Moore Nancy Anderson David Johnson Deborah

The issue is that for CEDH, JLo, Crypt, and Dockside are staples. Usability and value drop makes it frustrating to optimize decks. The RC wanted all commander players to just be casual players who would enjoy a longer game. Maybe a cEdh format should be created now.

Commander needs to splinter into a multitude of formats because, in truth, Commander is more like Two Headed Giant than something like Modern or Vintage. You don't just play 2HG. You play some format in the 2HG mode. If you just told your playgroup/store "Hey, we're playing Two Headed Giant next week" that's not enough info. Likewise, "We're playing Commander next week" should also not be considered enough. Casual Commander is just Kitchen Table in the Commander Mode. I guess cEDH would be like Legacy or Vintage in the Commander mode. This would fix so much, and replace all the terribly clunky power-level measuring systems with a robust set of power guidelines that, yes, you could still deviate from with rule 0. This way though, you can already skip ahead a significant amount in the rule 0 convo. You don't need to describe what you want from scratch; you just need to know which format is closest to you preferences. Pretty much all of the pains in the Commander community, and much of the greater Magic communities issues with the Commander community, comes from the fact that "Commander" as a format is too big a tent to say anything meaningful about what it is. New players never should have had access to cards that could cause such an economic issue when banned. You wouldn't print Channel into a Standard environment; so why give a Black Lotus analogue to casual players?

Seems like we could have solved all of this by being better at Rule 0 conversations. “Hey person, you running that powerful fast mana stuff in your deck? ‘Cause we are playing true 6-7s here. But that table over there is running more high powered.”

18:40 joey you making me dream that some design decisions can stem the tide of capitalist bullshit lol

I don’t agree with the jeweled lotus being banned. Or any of these things, really. Because they only result in 5 mana by turn 2 IF YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE THEM IN YOUR STARTING HAND. I usually never get my sol ring in my starting hand either, so why make the fuss for these cards? If the only sin they commit is ONLY committed when you have them in your starting hand, what’s the big deal? There’s always a statistical chance it could happen, but it’s not even like 25% of the time. It’s like 3-7% chance. And by the middle of the game, who cares if they play it then, people should be looking for wincons by then anyway.

The tears of investors have been JUST delicious 😅

It's worth mentioning I own none these cards nor have I ever played with them in my decks. Nadu, ya it had it comin for being powerful and miserable to play against. Dockside, also had it comin. Mana Crypt, I have a buddy who lucked into one from a pack and it's very much a "oh, we're playing THAT kinda game" card. I'm indifferent. Jeweled Lotus, I'm with Matt on this. Neutral to Anti-ban. I also understand the RC's logic and don't feel the need to argue.

I have a massive collection worth a lot of money low 5 figures. I do not own any of these cards because as a personal rule, I never buy at all time highs and I never buy these 3 figure cards. It's just not worth it in a format where you can proxy, rule 0, or the fact it's singleton where you can find alternatives and overcompensate with overall card quality etc. This needs to be a lesson for people who are dropping massive cash on reprintables for what is essentially a kitchen table format. That will always be a bad idea. WOTC wants your money, they do not care about anything else. Sure they will lie to you and pretend they do, they might sweet talkk you and give you good vibes. But at the end of the day they have shown they do not care about anything besides the cash. You must take this into account when purchasing cards and you absolutely should NOT spend a lot of money if you cannot afford to take a 100% loss and eat it. The next time you wanna buy that expensive staple remember this feeling. The feeling of regret, buyers remorse and anger that you lost so much money. Then ask if the negatives of proxying are worth avoiding that sting. I have probably a list of 20 cards that have gone from 20-60+ dollars and then crashed into the ground and are functional bulk rares now because of reprints. My only saving grace is I probably picked them up when they were around 5 dollars maybe 10 at the most. You cannot throw a lot of money into a centralized card game and expect the value to stay there. You are putting your money into the hands of hasbros board of directors and just hoping they respect it. THEY DONT MAN THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THIS IS EDH NOT A HIGH STAKES MODERN TOURNAMENT EVEN PEOPLE AGAINST PROXYING CANT TELL 99/100 GAMES

If launching forward and fast mana are the problem then why aren’t all mana positive mana rocks banned?

