AUGUST 2019 RULES – BANNED/RESTRICTED UPDATE
Since our last announcement, many very interesting things happened to Duel Commander: a new mulligan rule, the new largest Duel Commander event attendance ever (233 players for the impressive tournament at Palaiseau, France, mastered by the ZAP Team), three new editions (Modern Horizons, Core Set 2020 and Commander 2019), many new players and noticeable communities from around the world and a very changing metagame. Usually, the Commander sets, printed for this sole purpose by Wizards of The Coast, induce drastic changes and a lot of worries and excitement for the whole Duel Commander universe, often with brand new mechanics. Which is not the case this time.This time we were given the opportunity to focus on background work. This is also why, in addition to undoubted and carefully thought changes, we are making another attempt at proposing experimental changes. Pretty much like we did for Fastbond a few months ago, we are giving their chances to close-to-forgotten cards (back up to 2010 this time!) as explained below.
Changes:
👉 Rules changes: No changes.
👉 Individual card changes:
Urza, Lord High Artificer is now banned as a commander only.
Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow is now banned as a commander only.
Arahbo, Roar of the World is now banned as a commander only.
Najeela, the Blade-Blossom is now banned as a commander only.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage is now banned as a commander only.
Timetwister is now banned.
👉 Experimental changes:
Zur the Enchanter is now legal.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest is now legal.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is now legal.
👉 Other changes:No changes.
These changes apply on August 31, 2019. The next announcement will be published on November 25, 2019 (applying on November 30, 2019). Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Further individual explanations:

Urza, Lord High Artificer Among the commanders that have been printed so far, it seems like Urza, Lord High Artificer is one of the most powerful ever. It cumulates many major advantages: it generates fast colored mana, has a four-point strength body, generates card advantage, works with artifacts, it’s easy to defend (as it is blue), and it is totally recastable. Many of these similarities have already left the vast pool of legal cards a long time ago. This strongly echoes to Tolarian Academy, for instance, like all the fast mana accelerators, and all of the strongest commanders ever printed.Rarely in the history of Duel Commander did we face such raw power in one emblematic card. There’s no doubt why Urza, Lord High Artificer gets played in Modern and Legacy as well. For all those reasons, after crushing the largest Duel Commander event ever, Urza, Lord High Artificer is no longer legal in Duel Commander.

Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow It’s been exactly a year and a handful of days that Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow was first printed, in a commander-centric edition. Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow is yet another card that ignores or abuses core Commander effects, such as the commander tax. Though some of those cards are still acceptable, for they aren’t overpowered, Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow was already extremely powerful the day it was out.
Nevertheless, it didn’t stop here. The usual winning decklists gained more and more unblockable cheap attackers, structural additions, either being a ninja or being a turn one/two attacker with any evasive ability. In the end, the deck gained too many good cards, especially with the addition of the awesome Modern Horizons edition. The fact that it still gained power that fast after only a year made the deck too toxic for a diverse metagame, adding way too much pressure and insane damage over too many opponent decks, often very early.

Arahbo, Roar of the World Alike the aforementioned Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, the rare cards that do turn around the command zone effects are always problematic, especially when designed for multiplayer games. Arahbo, Roar of the World does not make an exception to this problem. Though it does not ignore the command tax, like Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow or Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, though it does not have an independent trigger like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, it does have a perpetual tribal boost like Edgar Markov does.Such tribal dependency used to be tolerable, up to a certain point. Arahbo, Roar of the World was always a constant pressure, junk creature, cheap creatures-dependent deck archetype. But as more and more replacements, if not strict upgrades came to the rescue, the constant need for opponents to have a perpetual answer, though delayed from one turn, became too much now to allow this commander any more.

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom The archetype that Najeela, the Blade-Blossom usually allows to build is quite unique in its genre: most players usually build it as a tribal warrior five-color deck, which contains the ultimate best of them, along with regular format staples. Though Najeela, the Blade-Blossom is less played than the other newly banned commanders in this announcement, it still shows a recurring field presence in all tournaments.The toxicity of Najeela, the Blade-Blossom as a commander can be not so easy to deceive at first, but the overly aggressive deck that it is -despite the fact that it requires a very expensive manabase, which can be segregating-, along with the very finest choices of creatures, in any color, and having to face the additional tokens from the attack phases makes it a very oppressive commander, that most decks have too much of a hard time to deal with. Therefore is the card now banned.

