearing anything on this subject.
Ban the bird please.
Ancestral Recall: banned
Nadu + Shuko/Sea Kings’ Blessing/Sylvan Paradise (etc): legal for some reason
Greetings,
I know this opinion will most likely have little to no impact on the Rules Committee’s analysis of this card, and it might not be a popular opinion, but here is my observation based on my most recent experiences with the deck. I also know this is probably reiterating some of the above update but here it goes.
I believe that Nadu is a powerful Commander, to be sure, but I think it will relegate itself to competitive commander play. (cEDH) In that setting, where interaction is more stable and more consistent, Nadu performs well but CAN be dealt with fairly readily. I have played it myself at the cEDH level and I have also spent a lot of time watching it played on YouTube cEDH actual-plays and it performs just as efficiently as other decks in that meta.
From the Casual Commander perspective, Nadu is busted and very difficult to interact with if you are not prepared for it, BUT I believe this all boils down to having productive and positive conversations with your pods before starting the game.
I attended GenCon this summer, and in all of the games I played, we had before-game conversations. Each time I asked if I could play my Nadu deck, and the majority of the time the pod asked if I could play something else if I had it…and I did.
If playgroups at home or local game stores encourage players to have appropriate pre-game conversations a lot can be solved before the game even starts.
My last thought on this is; that while Nadu can be compared to the likes of Paradox Engine or other such artifacts, Nadu is specifically Simic colors which require a specific build-around mentality, whereas Paradox Engine could be put in any color combination deck and become dangerous/toxic.
Ultimately, I think Nadu deserves more time to sort itself out and deserves a little more time to see how it fits in the community before being ban-worthy. I sincerely believe that it will become a cEDH-exclusive commander deck and will work its way out of casual settings once players, who try to play it casually, give up or get bored with it.
Again, thank you for just listening to my thoughts, opinions, and general observations on Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
I mentioned this on the Discord a while back, but it is worth repeating here. I bet my friend a Collector Booster that Nadu will be banned in the next quarterly update. If you could ban Nadu in the Duskmourn update in order to help facilitate my request, my wallet and I would appreciate it. Thanks!
It is disheartening that Nadu has not yet been banned…disregarding a lot of the buzz as to why it should not be banned, I would think that what the RC and the CAG would want is the commander community at large to have a fun and enjoyable experience playing commander.
I don’t believe that Nadu facilitates that. I have personally never seen it loose at any table or pod it is at. The most egregious point is that 60% of the table is having a miserable time watching someone else play solitaire which drags games out even longer in an already dragged out format. Doesn’t this defeat the point of magic as a whole? Isn’t magic a game of interaction?
There are things on the ban list that shouldn’t be on there in the first place, but this card isnt?I believe that if this cards doesnt get banned, than you are missing the point of commander as a whole, and you should really rethink how the RC operates.