Dragons Of Tarkir banlist update
The format keeps growing, thanks to players’ involvement and thanks to new sets being released, especially the ones that are dedicated to Commander. Choices among new legendary creatures with a strong identity allow players to play a wide range of efficient strategies. We would like to promote such a diversity as much as possible. Having considered the current context, we do think players need a maximum number of possibilities to properly explore the current metagame. Nevertheless, we still have to restrict the overly fast pace of some unbalanced strategies.
- Entomb is banned.
- Foodchain is banned.
- Fastbond is banned.
- Winter Orb is unbanned.
- Crucible of Worlds is unbanned.
- Sensei’s Divining Top is unbanned.
- Braids, Cabal Minion is unbanned as a commander.
These changes take effect on March 23rd, 2015.
More explanations can be found HERE.
Your feedback is welcome, as usual. While we read most of the forums out there, the best way to make yourself heard is by writing us HERE.
The next announcement is expected to be on July 13th, 2015.
The Duel Commander rules committee.
Entomb:
This cards allows explosive combos too early in the game. It’s the only card that both allows searching through a library and moving a card in a beneficial zone for one single mana.
The possibility given by Entomb overwehlms widely the structure we would like to give to Duel Commander.
Food Chain:
Food Chain is widely used in Duel Commander as the exile restriction is easily bypassed… Thanks to the Commander rule and the specificities of some legendary creatures. Some of them allow immediate recursion and a “collateral” profit. We do consider that the speed of such actions is really too fast and also that interaction with those actions becomes too hard.
Fastbond:
Fastbond is a dreadful mana accelerating card when played on the first turns but such a use remains seldom. Later in the game, its effect often becomes more limited by the inability to gather several lands in hand. Yet, sometimes, a synergy can break this (a “bounce-land”, cards like Upheaval, Sunder,…). Because of the releasing of new BUG possible commanders, such synergies found new homes, in which they become “unhealthy” for the format.
Moreover, we think that Crucible of Worlds and Fastbond shouldn’t be on the same side of the banned/authorized lists. Those two cards together are too explosive for the format.
Winter Orb:
Having to face a growing number of decklists that revolve around final combos (hybrid decks such as aggro/combo or control/combo), it appeared to us that we should offer an alternate “stax/prison” path for all archetypes. Such a path exists under many forms when based on the specifications of the commander -whether we talk about its color(s) or power(s)-, but having access to an artifact offers more possibilities.
Crucible of Worlds :
Previous statements regarding Winter Orb also apply here. The possibilities that are offered by Crucible Of Worlds as a constraints means or as a developing basis favours interactive strategies. Having Crucible Of Worlds back also follows the editor’s choices, who considers graveyards as a whole resourceful zone, as opposed to the exile zone, that is a real zone of no return.
Senseï’s Divining Top:
Today, duel commander is supported by a lot of new associations and actively played by a lot of people. Therefore, it doesn’t seem appropriate for us to continue to monitor playing time management and to take it as an element into consideration. Having excluded these considerations, we believe that this card isn’t unfair.
Braids, Cabal Minion:
This commander has been banned for a long time. Since then, all means available to put it into play quickly while paying its upkeep conditions have been limited. Moreover, the format gave birth to a lot of powerful decks. We think that Braids, Cabal Minion can fit in duel commander without having a negative impact on the format.
Last but not least, we would like to point out our vigilance regarding Tasigur, the Golden Fang as a commander.
The Duel Commander rules committee.
24 Responses so far
Dri
March 23rd, 2015
Merci pour la toupie, ca fait vraiment plaisir !
