OATH OF THE GATEWATCH / JANUARY 2016 RULES / BANLIST UPDATE
Duel Commander gets played more and more in the world, and regional coordinators have joined the committee to help us take the worldwide community into account.
We want to thank the coordinators for their help and we also want to thank all of you who participate in the expansion of Duel Commander.
Changes:
- Cataclysm is allowed.
- Cataclysm is added to the Orange List.
- Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a threat and is added to the Red List as a commander.
- Necrotic Ooze is added to the Orange List.
- Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is added to the Orange List as a commander.
Reminders:
- The Orange List is made for the dangerous cards that could end up being banned.
- The Red List is for the most threatening cards, that are very likely to end up being banned in the upcoming months.
- Before this update, no cards were on the Red List.
- Gaea’s cradle and Dig through time remain on the Orange List.
About the Oath of The Gatewatch additions and mechanics:
New cards from the latest edition and their new symbol for colorless mana.
The commander rules indicate that adding mana of any color to your mana pool that is not part of your Commander’s color identity gives colorless mana instead. Colorless mana obtained this way can be used to cast spells and use abilities that require “true colorless” mana (the new “◇” symbol replacing the ① for costs). Cards which generate mana of any color (for example: City of Brass, Coalition Relic, Birds of paradise, …) allow their controllers to use cards that require “true colorless” mana if your commander doesn’t have a 5-color identity, for example.
These changes apply on January 22, 2016. Of course, you can still contact us via our email or Facebook page. The next announcements will be published on April 4, 2016 (applying on April 8, 2016).
Until then, we wish you all many good games!
Further indivudual explanations:
Cataclysm: Cataclysm is a card with a very high power level and that requires a specific setup to really shine. That was relatively easy to set up when Mystical Tutor was legal, since it allowed players to either find a necessary piece of disruption or a perfectly-timed Cataclysm. Now that Mystical Tutor is banned, the card should be less regularly backbreaking than it used to be. Besides, the decks that will benefit the most from that unban aren’t the best positionned in the format (Abzan Disrupt / Geist of Saint Traft / Grand Arbiter Augustin IV).
Tasigur, the Golden Fang: When considered as a commander, Tasigur, the Golden Fang exploits all of its characteristics. First, the Delve ability will interact with the “commander tax“. If the Delve capacity was originally designed to apply to a fixed proportion of the mana cost of a spell (eg. 75% for Dig through time and 83% for Tasigur, the Golden Fang), the interaction between the Delve capacity and the “commander tax” breaks this balance (defined by the design of the card). Thus, with the first two commander taxes additional costs payments, the Delve capacity stretches from 83% to 87.5% of the final cost. This percentage increases with each and every new time one will pay the commander casting cost. The effect goes against the spirit of the “commander tax” rule. Another special feature of this very problematic card that Tasigur, the Golden Fang is, is the set of commander qualities that allow games based on this card to occupy a dominant position in Duel Commander. The commander’s color identity rule assigns one of the most possible versatile color combinations with blue, black and green. Its power / toughness design is very impacting for the games. It allows offering a strong and quick defense against the most aggressive decks while being a very good striker. Finally, Tasigur, the Golden Fang‘s activated ability brings additional critical resources on the long sides. Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a versatile Commander that can act on four zones of the game: the battlefield, the library, the graveyard and the hand, thanks to the extremely steady Delve ability and gives access to three dominant colors. Fate Reforged appeared a year ago, during which the card was temporarily placed in orange list (March-July 2015), the first tests demonstrated an enormous potential as a commander card and therefore a big pressure on other game formats. The superiority of Tasigur, the Golden Fang gets confirmed when it comes to driving a control strategy (which is traditionally powerful in singleton formats) and the results pulled from recent tournaments actually betray alarming performance as well as a threat for the balance of the format. This is the only commander which representativeness in top 8’s exceeded 10% since the adoption of the Vancouver mulligan, and several important tournaments resulted in Tasigur, the Golden Fang decks finals. Players from different communities have expressed their difficulties to stop such a progress and their fears regarding the diversity of the Duel commander format. This now leads us to add Tasigur, the Golden Fang (when considered as a commander) on the red list. This indicates, with very high probability, that it will end up being banned from Duel Commander as a commander for the next “Shadows over Innistrad” update, on April 2016.