Teferi, Temporal ArchmageThere have always been a fistful of decks revolving around spell-avalanche, High Tide close-to-combo strategies. Along Duel Commander history, most mono-blue decks have tried such a strategy, often combining the permanent suppression of a blue-based control deck and a few cards dedicated to a game-ending combo. Albeit relying on affinity key cards like The Chain Veil, Rings of Brighthearth abuses or Stasis locks, decklists showed to be very well performing, almost always transforming tournament metagame presence into top X results.Teferi, Temporal Archmage kept gaining very few key cards since then. But the pressure of such a blue deck that can answer most of the current threats combined with a fast, surprising winning combo, and a non-creature commander showed why this commander now had to be banned, despite requiring some skills to successfully resolve. Answering the combo is unfortunately usually useless, even if opponents have answers to it.

Timetwister Being the Duel Commander Rules Committee, we value metagame balance but we also do value spectacular and cheesy plays. We need solid basis but we also want the format to give outstanding games. Some cards, sometimes obviously overly strong like Skullclamp or Demonic Tutor are legal for that reason. Timetwister was legal since the origins of the format for this reason as well. But it does not succeed anymore, as it turned out to a speculation tool. It became insanely hard to get one copy now, for there are fewer and fewer of them available and its colossal financial value makes it almost impossible to be borrowed.Having no more of a fun value anymore makes Timetwister be only considered for its power level. As a Power Nine card, it does not deserve to be legal in Duel Commander anymore.

Erayo, Soratami Ascendant,
Zur the Enchanter,
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Those three cards share a few things in common. They were all banned as commanders (in 2010, 2012 and 2014), which made them quite famous for being dangerous a few years ago. But the world has changed since then, and Duel Commander now has a completely new metagame, a new B&R list and a very different set of rules.Be warned though: those commanders are made legal as of this announcement, but they are under a very special curse: they are back to the fields as an experimental set of changes. Since there is no large-scale data regarding how they could perform in this new world, they do deserve a chance. Making them legal again offers very interesting possibilities for players, and new building opportunities. We need the community experience, creativity and work in tournament situations to figure out if they deserve to be legal or not.Keep an eye on how they perform, though, for we will truly do such a thing, and that could end up with one or several of them, if not all of them being banned again during the next announcements. Should they crush the format, or never be fair decks, they will go back to oblivion.
27 Responses so far
Sabe Jones
August 26th, 2019
So does Duel Commander use the new mulligan rule, now? I emailed about it a while back but never got an answer.
Fair_play
August 26th, 2019
Terefri really was a threat to the format ?, in fact I hardly ever question the decisions of the duelcommander committee but this time I think that the justification although true, is not enough to send Teferi to oblivion, given that in the last great duelcommander tournaments He did not even reach the top 8. Although once the combo started it is virtually impossible to stop it, it is very easy to prevent it from starting, in the first place. Please beg to reconsider this decision, thank you!
Grimm
August 27th, 2019
Well… I was expecting some of these changes, but some others seem a bit… harsh?
I don’t know… I played a lot with and against Yuriko, and she was indeed strong, but it wasn’t that bad…
Well, I might no be very objective since my two main commanders were Arahbo and Yuriko, so I will juste wait and see if I was wrong and if it was really a good move on your part…
Maybe. Why not?
I just wonder… In which world, and in which reality is Yuriko scarier and stronger than Edric? I chose him because their gameplans are quite similar (with some obvious differences, but still).
AndI just have a little and controversial, but nevertheless honest question: what about the different partner commanders and combinations? I said honest because I saw one of the member of the RC saying that they already talked about them, but I was sadly unable to find those explanations…
Thanks a lot for your kind attention, and have a nice day.
Andrew Cutshall
August 27th, 2019
I understand basically all of the ban update. Urza is ignorant, yuriko gets around Commander tax, arahbo sits in the command zone untouchable and kills u with derpy cats, najeela basically just goes infinite with herself, and teferi is just too blue, but why timetwister. Coming from someone who does not own a timetwister but would like to someday it saddens me that I would no longer be able to play it in this format. Your reasoning for the ban also seems a little shaky and I’m not gonna lie it kinda reads like you guys banned it because you don’t have it and you can’t get it. I don’t know if that’s the case but it kinda sounds like one of those, “If I can’t play with it no one can” mentalities lol. Giving you the benefit of the doubt that is not the case let’s examine your reasons. You consider this card extremely powerful (which it is) but in the same breath mention other broken cards such as skullclamp and demonic tutor which are legal (not to mention you just unbanned zur). Timetwister can be busted but there our many viable answers to such a card, especially in a format like this. It wasn’t because it’s a key card in top tier decks either, it seems like the only real reason to ban this card is the price and that is somewhat terrifiying. Am I going to have to worry about my other powerful expensive cards that I love to play in this format such as Chains, the abyss, diamond valley, etc. while they might not currently command the same value as a timetwister they are all steadily and surely creeping their way up the price ladder. I would understand if it was part of a degenerate combo or a must of in every blue deck and while it certainly can go in any blue deck, it’s not entirely necessary. Wotc has given us many forms of time and many ways to punish those who time so I think this particular banning doesn’t really hold up. Please don’t ban cards because of value, you will devalue your own format.