Sergey Lamzin
March 23rd, 2015
1) sensei!!!! can’t be unbanned. Too much advantadge for a player, who cast it first. This card will make blue controls (Narset, Avgustin, Geist) very-very strong. i think, that they are overpowered enough right now. Without top. And top will give them opportunity to improve their topdecks. Plz!!!!!!!! Ban it :-,(((
2) entomb. Thats right 🙁 i play reanimators myself a lot. Karador and Child. Only strong blue control decks can win against reanimator
So
A lot of new interesting ideas and generals. But…. But i think that unbanning top and bunning entomb and chain will make methagame totally blue
Guillaume
March 23rd, 2015
Bonne initiative de signaler un potentiel ban pour la prochaine sortie d’extention !
geoffroy
March 23rd, 2015
Bonjours a tous,
voila je me permet de vous envoyer un mail car a ma grande tristesse entomb est banni , je joue duel commander depuis maintenant 3 ans je trouve le metagame très ouvert mais je pense que bannir entomb n’est pas une bonne chose.
bien sur la carte est très forte mais elle reste très importante dans les jeux réanimator; Réanimator qui souffre déjà énormément face a anafenza , sachant en plus que les deck qui réussisse les meilleurs résultats dans les gros tournoi sont anafenza , geist , GAA, marath, jenara ,narset ,maelstrome n’utilise pas cette carte . je pense que bannir entomb c’est un peu la fin pour les jeux réanimator et c’est bien dommage .
CORDIALEMENT
Gulash
March 24th, 2015
Very good changes. Let’s hope Top doesn’t make games too long
Idiots
March 25th, 2015
This format is going to suck now.
Nothing quite says “we don’t care about the format” like letting Braids see play and having top legal.
Kristian
March 25th, 2015
Oh Fastbond D:, that hurts my Damia deck a bit. No longer able to keep up with Maelstrom Wanderer.
Charlie
March 25th, 2015
I feel that Sensei’s Divining Top will be an auto-include in any control deck. While this isn’t inherently format-warping or necessarily broken, it’s important to note that a newly unbanned card shouldn’t be automatically placed into an entire deck archetype. Game length is still a concern as well.
As for Entomb, it is a powerful card that I was on the fence about before the banning. While T1 Entomb (often targeting Griselbrand), T2 Reanimate is far too strong for any format, it implies that people will draw the perfect hand. The odds of this, of course, are rather low and this is more likely to occur after a few turns of tutoring/drawing.
However, I support the Duel Commander rules’ committee judgment on the banlist and I’m excited to see how the metagame plays out between now and July.
Rick
March 26th, 2015
Your reason(s) behind unbanning Sensei’s Divining Top makes little sense in English. Perhaps you can clarify?
How is it that a turn 1 Top for a control player is any less degenerate than a turn 1 Sol Ring for heavy creature decks?
Roland
March 26th, 2015
Don’t unban Sensei’s!!!! Game takes Ages!!!!!
aaand i use pot…. aand i have to look in to my pot…. aand in reaction i have to pot…. wait…. i use pot…. fetch… pot again.
Arindis
March 26th, 2015
Crucible of Worlds + Wasteland and Exploration?
This can be really bad. Do you know how to counter this event or stop it? Thx
Lasagne
March 27th, 2015
“This can be really bad. Do you know how to counter this event or stop it? Thx”
Play more basic lands.
Jan.Opi
March 28th, 2015
I think that sensei’s unban is mistake. It is not like, i hate the card.. I will definitely run it, BUT general impact on game length will be significant. Last turnament we played 5 rounds and the tournament ended after 6 hours! Every turn was played until extra turns + quite a lot of games ended in draw. This is BAD and Top will make things even worse.
There is way to get things moving – lower life total to 25.
Entomb was bordeline broken card, but there are quite a few – Scullclamp that shuld be banned too. Banning Entomb might kill of all the reanimators decks around. Assembling the the three card combo right fatty in hand, way to discard it + reanimation spell + protection against all the control decks around will be probably too much to handle. Entomb usually made the whole combo consist of just two parts + protection.
Btw. I am glad, that rules commitee stil considers Loyal Retainers banworthy and broken card! Never unban it. People might start playing it instead of Recuring Nightmare for example! ::sarcasm::
sylvain
March 29th, 2015
Bonjour.
Vous venez tout simplement de tuer mon deck Prossh foodchain.