Necrotic Ooze: Necrotic Ooze is the key element of a combo that is available to many great decks in the format (Sidisi, Undead Vizier and GBx decks). The fact that this particular combo can’t be disrupted by a removal spell makes it quite oppressive.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard : Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is a commander that has the ability to search for a specific kind of card each turn, which places him in the same group as Zur, the Enchanter (currently banned from Duel Commander). Having access to cards like Quirion Ranger or Wirewood Symbiote turns it into a massive source of card advantage, a repetitive toolbox that is able to deal with almost any kind of permanent, and at a fast pace, without even having to play any other card from one’s hand.
Dig through time: Control/blue remains one of the major archetype generators in the metagame. Dig through time is one of the weapons that allow to make cheap card advantage while continuing to control the middle game state and the late game state. Digging seven cards also allows it to regularly be a sort of “tutor” as well as a source of card advantage at a lower cost. Since the latest announcement, this card gave no reason to be moved further towards being banned, but we continue to keep an eye on it.
Gaea’s cradle: Gaea’s cradle very quickly adds large amounts of mana in the game and is quite complicated to handle, since it’s a land card. This mana benefit is only effectively handled by playing mass creature-removal cards (or many spot-removal cards) and leaves almost no chances to aggressive strategies, which can be problematic for the balance of the format.
19 Responses so far
Kumano
January 18th, 2016
Interesting choice. And I don’t get why you consider Yisan as a threatening commander. The new muligan rule punished that deck so hard, it’s not even teir1 right now…
Souj
January 18th, 2016
I has been thinking about the Ooze combo and feel like could be better to ban the phyrexian devourer, since it can’t work without that and all the other combos with the ooze are more disruptible and the oose is a good card by itself.
Ecki
January 18th, 2016
Yisan auf die Liste zu setzen finde ich unbegründet. Der Vergleich mit Zur ist nicht zutreffend. Zur schafft es viel schneller sein Potential zu nutzen. In Matches Zur vs. Yisan schneidet Yisan deutlich schlechter ab.
Die Kosten sind höher als bei Zur und er ist deutlich langsamer: (2)(g) + tappen vs. angreifen
Yisan kommt frühstens in Runde zwei; Runde drei Quirion, Savekeeper; Runde vier Rofellos, Titania o. Revoker; Runde fünf Chance auf OTK.
Der Gegner hat somit genügend Zeit um ihn zu Stoppen. Yisan hat deutliche Defizite in Matchups gegen Animar oder Jenara. Animar kann ab Runde fünf wbenfalls sein komplettes Deck ausspielen und hat nebenbei viel mehr Karten für Gamecontrol. Jenara ist fliegend und deshalb für Yisan schwer zu kontrollieren. Des Weiteren kann sie schnell viel Comanderschaden verteilen.
Aber alle drei Decks haben eines gemeinsam: Gaea’s Cradle
Diese Karte ist einfach viel zu stark. Animar und Yisan erlaubt es unverhältnismäßig viele Karten zu spielen und Jenara kann sich noch schneller pushen wodurch eine Übermacht entsteht.
Lucas Fernandes Martins
January 18th, 2016
About the Tasigur on the red list, Its true that it is a good commander, so its all tier 1 commanders, i think that with the change on the mulligan rule it was the decktype that fastest addapted being then the top deck for a while making expresives top 8’s, now, after a few months, the format started adapting itself and tasigur is not anymore ruling the format, if you look at the latests tops, you will see a wide variety of decktypes.