Hansel
August 27th, 2019
Good bans that make sense.
I’m very skeptical of the unbans though, particularly Erayo and Edric. I expect them to be banned again soon, at least Erayo.
Thomas
August 27th, 2019
Yuriko is strong, but not overpowered. It had some easy to Disrupt weakness. It is sad to see her get banned, while Op commanders like zur and erayo get unbanned…
Danzen
August 28th, 2019
Urza ban was much needed and expected.
Yuriko and Najeela bans seem more like an effort to foster diversity. I wonder if simply setting life totals back to 25 would address a lot of the problems they purportedly address in the first place.
Teferi ban is perplexing. It seems that they’ll eventually just ban every blue commander that can support blue combo. Why not just ban the combo pieces in the first place?
Banning Timetwister because it is a luxury item feels wrong. Is this a precedent on banning cards just because the committee has no access to them?
Once again, no news about amending the Partner mechanic. I guess the committee does have its own pet decks.
Nox_Ouphe
August 28th, 2019
Really happy for the Urza ban.
SBL
August 30th, 2019
Pls unbanned necrotic ozze. Since duel commander is 20 life now
jhayate
August 31st, 2019
bonjour
je pense sincèrement q’avec vos interdictions vous ne tué pas la méta (car il y aura un ou deux deck sur représenter) mais le jeu en lui même, car on achète des cartes avec l’argent qu’ on gagne à la sueur de nos fronts. Vous en comité restreint, vous vous dites “celle là non, celle ci oui” et nous on paye des sommes folles pour avoir une liste de cartes qui ne serve plus car un carte ce fait bannir. Je prends mon cas j’ai commencé en 2016 le DC je monte “edgar markov” je loupe le 1 er tournois à coté de chez moi dans une petite ville, 15 jours après sa sorti il est banni. Je monte un deck “baral” il se fait bannir aussi. Je monte un deck “arahbo” le voila banni a son tour vous imaginez vraiment que je vais continuer a payer des cartes pour ne pas pouvoir en profité plus d’un an. vous vous foutez de la gueule des gens. Si vous payez la facture des cartes après un ban vous reverriez peu être la liste des bans a la baisse.
Bendoq
September 1st, 2019
It seems pretty clear at this point that the DC rules committee just bans according to their personal preference.
What on earth would compel them to unban Edric, which is one of THE most unfun decks to play against, I cannot fathom.
Then again, they’ve also let Partner continue in this format, and it’s an absolutely miserable experience for everyone involved.
I don’t think I’ve seen a DC tournament in my area in what, 3 or 4 years now; and we used to have 1 every week, sometimes even 2 if there was a big event on the weekend. The format is just disappearing from all but the core homeland, where I guess the DC rules committee is dominating the local scene themselves and banning according to their private metas.
Online it’s also been an absolute nightmare. People just quit immediately against some decks (like Partner) and as a result you see a bunch of people around that just refuse to play each other because their decks are an absolute chore to sit through.
Great job maintaining a healthy format, I guess. Healthy as a corpse.
Protype
September 1st, 2019
Danzen, Soulmate.
Urza ban ✓
Yuriko, Najeela.. …??
→ 25 HP ✓
Teferi..?
Timetwister I have to agree, playerunfriendly. ✓
Erayo unban. Hm.
Olivier Degros
September 1st, 2019
I’ve been fighting for this format since almost 8 years trying to make my friends play it despite some of the hasardous choices made in the past by the ruling community and sticking to French duel commander regardless the other look alike formats. I m sick and tired of investing hundreds of money for cards that can only be played in one archetype and then see this strategy distroyed by your random decisions. I had invested so much in a najeela that hardly sees play and now I can just put it to trash
Manaman
September 1st, 2019
I think that this is going way to fast. Urza was an obvious ban, hands down. Maybe Urza should have been banned just after the big tournament where he dominated the top8. Because it was already obvious that he was broken. But the rest… None of these generals were a threat to the metagame. And the metagame was diverse as never before.