Je suis dégoûté. Si on ne peut plus jouer des decks combo ou reanimation je ne pense pas que cela aille dans le sens de la diversité. La mise a jour de la banlist renforce encore les jeux tempo contrôle. Personnellement ce n’est pas le type de jeu que j’aime jouer.
Monty
March 29th, 2015
yeah reduce the lifepoints…. it tottally makes sense many cards weren’t played because the 30 life rule and in our group we played with 20. it is ok even for controlldecks the games are faster more cards are played pure aggro got more chances.
Snorri
March 30th, 2015
Hi there,
I want to offer my opinion on these changes. Some of them I think are good, some are bad.
First of all I want to say I play in some Duel Commander Tournaments -usually taking 5 rounds- and thus see some of the most played decks. Still I only have a limited view, so my comment is just my opinion and I do not think I know everything, especially since some of the changes affect me and my deck right now (positive) so I might be biased. Still I am able to see a lot of decks and how they perform and evolve over time.
Bannings:
I can see the reasoning behind each of these bannings. I haven´t run into these cards all that much and didn´t think of them as unhealthy for the format. But each of these cards can make the game very one-sided extremely fast. And getting world-gorger comboed in turn 2 is not that much fun, I have to say. So these bannings are good. I wouldn´t have needed them personally, but I see why it is healthy for the format.
Unbannings:
Unbanning Winter Orb is fine. With Derevi banned (for good reason) it gives Commanders like Daretti and Augustin (just from the top of my head) a good new card to play with, without upsetting the whole format, but maybe shaking it up a little bit.
Unbanning Crucible of Worls is more questionable I think. Having access to Wasteland/Ghost Quarter and Crucible or other ways to gain value with the Crucible might just be too broken.
Unbanning the Top is bad for the format I think. I can see your argument, but even with the banned Top games take a long time. Keeping in the 50 minutes with at least one player playing control is hard to do, sometimes even for fast players. Giving access to the Top will push a lot of games into draws and even now the usual tournament rounds consist of a lot more Draws than in the other formats. Especially on the lower levels of ruling you can´t really do more than telling your opponent to try to play faster, but with top, this is not enough I think. I think Top will be unhealthy for the format as it drags games on for a long time.
On the other hand, I do agree, that this card is not unfair (and I will play with it for some strategies myself)
Unbanning Braids as a commander is interesting. It might be too much with the Staxx possibilities right now (especially with crucible available too) This might be a good or bad choice, I don´t know it yet and looking forward to seeing what will happen.
Last but not least: I think Tasigur is not worthy to be banned right now. (Maybe this changes with crucible, this combo is really strong) I hope he is not banned. The available commander for Sultai Decks are not really giving much outside some specific decks. Damia, Sidisi, Mimeoplasm all do really specific things while Tasigur has a lot of possibilities to him. I am playing him since he was released and am trying out a lot of different things and it is awesome to see how much you can do with him.
I do not think him unhealthy, and could go into a lot of detail for him. But I think this is enough already.
I want to stress again, that these are just my opinions but I would be glad if they are at least considered.
Gridlok
April 1st, 2015
As a control player I should be happy to see unbanned Top but it’s quite contrary. Now the games get very long and a lot of them end up as draw.
Also I think that unbanning Crucible was a mistake as the format can get flooded by land destruction and playing non-basics will be even more risky than before.
Other changes are reasonable.
Comment to reducing life total – it does not make any sense; advantage of dealing 21 commander damage would vanish.
c0ym0nty
April 2nd, 2015
Entomb is banned?! why the hell? this the only 1v1 format it gets banned.
Also, @Rick on SDT – Sol Ring, good point
Joan
April 3rd, 2015
Lower life total to 20 or 25 please
toumai
April 6th, 2015
I would like to know why tasigur has been monitored. i might not have the most objective person for this matter as tasigur is one of my favorite legends.I feel he is stronger in muiplayer commander as he can use his activated ability at his full potential,having an opponent choose the card you need to stop a mutual enemy. in 1v1 commander i feel there are mutch more unfair commanders than him(gheist, narset, animar…)as your only opponent will always give you back the worst card in your grave.If anyone could explain why it would be appriciated.