Ecki
January 18th, 2016
Warum Yisan auf die Liste? Ja er ist ein Sucher, aber er ist deutlich langsamer als Zur, da seine Fähigkeit zu Suchen eine Aktivierte Fähigkeit ist. Des Weiteren im direkten Vergleich mit Decks wie Animar oder Jenara ist Yisan viel schwächer. Um die Balance wieder Herstellen sollte Cradle gebannt werden anstelle von Yisan. Cradle belastet mehr Meta Decks wie bspw. Animar oder auch Jenara.
Jason Shadows
January 18th, 2016
Tasigur should not be banned when he can be easily killed unlike Narset where she’s breaking the format over Tasigur. If your going to ban Tasigur then Narset needs to be banned as well. Look at the mtgtop8 website and see for your self. Thanks
Jason Shadows
January 18th, 2016
First Tasigur can be bounced, countered, killed by any card in the game so take a look at the card that makes him win and you will get “Upheaval” which should be banned since it is in most formats. Also if Tasigur gets banned then Narset should be too were we cannot target her at all makes her a better general than Tasigur.
Mark Val
January 18th, 2016
They got rid of the rule for generating mana outside of your color identity. No reason to keep that old rule in this format.
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057
ZanDe
January 18th, 2016
Good choices for problematic cards to be placed on the watch lists. Out of everything though I am glad that duel commander has finally seen what an issue Tasigur has become. Any tri-color commander who only costs one of its colors [B] to cast and effectively negates any penalty from the commander tax is broken. Instead of needing to color fix three colors and get six mana to cast (which would be reasonable), he was often seen on turn 3 or four with the help of fetch lands and a early “Thought Scour”. With access to BUG Tasigur’s interaction was unmatched, that and the previous stated reasons are why this deck has gained so much popularity in the format. It Reached 13% of the format at one point and being a deck most frequently seen finishing in the top 4 of most every major tournament, sometimes only followed runner up to another Tasigur deck. At first glance this commander doesn’t seem that special 5[B] CMC, no crazy combos based on the general itself, the ability seems reasonably priced and you (the opponent) get to choose what to give him back. Those are all reasons I have heard to why he isn’t “Ban Worthy” but I don’t think the community is this naive anymore.
Steedian Magfried
January 19th, 2016
Agreeing for the first time with almost all decisions,especially for Tas, Ooze, and Yisan, but still thinking Dig has nothing to do on the orange list, it’s not overpowered at all and most of the decks it’s played in (mainly tiers 1,5 – tiers 2 like Geist) are not really oppressive, and it’s not easily splashable (you need to fill your grave to cast it for UU, not just to play blue).
The real problem for me is Tasigur (and maybe even Narset) : it’s possible to think about banning any good enabler, like dig or intuition; or OP additionnal turns spells, but maybe OP commanders are the real problem here.
And about Tasigur, it’s an acceptable card in all formats except DC : almost no matter what you do, you’ll still meet the Derevi stupid problem, even in the worst case scenario, and without any dredge card, but just with loot, cantrip and fetches, you can see Tasigur beeing repetitively played for 1-4 manas, and of course nullifying the commander tax through his own ability (and i don’t need to mention that except with Nevermore and Meddling Mage, there’s almost no chance to get rid of Tasigur if it’s player can dredge into something each turn).
Maybe it’s time to think about the legality of commanders when they are almost impossible to deal with, and mainly when they are the only (abused) wincon of an entire 100 cards deck.
Celean
January 20th, 2016
First, i have to agree that banlist was fair and more legitimate than the precedent one (Never forget the coming back Top)
The unbanning of Cataclysm is imo a good thing, at least to test it out, as Elfball deck tends to grow more and more oppressiv and taking up a wider part of the field in recent event (Which is also one of the reason Tasigur is one of the best performing general in control tier, thanks to the combination of removal offered by BUG + the great body of Tasigur to soak up damage early on).