"I don't think this choice was made without consideration to those game stores" i do. I think if they had consideration for anybody that owned these at all they would have a long period between the announcement and the actual banning. This very small amount of people working together with WoTC just screwed a ton of people over, especially people just now opening the "festival in a box" packs and getting valuable versions of these exact cards.

So many people saying the problem is just how unexpected it is to see jeweled lotus and mana crypt get banned… do you guys have a secret source that makes bans more expected?… If they never banned cards, there wouldn’t be a game. And if they banned every card someone doesn’t like, there would also not be a game. I feel bad for anyone who just spent a lot of money on them, but that’s not really a good reason to potentially decay everyone else’s game experience.

Pro Nadu Neutral Mana Crypt Anti Lotus Anti Dockside I get why all these cards are banned, but as a player in cEDH some of this doesn't sit right. IMO 3 mana for a commander made commanders with less color pips and allowed those with more mana to be more valuable. Dockside allowed for SO MANY combos which allowed different colors along with red to be viable (GR Sabertooth, BR MH3 enchantment with dockside, etc.) I TOTALLY understand why this happened, and while I'm sad, I can't wait to see the new meta

The thing here is, people are not upset because they were unwarranted bans, they are upset because they lost money. And while I understand it, they are expensive cards, but value in the secondary market should never be considered in the question of "should this card be banned"

Mana Vault rose 4x in price since then. So where does it end. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You ban a card, people move to the next, that becomes unaccessible, uh oh still too fast, ban, move to the next. Where does it stop? Over reach and terrible. You need a higher bar than "I talked with people for a year" with this much on the line. Polls, watch list, statistical significance, more diversity in the "community experts". Terrible all around.

Ill put my two cents in on this regarding where i stand on the bans: Crypt: Reluctant (I have a paper darien list that runs this for its self-ping, not just the fast mana) but I accept the card is too strong for the format. Lotus: Absolutely banworthy, we have black lotus banned for multiple reasons, the fast mana among those. Dockside: Good. Riddance. I have been advocating for that thing's ban since 2019 because the card is just that stupid. Its fast mana on legs, its hard to interact with, its a wincon, its everything. Bye bye, dont come back. Nadu: Honestly, I dont think this one is ban worthy. We have so, so many commanders that are "go infinite with a ham sandwich" and people tend to self-enforce those on their own with a simple rule 0. I tried to make a Radarabik list once and I played it with some friends online and I won. On accident. Cause someone board wiped. I have never touched that deck since. I self-policed and realized the commander is just absolutely insane in practice and Nadu falls under that same category. I will also say this: I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THOSE CARDS MONETARY VALUE. If you are going to treat MTG as a stock market, you cannot be surprised when it crashes.

@ 19:10 That's disingenuous. In the intervening years we BOUGHT THE CARDS. Had it been banned right away there would be no outrage. It's the letting it slide for years and allowing MARKETS TO FORM then on an effective whim reducing those markets to 0. Either ban it up front or live with it. Messing with the health of livelihood for the health of a format is stupid.

What I'm a bit pissy about is Nadu is still legal for Brawl.... WotC clearly had a heads up of this announcement and should have banned Nadu for MTGA.

I personally feel casually yes should be banned, cedh needs it's own singular format that has its own criteria as it so called does. In a format like cedh I personally don't feel there should be any to no bans considering your putting yourself in a format where winning as fast and efficiently as you can to do so. Idk just my two cents there's not any cards I'm afraid of seeing in the format as far as cedh is concerned. Fast mana is a key component to cedh and as I see it if you draw these early game you should be happy of the the benefit they give considering it's a luck draw just getting these early. Just my two cents

Fahey Ford

Seeing these in higher power? Okay. I’ve been seeing these pop up in my 6 PL games constantly. MANY people who can afford these cards don’t have the moral or social understanding that these cards don’t belong there. It had to be stopped before things get even more out of hand. Also with the rise of proxies I see them more and more in very casual decks too.

