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Hey folks, with an exciting year 2019 under our belly, there was the time between years for closely inspecting our beloved format. It is more than a pleasure to see rising numbers in events and players attending those events. This data and global feedback on tournaments gave the impression that some changes were needed, though.Also, Wizards of the Coast did release new sets with lots of exciting cards, some of them, however seemed a bit too strong to maintain a balance in Duel Commander. This leads to the following changes:
Changes:
👉 Rules changes:
No changes.
👉 Individual card changes:
Thassa’s Oracle is now banned. Ancient Tomb is now banned. Mox Opal is now banned.
Sulfuric Vortex is now legal.
👉 Other changes:
No changes.
These changes apply on February 28, 2020. The next announcement will be published on May 25, 2020 (applying on May 29, 2020).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Further individual explanations:
Thassa’s Oracle
With Theros Beyond Death, Thassa’s Oracle made its entrance into a lot of formats. It is always exciting to see a ability that states “you win the game” on a new card, except this time the excitement did not last long. While similar to already existing cards like Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Thassa’s Oracle does not need to stay on the board for its magic to happen and decks that can’t interact with it -or with its triggered ability- while it’s on the stack have very little ways of beating the combo, when set up correctly. In addition to this, Thassa’s Oracle only has a converted mana cost of 2, which makes it not only easy to cast along with cards that empty the library on the same turn but also, due to its card types, make it very easy to search out of the deck by a wide variety cards. All these reasons let us believe that Thassa’s Oracle stay in our format should be a rather short one.
Ancient Tomb
Ancient Tomb was made legal again one year after the format was changed to start with 20 life points for players under the assumption that the card would be kept in check by the lower life total and the viability of aggressive decks. While it is true that this land is somewhat painful versus aggressive decks, it is also a fact, that those precise decks are using the card themselves. Trading life for resources has always been a dangerous mechanic and it is even more dangerous when being done while being the aggressive deck. Ancient Tomb makes no exception to this and allows for explosive starts. By providing permanent extra mana on the turn it is played, it is a huge tempo gain – especially when it’s used to cast and recast commanders. Whether being used to cast commanders or expensive spells like Damnation, Fiery Confluence or Thought-Knot Seer, the result often easily mitigates the damage done by Ancient Tomb most of the time. In order to keep games more interesting and fair Ancient Tomb has to go.
Mox Opal
Similar to Ancient Tomb, Mox Opal is played in every artifact-centric deck. The main difference between Mox Opal on one side and Mox Sapphire and its siblings on the other side is the keyword Metalcraft. While it’s hard for most decks to have three artifacts on the board, it really isn’t when your whole deck -or in the case of Silas Renn, Seeker Adept even one of your commanders- has this card type. In decks with Sai, Master Thopterist or Akiri, Line-Slinger as commanders Mox Opal does not only help casting the commanders ahead on time but also gives an advantage when arriving late to the party. Furthermore, Mox Opal provides the same benefits as Ancient Tomb in those decks without being painful at all, and on top of that, can generate mana of any color. Its banning in Modern for the same reasons, made it even more clear, that Mox Opal should also be banned in Duel Commander.
Sulfuric Vortex
With the printing of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, Klothys, God of Destiny or Heliod, Sun-Crowned we believe that Sulfuric Vortex will have a meaningful and healthy role in the format again. It does not add explosiveness to red tempo / aggressive decks and gives them outs to combat repeatable lifegain from the command zone, as well as providing in a steady tempo damage that is not affected by most board wipes or usual spot removal cards. Welcome back Sulfuric Vortex!
You know what? We’re happy, over here! Over the last quarter, we saw a real, tremendous raise in quality and attendance of Duel Commander events. The growth of new and existing tournament leagues in the Czech Republic, France, the Philippines, Germany, Denmark and other new places shows great interest from players for your formats. We received new sources for tournament results from all around the world, which is why we reinforced our team with four new members. Regarding experimental changes, it seems like the whole community understood and welcomed this more agile way of warning about changes that are subject to special surveyance and quick withdrawals. We plan to use this approach again in the future. Also, despite the appearance of a new commander that needs regulation, the experimental changes we made seemed to align with our thoughts on the future of the format, so we’re happy to announce the following:
Changes:
👉 Rules changes: No changes.