But banning 6 generals at a time to make the format more “diverse” and unbanning 3 generals proven to be broken in the past… what is the purpose? I thought of this format as of something more or less stationary with minor changes due to the new cards. But it is constantly changing since the 20HP rule. I don’t wand to modify my decks anymore, because I’ll probably have to do it again quite soon without really testing them. I wish I could go like 3 month into the past and just stay there for a while, no more changes, no more new cards etc
I think that ban is a powerful tool that should be used carefully. If you see that format has been swallowed by a single deck (like what Urza did two month ago) then the deck should definitely be banned immediately, if the format got stuck with the same 3 generals taking 60% of the metagame, then yes, maybe something should be done.
But these massive preemptive bans make a lot of players who were running these decks feel sad and disappointed.
And these arguments about card prices are out of place. Seriously, just stop banning players’ decks for nothing instead.
P.S. I think that comments here will soon take form “please, don’t ban XXX”
ManuGod
September 3rd, 2019
Pourquoi ne pas laisser voter les joueurs sur les bans/debans parmi quelques cartes suggérées par le comité ?
Je devine bien le problème de spéculation que ça pourrait générer mais ça me paraît possiblement maîtrisable et nécessaire pour atténuer la haine que ces annonces semblent provoquer et qui m’attriste
gl
Danzen
September 4th, 2019
I’m still hoping for a time when Wizards would step in and officially own this format and stop the tyranny of this self-appointed committee. They have repeatedly shown that they are out of touch with the players and susceptible to making arbitrary decisions. It’s time that the job of maintaining this format be in the hands of people who are also not actively competing against you.
They tried this before with 1v1 Commander but it failed because they tried to create a new format without drawing from the vast experience of Duel Commander. Hopefully, they would do it again and do it right.
Superloutre
September 4th, 2019
Ayant repris Magic uniquement pour Commander, le fun du format, et surtout l’aspect Eternal (car les rotations, et envois de decks à la poubelle m’insupportaient, et cela n’a pas changé), j’ai vraiment essayé le DC, en ayant la chance d’avoir des évents réguliers dans le coin.
En 2 ans, vous avez bans les seuls decks que j’ai tenté de build, et 70% des decks joués autour de moi. Au delà de ban les généraux et cartes totalement broken (merci Urza), vous devriez calmer un peu le jeu, il n’y a pas que Palaiseau et votre méta (certes riche) dans le format. Nous n’avons pas tous gardé nos cartes depuis Beta, et avons des loyers à payer et des gosses à nourrir. Ça casse un peu l’intérêt de l’eternal, à force.
En tout cas je reste en multi pour le moment.
GL
Une loutre sur son lac
Jhayate
September 5th, 2019
Je pense sincèrement que vos interdictions ne vont pas changer la méta mais vont finir par tué le jeu en lui même. Car il restera toujours deux ou 3 decks sur représenté, Nous achetons des liste de cartes avec de l’argent gagné a la sueur nos fronts. Vous êtes dans un comité restreint, vous vous dites « celle ci oui celle là non » Je prends mon cas j’ai commencé en 2016 le DC je monte “edgar markov” je loupe le premier tournois à coté de chez moi dans une petite ville, 15 jours après il est banni, même pas pu le testé. Je monte un deck “baral” il se fait bannir aussi. Je monte un deck «arahbo» le voila banni a son tour, Vous vous imaginez vraiment que je vais continuer à payer des cartes pour pouvoir en profité qu’un an. vous vous foutez de la gueule des gens.
Sephiroth
September 9th, 2019
This is the most unstable format (in terms of banning) I have ever seen. What is it now, 19 commanders banned? I guess this is what happens when you don’t have a professional/official team from Wizards coordinating very closely. I know they had their own 1v1 version of commander online but they did not put any effort into it. I guess we have to keep waiting for the right moment when the sufficient energy is put into a 1v1 commander format for proper balance and keeping it fun.
Miguel_l2
September 10th, 2019
Really the teferi ban was necessary? If the problem revolves around HIDE TIDE, why not ban this? Why take away the few decent Commanders that he has left? I really do not understand, I’ve been playing Commander for 5 years, Teferi was my only commander and although Teferi was strong, His combo can be stopped … And without Hide Tide it becomes more difficult to make the combo … I do not understand and I hope you reconsider
UnPassant
September 12th, 2019
Les gens, arrêtez avec les chouinages sur les banlists.