Thank you for making this video!

Sol Ring should go, too.

I wonder how the discourse would be if the cards weren't $100-$200 each. I dont want to sound like I'm gatekeeping anyones feelings but it does come across as the main complaints are monetary. Which is fair but it does muddy the waters when it comes to a discussion of the health of the format.

@ 8:10 well now we know they admit Sol Ring is fast mana that needs to be banned but WotC makes too much money off that one to touch. It's gross.

I see a lot of people angry about these cards taking a value hit and I see a lot of cEDH players angry about it. And I think the best solution here is for a cEDH unique ban list. The RC has always stated they focus bans on cards that give a negative experience in casual play, and those cards don't line up with what should be banned in cEDH because it's basically a different format. Things like Thassa's Oracle really don't have a place on the casual ban list but could probably get a ban in cEDH. Things like these 3 bans however could be unbanned in cEDH which seems to be the general opinion of cEDH players I've seen online. If there was a separate ban list it would allow for the value of the cards to recover at least a bit. Also for the people who want to play these cards in your pod just use rule 0, I know I've seen a lot of people say these card can be rule 0 banned so they don't need to be actual banned, but that logic applies in reverse too.

Day one Jeweled lotus hater here. That card is an abomination of a lotus petal and black lotus smushed together practically no downside beyond being a dead card when your commander is already on board

I feel the bans didn't go far enough. Leaving out Dark Ritual and all other fast mana outside of these 3 just means snowballs still happen and in fact you just caused me to lose some money on crypt and beefed up all my old fast mana cards so I'm both net zero and also still have fast mana.

This is the best take on youtube ❤❤❤

In time, these bans will be seen as a positive. No one likes when the bandage is ripped off but in this situation; this was the only way to curb fast mana. Telling WotC fast mana needs to have a lower ceiling.

This is part of why I proxy all my cards.

18:55 if this is the case they shouldve banned it before CM n LC. They new what they was doing

The ban list has alot of 0 drops for mana value it was bound to happen

The reason why there's uproar around Jeweled Lotus being banned now is that a significant amount of time has passed since it entered the format. I'm wholeheartedly behind banning it, but having waited so long to do so leaves folks with a bad taste in their mouth. Same argument can be applied to Mana Crypt. Sucks that it took so long for action to be taken on it; lots of players felt like it was a safe purchase and would be a part of the format forever.

I'm just annoyed the RC won't just stick to their guns. They know Jeweled Lotus was powerful and too good. They chose not to ban and to let rule zero keep it where it belongs. So we used rule zero to keep it where it belonged. Then they banned it anyways. Just have the guts to do what you know is best for the format. The fact that they took so long is what gets to me.

There really needs to be two formats and two ban lists. One for EDH and the other for CEDH. With new sets continuing to be power crept, this issue will keep happening. The casual format will become innately less casual as time goes by and a larger selection of cards are added to the format.

The Nadu ban was the worst for me (Never dealt with the other 3). I bought him a few weeks ago, and now he's not legal. Still did something with him.