Olaf
April 9th, 2015
well… for now each commander deck will contain 97 cards + Sensei’s Divining Top + Crucible of Worlds?
Especially for Sensei’s Divining Top I can see no reason not to play it. In the worst case this card does not change the state of the game, but in 99,95% it does in the favor of its owner. This card is playable in tempo decks as well as in controll or combo decks. It’s never a bad top deck either, but in your starting hand it’s brilliant. I’m pretty sure we are going to see this card in each deck!
TheClap
May 2nd, 2015
Salut à tous,
Comme plusieurs joueurs anglophones ou non çi-dessus, je pense que la toupie, en plus de faire “perdre” un temps incommensurable, aussi bien pendant le tour de son contrôleur que pendant celui de l’adversaire (généralement activée après chaque fetch, chaque pioche, chaque mouvement adverse pour tenter de trouver une réponse etc…), donne effectivement un avantage certain au jeux combo et contrôle (que je joue pourtant, en me passant de la toupie), et en plus ne se voit contrariée que par TRÈS peu de cartes : Stifle ou Trickbind + un anti-artefact lorsqu’elle s’engage pour aller piocher (au prix de card disadventage), ou krosan grip.
Vous parliez par ailleurs de Tasigur, potentiellemet bannissable comme commandant, de mon côté je pense que c’est Narset qui, en Duel comme en multi, devrait éventuellement se voir bannie. Elle encourage en effet des jeux inconsistants remplis d’accélérateurs et de cartes non-créature théoriquement injouables par leur coût de mana, et avec quelques cantrips, permet d’enchaîner sur un ou plusieurs tours supplémentaires, et de résoudre des sorts comme armageddon qui plieront la partie “quel que soit l’état du board adverse”.
Les petits deux points d’endurance de Narset peuvent sembler en faire une créature fragile, mais l’hexproof et les quelques bounces peuvent la rendre immédiatement ingérable, à plus forte raison lorsqu’elle acquiert la célérité via un quelconque équipement. Je ne positionne pas en l’occurrence en tant que défenseur du “jeu pour le fun”, au contraire, mais dans un format plus lent que le modern et, à plus forte raison, le legacy, une carte qui “combote” toute seule pour 6 et est quasiment la seule “win-condition” de la quasi-totalité des decks qui la jouent me paraît assez déséquilibrée, d’autant plus qu’elle profite pleinement de la présence de winter orb, entres autres.
Une Narset attaquant tour 4, 5 ou 6 me semble en effet beaucoup plus dure à gérer qu’un Zur au même moment, ou qu’un Emrakul aux tours 10-15, et la présence de tuteurs, pour par exemple “topdecker” Omniscience ou Time Stretch via Narset n’arrange rien à cela.
Ainsi, si Eldric et Zur sont, à juste titre me semble t-il, bannis, la même logique m’amène à penser que Narset est plus que facultative dans ce format en tant que commandant (je fais partie de ceux qui pensent que les synergies avec le général sont nécessaires, mais ne doivent pas être indispensables dans la mise en place du plan de jeu, surtout lorsqu’elle amènent des situations dégénérées, comme 3-4 tours supplémentaires sans grande difficulté).
Trêve de bavardages, merci pour votre travail, et pour ce format, qui est maintenant pour moi, avec le Legacy, le plus intéressant de tous.
Bonne continuation,
Nathan Santanna
May 5th, 2015
Ironically, rest in peace Reanimator
seb
June 3rd, 2015
Sensei Top is definetely unfair!!!
It makes all the blue control decks way better (they didn t that card to have a great spot in the current metagame), and especially, it makes Narset completely insane, as you can select which four cards you want to play for free!!! it shouldn’t have been brought back to this format, in my opinion, even though I don’t take into account the difficult time management in a tournament where there would be 8 sensei divinning top in the top 8 !!
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