Adding to this the incoming ban of Tasigur, it may be leading to Geist raising back from ashes, as well as a very strong top position for Narset, but I think it’s too early to speculate on this already.
Concerning the Cradle, i still don’t understand why this card isn’t banned. Even if in legacy, this card is pretty much fair, due to the *4 wasteland in nearly each deck, the high proportion of tutor, and card that helps you to find the solution to handle it. But this isn”t the case in Duel Commander Format, as very few destruction-land capacity may be included into competitive deck, as we still need to keep our deck efficient vs the other part of the metagame.
Necrotic Ooze is a pesky card, and it’s usually not fun at all to play vs combo. But this is simply not fun, and not unfair, thus i’m not seeing why they want to ban it from the format. I am mainly playing control deck, so I may not see the problem deck might be facing, but I guess that till a Necrotic Ooze deck can’t win consistently before turn 3-4, then even aggro-deck with some removal or discard spell might be able to handle it.
Yisan is not so much broken, or at least, not more broken that all the CradleBall deck that pop out Primeval Titan turn 2-3 into Avenger of Zendikar pod into Craterhoof (subtility at its finest). So as I said above, my target would be the Cradle instead of the general (It also has the benefit of not ruining a whole deck for some player, and making Duel Commander more accessible to people, but i guess in regards of balance, this shouldn’t be the principal argument).
As a player of Tasigur who have switched to him from Skullbriar control, i may not be totally impartial. Of course, i am not happy to see my commander ban, as it means i’ll probably have to rebuild a new deck from scratch, and i can’t afford to change everything.
Nevertheless, for all the games i’ve played vs a wide part of the field, i think people find more frustrating fighting vs BUG (and its 3 level destruction power : Discard-Counter-Removal, in addition to BUG being the best color for card advantage, something decisive in commander), but no one had actually really noticed it as no commander were playable in a control mindset.
Concerning Tasigur, the comitee is right to say that he synergise very well with each aspect of being a Commander : Mana-sink, card advantage, low cost, perfect body, require one color and being black.
But I would like to discuss about a point we have found relevant with my friends : Many says Tasigur is like Derevi, because of the permanent low cost of the general, but Tasigur, unlike Derevi, actually consume resources : cards from the graveyard. This may sounds stupid, but usually, deck who performs better are those who use all their ressources to pur the maximum pressure on their oppenents.
Karador was very strong back then because of his capacity to produce card advantage from the graveyard while costing 3 the whole game, which usually forced people to include gravehate to their deck to counterbalance that. (The meta would usually switch to Karador/non-Karador depending of the number of gravehate uses).
At a lesser extend, Tasigur suffer from the same weakness (even if compared to Karador, gravehate doesn’t kill the deck, but the general, which is far more than enough against classical Tempo Tasigur), and we were suprised to see so few people playing Progenitus relic. Tormod Crypt, RiP and leyline of the void produce card disadvantage vs non recursive deck, but the relic is still instant-recyclable to draw a card and clean a graveyard. Even more, with DTT and TC and the delve mechanic, it seems to me that it’s always a good thing to exile the graveyard of an oppenent to prevent from drawing 3 cards for free, abusing from crucible of world and loam, and many more stuff.
Lets consider you have RiP into play vs tempo Tas : Basicly, Tasigur become a 4/5 for 6 with no addionnal effect. Of course, he can use a decay or something to destroy Rip, but he still need ressources to do so and to play more cards to fill up the graveyard. Tempo Tasigur usually go all in turn 2 with a thoughtscour double fetch to play tasigur turn 2, but this plays is still very risky, as if Tasigur got destroyed, he now costs 8 mana to play, and he would have 0-1 cards in his graveyard. Yeah of course he might be able to play it two or three turn later, but every competitive general can do so in most usual case (We can speak of Titania gathering a fetch by herself to recover 50% of the mana needed for the next cast, Marath ridiculous mana cost+ the scaling stat)
Still, i admit that this capacity is still strong, and might implicate balance problem regarding to other card that are banned and might have help into this match up. Maybe trying to change the tax rule to force Tasigur to pay the 2 additionnal mana, so the cost would be with full-delve : 1-3-5-7-9… Dunno if it will changes something for Hard control Tasigur, but it might nerf Temposigur quiet a lot.