Agreed. I don’t envy Rules Committee’s responsibility in this & am quite understanding. I owned a pre-con Xtortionist & had sought out Mana Crypt but play jn very few decks since. Matter of preferenc for general power level to my decks. The money-hungry top brass of Hasbro/WotC, however, DO NOT haf my sympathy in this. They forced a lose-lose situation on all the rest of us - their own design & testing staff, Rules Comm & player/fan base. Curses to them, CURSES!!!

ban ragavan next :3333

I think dockside is fine to go but the other two fast mana cards have no business being banned. Tell me the last time Jeweled Lotus honestly was the reason you lost a game of commander? It was solid ramp for mono color and two color edh decks in a format that is pushing for three color commanders to be the norm. Most of the time Mana Crypt does accelerate but it depends on what you accelerate into. The problem has been the fact that previously you would accelerate into two color signets and talismans. And the next turn maybe play a commander sphere, chromatic lantern, or darksteel ingot. All cards that are straight downgrades to new stuff like arcane signet (which by the way, was released in a set containing only three color commanders)

For everyone complaining about the sudden ban of jeweled Lotus: There's a Commander Legends Star City Games Article from Sheldon Menery stating that they have an eye on it.

If people want to pubstomp casuals, there are strategies for that. Stax, MLD etc are technically available. These cards can be used within an optimised deck list that is NOT cEDH, the rule 0 is the real issue. Players will always occupy different power levels, this ban just says “you can’t sit with us” to those who enjoy optimised power level decks. I have multiple decks at different levels, and I can adjust- if you owned these expensive cards, you should know where to play these and where not to- THAT is the issue. The people who spent this type of money are the people who were likely to spend the longest playing this game, are those the people you want to lose in the player base? Don’t ban some cards because people aren’t adjusting prior to playing in a new pod, the next high-power pieces will be the new problem, when do we go after jeska’s will, rhystic study, exploration and burgeoning, list goes on.

Dockside everyone was ready for. No one is surprised. From a cedh standpoint dockside is what made red viable to play. Without it red is getting kicked out of the format. That is overall bad for the game. The same for Jeweled Lotus. JL made many 5+ mana cost commanders viable to play with. Now those decks are gone. In the RC letter they state they want to slow down the game (in a game that takes and hour+ play sometimes, MAKE IT MAKE SENSE) and opening up more brews after these cards are banned. They did just the opposite. On the financial side this is Chronicles levels doomsday event. They just wiped out millions of dollars from players and stores. They just sent a clear signal to every player and store do not buy high cost cards and do not hold sealed product that contain those cards. They just sent every single player rushing to proxy cards and stores to not hold your products. The reserve list saved magic back when it was created. I don't think you can undo the damage this time.

Don’t play CEDH but I had two copies of Dockside unfortunately just really upset about the price tanking and losing $100 but one copy was in the energy deck where I could copy it over and over I was honest about it being in the deck unfortunately of all the games I played it happened once haha oh well 😅

EDHREC Agree with ban? What a surprise!! MOMMY WIZARD WILL NOT SLAP YOUR ASSES TONIGHT!!😂

Its interesting to note that if a card "defies the laws of physics" it will not get looked at for bans

Your argument about the Committee smacking WOTC on the nose may be true but like you said, the players are the ones who suffer. I don't think this decision will alter anything that WOTC does. They will keep printing chase cards and then apparently the players will get punished when a group of people who are side stepping rule 0 decide to make a call. I am honestly confused as to lotus and crypt as I have seen these played and no one complains, yet I've seen Thoracle played many times and each time it is everyone else at the table just shakes their head and starts thinking about the next game.

I think only one needing ban was Nadu. With crypt and jewel being banned I think gaeas, the OG untapped dual lands, lotus petal, let's toss Sol Ring too.

I lost money... and i am wayyyyy OK with the bans. I like casual and was feeling forced to go almost cedh or stop playing all together. Good ridence...by by.

The biggest issue is the fact that they make a specific point of banning "5 mana on turn 2" when there are a bunch of other cards that can also very easily do that. Sol ring being biggest among them (which they expressly stated they wouldn't ban) but another being Lion's Eye Diamond, but those aren't even the only two. I don't think Fast mana is a problem in commander in general, but my opinion only matters as much as people are willing to let it. To clarify I don't have any of these cards in any of my decks (I only own a single copy of Dockside) and my playgroup has agreed to ignore the ban list so this really does not affect me.