👉 Individual card changes: Emry, Lurker of the Loch is now banned as a commander only. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is now banned as a commander only. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is now legal. Scapeshift is now banned.
👉 Experimental changes: Zur the Enchanter is now (still) legal.
👉 Other changes: No changes.
👉 Don’t forget to check out our Current Lists for a recap of all the currently banned cards.
These changes apply on November 29, 2019.
The next announcement will be published on February 24, 2020 (applying on February 28, 2020).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! :)
-Emry, Lurker of the Loch
Needless to say, Emry, Lurker of the Loch strongly echoes the
recently banned Urza, Lord High Artificer, the once banned Arcum
Dagsson, and even older cards that display a recurring theme in the
history of Magic: The old tale of broken blue and artifact cards.
“Affinity for artifacts” is infamous for being one of the most busted
mechanics in magic and is single-handedly responsible for multiple
other cards being banned in Standard and Modern, where Emry, Lurker of
the Loch is already mentioned as one of the best recent additions to the
format.
Her static ability works against the Commander Tax rule, as much as
Tasigur, the Golden Fang does, which already proved problematic and
reasoned a ban.
All in all, an almost infinite replayability at almost no cost, along
with graveyard synergies and card advantage are way too many arguments
to keep Emry, Lurker of the Loch legal any longer.
-Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Unfortunately, we had to revise our hopes about Edric, Spymaster of Trest as a legal commander as of today.
We expected it to be strong, but the magnitude of its power was the
reason why it was not legal for the longest time and also, what brought
it back on the list in the end.
In less than a quarter, Edric, Spymaster of Trest proved this
decision to be the right one and made for an overpowering comeback to
the field.
Decklists were very soon optimized and started consistently showing
impressive results in events around the world. This deck broke many
local leagues -too many, actually- to safely keep it legal as a
commander, which is why Edric, Spymaster of Trest is once again banned
as a commander only, after being experimentally unbanned for a few
months of field testing.
The deck quickly evolved to being too oppressive, and the fact that
it got many new additions since the last time it was legal, proved that
it earned its place on the ban list.
-Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
After being unbanned as an experiment for three months one of the
older cards that once was added to the B&R list, Erayo, Soratami
Ascendant is now made clearly, unconditionally legal.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant decks proved that they can still do amazing
starts, and turn two flipping ability triggers, as rare as they are can
still de devastating but many players also reported that they were able
to win through Erayo’s Essence static ability, which was one of the few
fears players once had about decklists revolving around this commander.
Judging by the results and global feedback we received, it seems that
there is no more reason to think Erayo, Soratami Ascendant will be an
oppressive part of the metagame, it proved to be beatable, interactive
and still interesting for some players to build. So… Here we are, Erayo,
Soratami Ascendant, welcome back!
-Scapeshift
Scapeshift always was a staple in Modern, and recently in Standard as
well, even in some other formats where it would be less expected.
Despite its long affinity with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, it never
really was a serious problem in Duel Commander. Until recently, where
many players began drawing some advantage from the singleton
construction rule that Duel Commander follows. The recent print of many
new mountain-typed lands, the addition of Field of the Dead to the
serious dangers linked to Scapeshift made it a one-card kill (or close
to it), as well as many new cards that have triggered abilities whenever
lands enter battlefields.
In general, fetching/tutoring effects also strongly go against the
100-cards and the singleton rules, which is why many of them are
considered too powerful and are currently banned, only keeping the more
acceptable ones.
All those reasons quickly made Scapeshift a danger towards our favourite format health, and made it banned.
-Zur the Enchanter
Three Commanders were experimentally unbanned three months ago. We
wrote about Edric, Spymaster of Trest and Erayo, Soratami Ascendant but
what about Zur the Enchanter?
Zur the Enchanter proved to be a major force in the format, reaching
many Top Xs. But the dominance of Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Edric,
Spymaster of Trest prevented the safe and meaningful gathering of
reliable data, so as to confirm or not its oppression. Because of that,
we cannot take a definitive good decision about it.
