DUEL COMMANDER B&R UPDATE - JANUARY 2025 │MTG│bitzelberg

[@yohandudognon2800]

Well, thank you for the kind words on Ezio and thank you for the great choices on this new banlist. Thank you bitzelberg as well for this very interesting and perfectly conducted video.

[@bitzelberg]

Happy to see some positivity here, great that you like it :)

[@jakubkozak4098]

DC is a competetie eternal format and big part of such format is a nin-basic lands hate. I really believe that Blood Moon effects are crucial for the health of format and a clean and natural way to fifht greedy 4-5c piles. I would even say that Back To Basics should get unbanned.

[@lelouchlamperouge1671]

just ban invert polarity, just win a game with a single card is too much

[@Palda88726]

I feel like people are underestimating the value of having blood moon and friends in the format. Banning Ezio proves that even blood moon isnt strong enough. It would be interesting to see price of progress or Back to Basic unbanned.

[@behemoth9543]

Blood Moon effects are the great equaliser, they are a way to let cheaper decks compete with extremely expensive decks like Ezio or Atraxa and punish them for playing too many colors or even no basics at all. There are simply not enough of them however, enough for 60 card 4x formats but not Commander. It being so random in a 100 card singleton format and the sentiment of "I will ignore the possibility of Blood Moon and just play as though it doesn´t exist" being an issue I agree with, but the solution to that would be that we need enough non-basic hate that that kind of simply ignoring counterplay and going for maximum greed isn´t a reasonable response anymore. That effect, or non-basic hate across all colors in general, should be much more common in Magic. Sort of difficult in a banlist perspective though since you have no way of influencing the new cards that get printed.

[@bitzelberg]

Winter Moon is also a thing!

[@hairykraken3541]

You can play ertai with stifle effect

[@SagazLiam]

Suggesting a ban to a deck that doesn't play blue and was just hit with two bans that took out core cards in its colors doesn't make much sense. Ketramose will never be as powerful as he could have been.

[@bitzelberg]

Reanimate in a deck that exiles its own GY is not really a key card :) WPA on the other hand was an allrounder in fact!

[@SagazLiam]

@bitzelberg it doesn't matter that you exile your own graveyard, many of the cards that make that effect let you select the cards exiled

[@bitzelberg]

@ what exactly are we talking about?

[@Fpl8646]

The amount of people crying about Aragon is 😂😂😂😂😂😂 The deck is completely beatable wtfff

[@neojng]

Aragon is really not the boogyman, hes just fun to play. Not even that great.

[@MinstrelSauce]

@@neojng nah he was not fun

[@raigheb9306]

I wonder how many of the RC play Aragorn because that's the only reason I can imagine for him to be evading the ban hammer for this long.

[@bitzelberg]

In fact not a single core-member plays the deck ;)

[@mcandrolallendelapena6375]

You people act like Aragorn is the boogeyman of the format. Yes it sees a lot of play. But it’s not close to unbeatable. There are 2 Aragorn players in our local meta, and my record against them is 10-2. If you find yourself losing to Aragorn that much, I hate to break it to you but it seems that it’s a player issue.

[@ericyang8474]

You can't act like the only reason why the best deck in the format only loses because the person is a worse player. Jeskai itself is strong, so unless you build your deck to grind out to the late game or burn as fast as possible (more fragile), it's going to be a difficult match, especially if Jeskai pilot is also a good player in general.

[@bitzelberg]

@@ericyang8474 there are a couple of decks that propose a good MU against Aragorn. I'd always try to motivate players to find a good countermatch instead of rage-quitting their beloved game :)

[@Fpl8646]

If Aragon is your biggest worry, then you have a major skill issue im afraid

[@ElReicz]

I sure hope they wont touch Ketramose for a while as I'm currently building it. I'm also curious on your build of it

[@bitzelberg]

I wouldn't be too hopeful here :D

[@hairykraken3541]

I would be really surprised if ketramose reach the level of tamyio nadu or ajani

[@lucapiantino9236]

I stopped play duel Commander Just becouse there are too much aragorns and the commitee Is doing nothing to keep this card in check...and this banlist proved that is better stay away from the format until the king Is gone.

[@tomikimpossible]

you must play in very poor and bad community. i play Aragorn, have like every best card and my win% is like 40%, because there are MUCH more better decks, same tournaments and same another Aragorns at high tournaments.

[@bitzelberg]

It's a terrible misconception that Aragorn is an unbeatable deck, the topic is way too pushed overall and I don't get it.

[@lucapiantino9236]

I played in the italian National at the end of last year. During the year ( and in Italy Is the official First year of duel Commander) you needed to get 3 "tokens" in the form of top4 or top8 (depends in the size of the tournament) to get qualified to this National. We were only 38 or 40 i dont really remember that well, the fact Is that half of the decks in the room, literally half, were aragorns. Nothing new that National was win by an aragorn. I dont know if in Italy we have a different view of the commander and It s pushed to its limits and became unbeatable...but i m kinda pissed off and annoyed to face 3 aragorns in a row every tournament and see the king always win It...

[@bitzelberg]

@@lucapiantino9236 this is a very interesting trend and I'd like to know what is the reason for that. I understand your frustration, but why does absolutely noone seem to even try to find a good counterdeck to Aragorn?

[@lucapiantino9236]

@@bitzelberg oh no on the contrary. Players here have found a counterdeck for aragorn, and you know what Is? Just a control variant of It, with less creatures and more interactions...that s It. Honestly i dont even know if It has a bad mu (you can argue mono r but there are so many if involved)...to my eyes they seems all even or Just good mu.

[@franksantana6859]

The guy saying he had no idea how to evaluate Ketramose had me cracking up. I was yelling at my screen "read the card!" Its absolutely insane lol

[@bitzelberg]

Taking a cautious step to evaluate cards is never bad. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. I do think so too, as I said, that Ketramose is very powerful. We will see how it ends ;)

[@MinstrelSauce]

Someone just pin what was banned at the top so we don't have to watch this 1:41:03 thing

[@bitzelberg]

Maybe you just check the description ;)

[@michaelclergeau8768]

Balance et reanimate je comprends pas leur banne car en fonction de la partie ça devient des cartes mortes

[@martinvyhnalek312]

I play centurion commander, similar to duel but differet banlist. The main difference is number of cards banned as commander. Many of them can be unbanned in my opinion.

[@igor8688]

Centurion >Duel

[@martinvyhnalek312]

@@igor8688 it's much better format for new players. 25 lifes Is So better and helfier.

[@tcgmetaslayer4202]

why is there no sideboard in Duel Commander lol ? seems like an obvious oversight. EVERY competitive format has it for balance....

[@bitzelberg]

No, Singleton formats apart from Australian HL do NOT have a sideboard mainly for 2 reasons: tournament timing complexity

[@blb6107]

@@bitzelberg well 15 cards is to much for SB but i think having 2-3 SB cards to play would be good inclusion no?

[@bitzelberg]

@ yes, then again we have to ask the question if the impact in a 100 card format is enough if we can only board 3 cards?

[@tcgmetaslayer4202]

@ why not 10 ? more impactful but less than standard 15

[@bitzelberg]

@ 5 cards could be a thing I guess, but a SB generally goes against the nature of singleton. Personally not sure if I'm a fan or not :/