Commander:
- Gifts Ungiven is unbanned
- Sway of the Stars is unbanned
- Braids, Cabal Minion is unbanned
- Coalition Victory is unbanned
- Panoptic Mirror is unbanned
Edit: additional important info:
So, we are committing no further changes to the banned list for the rest of this year. Starting next year, we can touch the banned list again, and at more regular intervals (so not just one ban window a year), but we want to hold off for the rest of this year.
The only exception will be what I am calling the “Nadu contingency,” which is if a new or unbanned card begins to become generally reviled and people just want it gone as soon as possible, we can break that seal and act earlier. However, I’m hopeful we do not need to do this, as it would need to be a fairly extreme circumstance.
Some notable exclusions:
On Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt
We would be plugging our ears if we did not acknowledge the elephants in the room when it comes to this series of unbans: the September bans of Dockside, Lotus, and Mana Crypt. Many players out there probably immediately scrolled down this long article as quickly as they could to discover the fates of these cards.
We did talk about these cards and are not unbanning them at this time.
Opinions from the Commander Format Panel varied. Some believe Commander is more fun without them, others would like more time to see how the Commander Bracket system is adopted before doing anything here, and others felt it’s too soon to do anything with these cards. There were a few people who were open to doing something with Jeweled Lotus now, but that was not the majority opinion. The overwhelming majority of the panel did not want to do anything with any of these cards at this time.
I will be transparent and say that I believe if any of these are ever to return, the most likely one is Jeweled Lotus due to its one-shot nature, iconic feel, and ability to help support high-mana value commanders. I want to be clear, this is not me saying that will ever happen, but that was the one among the panel with the most traction.
I know many of you love these cards. Many of you are also glad you no longer have to play against these cards. There’s always that kind of push and pull with powerful and potentially ban-worthy cards in Commander. I appreciate there are many people in both camps, and that no matter what happens with these cards, somebody will feel like they didn’t get the result they wanted. However, we wanted to talk about the cards here honestly and what was said internally for transparency.
These cards will be something I’m sure we’ll talk about next year. But for this year, the book is closed on these three cards.
They need to ban more than just Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt. Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, Grim Monolith, Mishra’s Workshop, and some others I’m probably forgetting all need to go. If they want EDH to be a slow, durdle, battlecruiser format, you can’t have fast artifact mana and tutors.
EDH is a $5,000 turn 2 format its players are in denial about because they want to have their Worldgorger Dragon combo and eat their Demonic Tutor, too.
I honestly don’t see a reason to ever unban them. These three have been proven to be unsuitable for the format, and if people really want to play them, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just be made available in Tier 4. Or some Tier that has no banned cards for the people who want to play that way.
Not to mention that these cards were the heart of the entire controversy that ended the Commander Rules Committee and caused the death threats to come out from some players. That alone would be enough to me to never bring these cards back to the format ever again.
I had a player in my shop who wanted some banned commander to be playable. He whined about it every time he bought packs, every time we played. So we agreed to have a single night where there were no banned cards. He got his ass handed to him every which way. And mostly by banned cards.