Summary
According to Josh Lee Kwai of the Commander Advisory Group, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) warned the Commander Rules Committee (CRC) not to follow through on their proposed bans of Dockside Extortionist, Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus and Nadu, Winged Wisdom fromMagic: The Gathering’s popular Commander format (thanks,Wargamer).
The last couple of weeks have been among the most tumultuous in the history of the Commander format, beginning with the announcement of the aforementioned bans and ending with Wizards of the Coast’s game design team assuming direct control over the format going forward. The independent Commander Rules Committee had been receiving death threats since their ruling and ultimately opted to transfer their stewardship of the format over to Wizards of the Coast.
A Controversial Tale
A new twist in the tale has arisen courtesy of Kwai, a member of the Commander Advisory Group, essentially a group of community leaders that advised the Commander Rules Committee on the health of Commander. Kwai claimed on his Command Zone podcast (above) that he’s spoken to people within Wizards of the Coast, who told him that the design team advised the CRC not to follow through on the recent bans.
“I’ve talked to people inside Wizards, I know for a fact they said ‘do not do this’,” Kwai said. He then specified that Wizards didn’t want all four of these cards banned at once. “I don’t know if they said ‘Hey, let’s just Nadu and Dockside’ or what, but they were like ‘This full decision, do not do this.'” The decision proved extremely controversial, prompting abhorrent death threats from the worst minority in the Commander community.
In Wizards of the Coast’sannouncement regarding its takeover of Commander, the company said addressing the banned card list wasn’t a priority. However, we’ve already seenthe prices of the banned cards reboundingas hopeful buyers predict Wizards of the Coast will reverse some of these bans.