Il y a plus de 35000 cartes et le jeu à 25 ans.
Il y a 30 pauvres cartes bannies. Moins de 0.01%.
Et, spoiler, il y en aura de plus en plus avec les années.
On ne va pas deban des cartes car des personnes ont monté des cartes avec ou parce que elles ont été imprimées.
Perso, je bannirais encore une bonne dizaine de cartes qui sont ridicules dans le DC.
Bonus :
La banlist ne concerne que le DC et en tournoi. Rien ne vous empêche de faire ce que vous voulez avec vos amis et/ou de jouer en multi.
Super bonus :
Sinon il y a le Highlander.
Fair_play
September 15th, 2019
The new bans hasn’t been updated in the oficial page: http://www.duelcommander.com/banlist/ No body care about the page credibility with this kind of mistakes?
DC
September 20th, 2019
Up to date now, sorry for the delay
Fikus
September 21st, 2019
If we look at the current metagame on mtgtop8 with Urza banned and Yuriko banned, we’ll see a dramatic gap between mono-red burn and the rest of aggro (poor Arahbo and Najeela being actually barely present). The other remarkably successful deck is Tymna + Thrasios. These are the next two targets for the ban-hammer? Actually, in the context of this logic “we ban everything that cheats on the commander tax rule” partners gotta be banned because they circumvent this rule quite straightforwardly, you pay no commander tax to cast the second commander. But whatever.
one more word on TNN, if Arahbo is considered to be broken because it is impossible to interact with it (which is false because you can interact with the tiny cat, ready to die because of any kind of removal, and protections is not an argument because it has nothing to do with cats, anybody can play them in any deck, and without a cat Arahbo is as good as junk), then TNN is broken as well because many decks don’t have any way to interact with it (if you don’t play wrath effects or something like toxic deluge, cards generally less common than spot removals). Why in one case a card, which does not do anything on its own, is banned, while in the other, the card quite capable of killing the opponent is OK?
The problem is that if Arahbo with his 5% of meta got banned as an “overpowerd commander”, then what can we say about Kari-zev with her 12%? On the other hand it is obvious that Kari-Zev is not overpowerd in any way and does not deserve a ban. (I believe that Arahbo is not worth a ban either) And yet red burn is extremely successful. Banning strong burn cards is just not effective because there will be more of them printed (and honestly apart from price of progress which is broken, other red cards don’t deserve their bans). It is just not sustainable.
There is a fundamental problem with 20HP commander. If 30 was too much (too many control decks), 20 is too little (mono red is the best deck). You know, in the game of go they were adjusting the compensation for the second player for centuries? 5.5 – 6.5 – 7.5 points. Why not to experiment with the life total? 25 HP seems good. Moreover people have already mentioned 25 in the comments, the idea is in the air.
And I would really love to see this format stabilized. My favorite format, I’ll get totally depressed if it disintegrates
AckZoB
October 2nd, 2019
À ce rythme de bans, c’est plus un format mais un moignon… Serieusement la diversité on repassera vu la tête du dernier top8. Je ne dis pas que vous ne faites pas un gros boulot, juste que ça donne encore moins envie, en tout cas de participer à un ZAP.
Et pour “unPassant”: tu les as les 35000 cartes ? Si beaucoup “chouinent”, il n’y a pas de fumée sans feu. Oui on veut jouer en tournoi, avec nos decks, si possible + d’un an… Paix et Amour.
Vladic
October 7th, 2019
Please give more convincing explanations! more details!
Pleeaaaase!
I can understand explanation such as effect :
-cheating with general costs are unfair
-over-represented generals are unhealthy
-fast stupid combo with a general is not fun
But :
-time twister is too expensive
-najeela requires à 5 color mana base (it’s expensive) with fine choice of creature (hum…. well) and it adds tokens (way too oppressive)
Come on! Just make some effort for explanations! Please!
Marath beeing too agressive, unfair and combo-ish when it was representing 0% of the meta was probably the biggest joke of 2016. But, you had good points! It was fine!
xij
October 14th, 2019
So after zurgo you banned the last aggro oriented deck of the format.
Can’t really bother to play this boring format anymore. Put the damned lifecounter to 25 stop whining about aggro decks. This is a joke, stop forcing everyone on expensives control/midrange decks.
Let me guess, if we don’t like it we can go to play another variant right? This is retarded.
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