While Commander’s grassroots origins make it different from many other Magic formats, it still has a ban list like the rest of them. However, since Commander is not a format with tons of tournament data to back up banning certain cards, some players are unsure why certain offenders end up on the list. Today, I’m going to take a look at Prophet of Kruphix, explain why it’s banned in Commander and discuss whether or not it would be safe to unban it.
The Prophet is a five mana 2/3 that allows you to untap all of your creatures and lands during everyone’s untap step — and it gives all of your creature cards flash. Untapping every turn means you gain access to twice the mana you normally would during each turn cycle. It also means you will virtually never completely have your shields down.
Your opponent has to respect the fact that you can interact on every single turn. Adding flash to your creatures combines great with that, because it increases the number of different ways you can use your mana during your opponent’s turn.
Why is Prophet of Kruphix Banned in Commander?
Prophet of Kruphix never did anything significant in 60-card constructed formats. That’s largely because it is fairly costly and has incredibly vulnerable stats. The risk just isn’t worth the reward. However, the Prophet becomes far better in multiplayer formats like Commander where the risk is far more justified.
After all, Prophet of Kruphix only doubles your mana in a two-player game. But because it untaps your stuff every turn, it gives you exponentially more mana in a four-player game. That can get particularly spicy if you have powerful activated abilities to sink all that mana into every single turn.
It also works well with activated abilities that require your creatures to tap, giving you an extra crack at them for every single turn there is. And finally, if you’re holding on to counter-magic, you can use it to protect the Prophet fairly easily because you will almost always have the untapped mana to cast it.
Should Prophet of Kruphix be Unbanned in Commander?
We’re pretty deep in this series at this point and so far there’s only been a few cards that I have thought should be unbanned. But Prophet of Kruphix is another one to add to that list.
While it is certainly a powerful card that warps the game around it, it is also not that challenging to deal with — plus it requires the person who controls the Prophet to actually have something to spend that mana on. While that’s not a huge ask, it isn’t automatic, either.
There are definitely times when a Prophet comes down and its controller is out of gas, so it doesn’t really do anything. In short, it is easy enough to deal with and hard enough to access as a value engine that I don’t think it needs to be banned in Commander.
End Step
What do you think? Am I crazy for thinking the Prophet should be unbanned in Commander Hit me up on Twitter and let me know!
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.