Category Archives: Announcements

Low-traffic category containing changes to the rules, banned list, official site, etc.

Rules Updates

AUGUST 2023 QUARTERLY UPDATE

Cards

No changes

Rules

Wilds of Eldraine brings with it two Adventure commanders. Here’s how this card type interacts with the rules of Commander!

Commander Tax
Refer to Rule 6:
Commanders begin the game in the Command Zone. While a commander is in the command zone, it may be cast, subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting creatures. Its owner must pay {2} for each time it was previously cast from the command zone; this is an additional cost.

If Beluna Grandsquall is your commander, you have the option to cast it or Seek Thrills from your command zone. In either case, you must pay commander tax according to how many times it has been cast from the command zone so far in the current game. If you choose to cast Seek Thrills, exile it as it resolves and you have the option to cast it later from exile without paying commander tax.

Colour Identity
The colour identity of a legendary creature with adventure includes the colour(s) of any mana symbols in the adventure’s casting cost. Kellan, the Fae-Blooded has a colour identity of WR.

General Commentary

In our June update, we singled out two cards – Orcish Bowmasters and Mirkwood Bats. In the last 2 months, players have started to play with them and against them. Orcish Bowmasters in particular appears to be very strong. From what we’ve seen and from what people have told us, it doesn’t appear to be making as big of a splash as many had anticipated. This aligns with our initial expectations, and unless something changes we don’t foresee either card causing problems that warrant immediate action.

We’ll be back with our next update on November 10 in advance of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan!

Announcements, Rules Updates

June 2023 Quarterly Update

Cards
No changes

Rules
The ring tempts you – This is a mechanic that – on the surface – looks a lot like venturing into the dungeon. In the past we’ve had to make changes to Rule 10 (Cards from outside the game) to accommodate these mechanics. Unlike Dungeons, though, this mechanic is tracked on an emblem! The rules today already accommodate emblems, so no changes are necessary for this to function as it does in other formats.

General Commentary
We’ve been following the community’s discussions and concerns surrounding Orcish Bowmasters, and – to a lesser extent – Mirkwood Bats. With the help of the Commander Advisory Group, we’ll be observing how and if those discussions change over time as people play and play against these cards.

We’ve also seen a ton of excitement! The idea of a fully fleshed-out set with deep lore really closely aligns with our goals in managing the format. In this set, Wizards has delivered a ton of tools to players who want to tell stories through their deckbuilding and gameplay. A property as deep as Lord of the Rings has a ton of stories to tell.

We’ll be back with our next update on August 28 in advance of Wilds of Eldraine!

Announcements

May 2023 Quarterly Update

No changes.

We’re generally very happy with the state of Commander at the moment. We wanted to wait for the release of Aftermath to make sure there wasn’t anything of concern in it, but it looks good and we’re excited for all the new toys that March of the Machine has provided.

We’re particularly interested in seeing how Battles play out in Commander, where the multiplayer dynamics should have some interesting impact on their usage. Throw them in decks and let us know how it goes.

Poison was raised as a concern after all the new Toxic and Proliferate cards in All Will Be One, so we kept an eye on it for a bit, We don’t feel that it significantly altered the landscape for poison and don’t have plans to make any adjustments. It remains a mechanic that is sometimes good at taking out one person, but struggles to take down an entire table. 

We will have an announcement day with The Lord of the Rings. Traditionally we’ve made announcements the week before the release of Standard-legal sets, and LotR isn’t one, but it’s a significant set in the calendar cycle (with an accompanying MagicCon) which leads to an expectation that there’ll be one, so we’ll be back in mid-June with another update. Until then, enjoy March of the Machine!

Announcements

Delayed Quarterly Update

Hey everyone. You might normally be expecting a quarterly update today (the Monday before the pre-release), but given the proximity of Phyrexia: All Will Be One and the upcoming Aftermath, we figured we’d cool jets until 8 May, the Monday before the release. We’ll have a full quarterly update then. Enjoy yourselves at the Pre-Release. These cards are going to be wild! May all your battles be glorious (and battered down).

Announcements

A Note on Battles

Like other DFCs, the color identity of a Battle considers both sides of the card. For example, the CI of Invasion of Theros is white/blue. Also, please remember that for a DFC to qualify as a commander, its front face must be a legendary creature (or have text on its front face otherwise identifying it as a legal commander). There are currently no plans to change this rule. Enjoy the remainder of the #MTGMOM preview season. If you’d like to chat about all the saucy new cards, pop on over to the RC Discord server and join a bunch of friends already doing so!

Announcements

January 2023 Quarterly Update

Cards

No Changes

Rules

No Changes

Lots of new toys, Phyrexian and otherwise, to play with, and we aren’t seeing anything that’s currently threatening our goals for the Commander experience.

Some folks have been asking about the number of poison counters in the wake of Phyrexia: All Will Be One. We’ll obviously keep an eye out, but at the moment we don’t see a need to raise it; the mechanic has not historically been all that strong due to the need to go it alone in killing people. Once everyone has had a chance to play with the new cards and mechanics and the immediate enthusiasm for the current set has faded a bit, we’ll see if action is needed.

While Sheldon’s article may have raised some eyebrows about Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, the RC has had no discussions about banning it. Some of us had concerns about the design: stapling a casual-popular mechanic onto a casual-dangerous mechanic comes with some risks that are unrelated to power level, but there’s absolutely no way that would lead to a zero-day ban, and we doubt any action will be needed in the future. 

We’ve publicly had our eye on Dockside Extortionist for a while now, and have ultimately concluded that, unless there’s a sudden surge into more casual spaces – where it hasn’t really thrived due to the lower density of cheap, fast mana – we don’t anticipate taking action on it. It’s a ridiculously powerful card, but scales with the rest of the table, and at the point it becomes broken, plenty of other broken stuff is already happening.

We’ll be back with our next update on April 10th, with March of the Machine. Until then, come hang out with all the great people in the MTGCommander.net discord to talk about the format!