Zur the Enchanter therefore remains experimentally unbanned until our
next regular announcement (“experimentally unbanned” meaning that the
card is legal but has a strong probability to be banned again). Invest
as your own risk!
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.
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.
Since our last update, no major or unpleasant change has been seen, neither in the results nor in the metagame, top X decks, most played cards, archetypes, etc. It seems like the winds of diversity kept blowing on everyone’s minds. A few new archetypes appeared, adding even more possibilities to the format, so did some new commanders, some really older ones, and the result is a healthy and still very competitive format. With Modern Horizons ready to storm the format we stated as follows:
Changes:
👉 Individual card changes: No changes. 👉 Rules changes: No changes. 👉 Other changes: No changes.
The next announcements will be published on August 30, 2019 (applying on August 31, 2019).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! :)
Over the last three months, the metagame kept stabilizing for the first weeks, and it globally kept being very diversified. But then, a few changes polarized the results towards a growing trend that confirmed that some unbalanced archetypes started to perform too frequently and too regularly. Which leads us to the changes below.
👉 Don’t forget to check out our page for a recap of all the currently banned cards.
These changes apply on March 1, 2019. The next announcements will be published on May 27, 2019 (applying on May 31, 2019). Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Further individual explanations:
It is true that banning cards from the format too early can be disappointing for many players, but so does the opposite. Which sometimes requires action.Prime Speaker Vannifar proved to be a very high level card. It is even now played in Modern, a faster format than Duel Commander, that doesn’t use the command zone, doesn’t have eternal cards, doesn’t use the singleton construction rule, has 60 cards instead of 99, etc. Despite all those factors, the card is still played in that format, and so was it in Duel Commander, allowing overly fast combo wins that could even sometimes show a high resilience against spot removals, a lack of interaction that goes against the general philosophy of a healthy metagame.
Baral, Chief of Compliance has been around for two years now, and actually never ceased to be played. It constantly made good results, but has seen a slight decrease in play, until a few months ago, where it became a recurring top-performing deck again. Though the builds are often quite different from its echoing alter ego Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, that was banned in 2015 as a commander, too, it stayed for a while, but keeps pumping the “extra turns” archetypes, and High Tide-based decks.Regarding those archetypes, “extra turns” decks with Baral, Chief of Compliance as a commander seem more toxic to us than non-Baral, Chief of ComplianceHigh Tide-based decks.We also think banning a commander often solves problems more than banning a problematic card out of the other 99.
Last announcement was already filled with findings of a very healthy and diverse format. Over the last three months, metagame goes even further in terms of diversity. All colors, new decks, new commanders from the last editions going to the top 8, players demonstrating a lot of creativity, ingenuity. Recent results from major and minor tournaments show different winners and top X decks almost all the time, which is exactly the root of a creative format, opening to new ideas and tests. Most impacting cards and decks still prove to be beatable, many different archetypes coexist: aggressive strategies, combos, control decks, land-based decks, midrange decks, commander-based decks, etc.
We hope for the best that this trend will go on over the year to come.
Changes:
👉 No changes
The next announcements will be published on February 25, 2019 (applying on March 1, 2019).
There hasn’t been any particular change since the last announcement in the metagame. It is changing, new decks have emerged, with different mechanics, no one seems to be taking the lead nor to crush the others at a level that would require change. The arrival of new editions with lots of legendary creatures and the newest Commander editions added some interesting cards that are already played by many people. Recent tournament results show great diversity.
Changes:
👉 No changes
👉 Don’t forget to check out our Current Lists for a recap of all the currently banned cards.
The next announcements will be published on November 26, 2018 (applying on November 30, 2018).
During the last quarter, many decks, ideas, archetypes and changes have affected the results in tournaments, both in top ranked decks and in general, when observing the metagame, that latter really spread out and it seems more and more decks are being played, rogue decks or meta decks, which creates more diversity (recent tournament results show a broader scattering in decks, which is a proof of health).
