As of September 23, 2024, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Dockside Extortionist and Nadu, Winged Wisdom are banned in Commander.
The Commander Rules Committee today published their September 2024 Quarterly Update revealing the latest changes to the Commander format.
COMMANDER QUARTERLY UPDATE: BANLIST UPDATED
The headline changes from the Quarterly update are:
Cards
Dockside Extortionist is banned
Jeweled Lotus is banned
Mana Crypt is banned
Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned
Other
Silver Border Project update
This update is a big shake-up of the Commander format. Many players have been staunchly opposed to the cards in question for some time, and it’s unsurprising in some ways to see them go.
These bans inevitably impact cEDH the most, with Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt seeing the most play there. Nadu is easier to stop and win around in cEDH due to the speed of the games and the sheer amount of interaction, but has still been making waves at cEDH tournaments since it was printed, with 60 Top 16 finishes using data provided to EDH Top 16.
Mana Crypt has long been a card that offers explosiveness in Commander. Whether it’s being used to propel a gameplan forward, empty a hand of mana rocks, or drop a Smothering Tithe or Rhystic Study ahead of curve, it’s a card that more firmly leans into the high power and cEDH realms.
That said, with the abundance of power four and five mana cards entering the format every year, this speed boost in mana has meant that – in a format that already trends a turn or two quicker than this time 5 years ago – the mana advantage of Mana Crypt has gotten way out of hand.
Jeweled Lotus is a newer card, arriving to the format with Commander Legends release in 2020. Alongside Mana Crypt, it has proven to be an extremely powerful burst of mana, for free, that powers out new-school Commanders way ahead of curve.
While Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt feature in 7% and 11% of decks on EDHRec as of 23/09/24, Dockside Extortionist is in as many as 16%, showing that while the social contract still sees fast mana as more of a cEDH “thing”, Dockside is played in way more Casual decks.
This is likely because it is seen as an “equalizer” card that requires opponents to be ahead on permanents for it to make lots of treasures. The many new artifact tokens we’ve seen in recent years, alongside a push in Clues and Food, mean that Dockside has been able to accrue vast amounts of treasure with very little effort in casual games.
Seeing Nadu go from Commander is another somewhat expected ban for the community. It made games go long with non-deterministic attempts at winning, and was about as social as filibustering where to order food from.
The Commander Rules Committee has issued a more detailed explanation of the reasoning for the bans on their website, but you can also find an extensive list of What Cards are Banned in Commander at Card Kingdom, complete with the ethos behind each ban.
NO BAN FOR SOL RING
The Rules Committee also commented on Sol Ring, the ubiquitous fast mana card that is something of a mascot for the Commander format.
“We should also talk about the elephant in the room. We’re not banning Sol Ring and have no desire to… Sol Ring is the iconic card of the format, and it’s sufficiently tied to the identity of the format that it defies the laws of physics in a way that no other card does. Banning Sol Ring would be fundamentally changing the identity of the format. We aren’t trying to eliminate all explosive starts – it happening every once in a while is exciting – and removing the other three cards geometrically reduces the number of hands capable of substantial above-curve mana generation in the first few turns.”
That’s a pretty clear line of reasoning from the RC on Sol Ring’s place in the format.
The RC also updated us on the Silver Border Project, revealing that the project is still moving forward but isn’t quite ready for release.
SHELDON CHARITY STREAM
It’s a great time to remind people of the charity event this coming weekend for the American Cancer Society. A Commander Charity Stream in Honor of Sheldon Menery, the “Godfather of Commander”, will take place September 28-29th from 8am – 12am EST on the Commander RC Twitch account.
A whole host of Commander personalities will be streaming, including Olivia Gobert-Hicks, Brian David Marshall, Joseph Johnson, and Card Kingdom Blog and CAG Member Kristen Gregory.
You can find the full schedule and find out when your favorite creators are playing on Twitter/X.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.