After a few sneak peeks a few weeks back, later this week we’ll see the first deep dive Kamigawa: Neon Destiny previews. While you’re waiting, you can review the State of the Format 2022 article.

The joint RC/CAG meeting is coming up on 30 January, so if there’s anything you want to bring up, now’s the time. We generally bring some closure to topics we’ve discussed over the previous quarter, but if there’s something you think deserves last-minute consideration, we’re listening. Head on over to the RC Discord server’s #format-philosophy channel and join the already-lively discussion.

Today’s Unfinity announcement included the introduction of the acorn watermark as the new method to distinguish what were previously silver-bordered cards.

We will be updating the rules for card legality to make the acorn symbol equivalent to silver-borders; they’re not allowed by default (but should be encouraged among playgroups!)

We considered allowing them – Commander is not a tournament format, so philosophically it aligns with Mark Rosewater’s points about un-cards – but while some of the classes of cards that get an acorn symbol would be fine (art-based abilities, for example) others are not (physical dexterity cards) and further trying to split would descend to specific card lists. Those might be viable as an optional addition, but not something we would look to make default.

Set looks like a ton of fun, though. Looking forward to it! As always, you’re welcome to join us on the RC Discord server to chat about it.

No changes

The back-to-back nature of the two Innistrad releases made for a very short announcement window and not one we want to take action in. We’re pretty happy with where things are and look forward to the influx of cards from Crimson Vow.

Our next announcement will be for the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty release, on February 7.

RULES

Rule 10 is removed.  Rule 11 is renumbered to Rule 10.

CARDS

Worldfire is Unbanned

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is Banned

Rule 10, which stated that commanders were subject to the legend rule, was created in the days when the legend rule was less stable; the rule remained as an artifact of that time.  It’s not a Commander-specific rule, but simply existed as a clarification.  Since it’s redundant, we chose to eliminate it.  This change is administrative only and will have no impact on how games are played.  Rule 11 bumps up to Rule 10.  

Worldfire was once banned due to the problematic interaction with floating mana and having access to your Commander. We want to foster a Commander environment where 8- and 9-mana spells are viable and likely to show up in a game, so we evaluate the expensive ones in that context. Unlike Coalition Victory and Biorhythm, which we continue to believe are problematic in that environment, the level of effort needed to make Worldfire effective is sufficient that we suspect it will not be as much of an issue. There are already cheaper ways to do similar things in the format.  We believe the social contract and robust pregame discussions will keep Worldfire out of games in which it doesn’t belong. 

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim has been a much-discussed card that is both popular to play with and unpopular to play against. There are many problems with the card, but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle 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.  You can drop in Golos and a few 5-color lands into a random deck and get all the ramp and card advantage you would ever want from a commander, with no worries about your mana base.  Golos’ ability effectively reduces the commander tax to one and once you hit seven mana (with Golos assuring that you have WUBRG and helping you get there quickly), you don’t need to do anything for the rest of the game except cast spells for free—something we always want to be careful about.  We’ve talked to the folks in Studio X and they understand the problems created by generically-powerful five-color commanders that don’t have WUBRG in their mana cost.  We don’t expect similar cards to come from them in the future, so a surgical strike now makes sense.  We understand that many players love Golos, so we don’t take this action lightly.  In the end, the health of the format is our primary concern and we find Golos unhealthy.  While Kenrith, the Returned King is a similarly flexible and popular commander for good stuff five color decks, we see it as a clear step down from Golos.