This is exactly what we could qualify as a healthy situation, except for one dissonance among this whole satisfying and balanced environment, which goes along with a slight improvement we’re adding (see below).
Changes:
👉 Individual card changes: Zurgo Bellstriker is now banned as a commander only.
👉 Gameplay rules changes: Commander Swap rule.
Players can now swap their commanders between each game of the same round.
Swapping commanders means: exchanging previous commander(s) with one or more eligible cards from their decks.
In detail, as of the date this announcement applies, the following rules updates will apply:
400.6. Sideboards
DC doesn’t use sideboards. Players can’t have sideboard cards. The only cards of a DC deck are the 100 cards from the main (and only) deck. The only time allowed to players between rounds is for swapping commanders (see section 400.7 of this document).
400.7. Swapping commanders
400.7.1. Players are allowed to swap commander(s) after each game of the same round. This means that after the first game is played each round only, each player may shuffle his or her commander(s) into his or her deck and present either the same one(s) or new commander(s) from the same deck before each following game begins during each round.
400.7.2. For the first game each round, each player puts their commander(s) from their deck face up into the Command zone before shuffling (see Magic The Gathering Comprehensive Rules at section 103.1b).
400.7.3. After the first game, each player reveals their commanders simultaneously by putting them willingly face up in the Command zone after making choices, or by putting them face down in the Command zone, then having both players turning them face up at the same time before shuffling (see Magic The Gathering Comprehensive Rules at section 101.4a). This action can only be done once per game.
400.7.4. Commanders must remain legal before each game begins. Players can’t change color identity in between games (see Magic The Gathering Comprehensive Rules at section 903.4a), and the choice of Commander(s) has to follow other construction rules defined in section 400.4 of this document (for example: players can’t choose a banned Commander).
400.7.5. Only Commanders that are part of the original deck are legal. If the tournament uses registration deck lists, the commanders must be listed within the deck.
400.7.6. Players are expected to take a decent and short time to choose Commanders in between games.
400.7.7. Players may change the number of Commanders by swapping Commanders with Partner ability and a single Commander without this ability (see Magic The Gathering Comprehensive Rules at section 702.123).
👉 Don’t forget to check out our Current Lists for a recap of all the currently banned cards.
These changes apply on June 1st, 2018. The next announcements will be published on August 27, 2018 (applying on August 31, 2018).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Since our last announcement, despite some changes in the metagame, no current threat nor major change has been perturbing the format nor seen as a potential need of change, therefore, let’s jump right now to the obvious conclusion for an acceptable state:
Changes:
👉 No changes.
The next announcements will be published on May 28, 2018 (applying on June 1, 2018).
Over the past few months, the format has been shifting from a battle of polarizing commanders (such as Edgar Markov vs anti-Edgar games, for example) to a battle of strategies (aggressive vs. burn vs. control vs. combo decks). While it is true that burn is still one major form of aggression in the format, Saskia the Unyielding or Akiri, Line-Slinger have been putting up better results lately. Fast, tempo-oriented or disruptive partner-ability commander lists are also growing in terms of popularity. Looking at the most recent metagame, the results show quite a balance among top performing decks, with many different strategies, despite one adjustment that nevertheless has to be done.
Changes:
👉 Individual card changes:
Fastbond is now banned.
These changes apply on December 1, 2017. The next announcements will be published on February 26, 2018 (applying on March 2nd, 2018).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Further individual explanations:
Fastbond
Fastbond is a very strong card, but not a broken card in singleton, as you need to build around it and assemble a particular sequence of cards to make it great. This is why we chose to unban it. Nevertheless Fastbond has two major flaws.
It can make broken things too early. Despite the fact that such events are statistically very rare, sometimes do they happen. When an opponent casts Titania, Protector of Argoth (or The Gitrog Monster) on turn 1, saying that it is a statistically rare event will not solve frustration.
Fastbond’s impact on the metagame wasn’t positive. It is a weak card against strong strategies and a strong card against “tier 2 or less” decks.
Unfortunately, for all those reasons, the field testing of Fastbond did not prove the card worth staying out of the banned/restricted list.
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