Apologies for the long post, i guess that control player can’t make things fast ^.^. And mercy for my Bullshit-leveled English ^^’
Steedian Magfried
January 20th, 2016
@ Jason Shadows : So why is Tasigur still at 11-12% of the meta (currently at 11%), while Narset is at 8%?
Narset can be a problem, her trigger in a well built deck is absolutly unfair and the hexproof doesn’t help at all, but it is really hard for the list to win after a destroyed/ countered Narset (casting for 6 then for 8), while Tasigur can be cast for less than 4 multiple times. And killing it through removals is just card disadvantage, especcially to see it being cast for 1 the next turn with dredge. If Tasigur is fair, and is just “an average creature”, like Derevi was, it can be a solution to replace it by Sidisi, Damia or Vorosh to play Sultai colors after the ban.
David L Byer
January 20th, 2016
Good day to you Dual Commander board and readers. It would be great if the site would post the full Red and Orange lists to give us players a better idea of what cards are in danger of being banned. I myself just only completed my Tasigur deck only to learn I may only have a few months to enjoy it before it is banned. As you are well aware…some of these cards are very expensive and it is difficult to switch commanders especially if you only have one deck. Please seriously consider my request. Thank you in advance.
lyo
January 26th, 2016
“The commander rules indicate that adding mana of any color to your mana pool that is not part of your Commander’s color identity gives colorless mana instead”.
Those rules have been removed from multiplayer commander rules. Will you remove it too ?
Derthiel
January 27th, 2016
I am totaly disappointed with tasigur choice. Go and ban every legendary, why not. First it was Edric ad now Tasigur. I know there are powerful commanders but i dont consider these two overpowered but more likely a lot of people cried they cant win against it because they are lame players (even those “pro” players). Same as I can cry that Marath and Prosh is overpower, ban them please. Be reasonable and let people play the game they love play and dont make it hard for them. Now I mean all players not just competitive but also casual people on local tournaments which cant buy every month new 100 card deck because of one card banned.
Tom
February 17th, 2016
Ban narset, bring back mystical tutor and top. If youre gonna keep her around still, ban longterm plans and anything else that tutors to the top of the library or puts a card there somehow. Ie jace, brainstorm, personal tutor.
Mystical tutor and top should never of been banned. Get rid of the root of the problem, the OP general.
Neddus
March 14th, 2016
Don´t ban Necrotic Ooze, it´s such a cool card. Instead of Ooze ban one of the comboparts like Phyrexian Devourer.
Winter
March 21st, 2016
Those who do not want Tasigur banned, simply check top8 and you will be astounded by the rise of Tasigur and lack of variety in the format due to how strong he is. Control decks are still the favourites by a long shot and it simply isn’t viable or fun to play: A. Control B. Anti-control.
In terms of Yisan, 100 card singleton is supposed to be very chance based and lower consistent play styles. He is a CONSISTENT tutor that grows every turn if left unchecked. It astounds me that anybody can even attempt to justify this
MAP
March 31st, 2016
I think skullclamp is to overpowered in the format, is insane in creature based decks like BGx or WGx because they can easily tutor for it and win really, the card is so cheap and the amount of cards draw it gives is to much advantage to handle is not answered by destroying it the turn it enters, i have seen a lot of matches were a single skullclamp in the same turn it was used turned the tide of the match in favor of it caster and winning them the duel in the followings two or three turns, even if it was answered on later turns; even swords or jitte are not this powerful nor cheap to use and abuse.
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