Commander Players Already Want Voja Banned 🚫 

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The major problem with Voja is that it’s too strong to run in casual Commander but not strong enough to run in cEDH, leaving it only a tiny sliver of play groups where it’s a fair strategy, relegating it to High Power commander. Worse yet, High Power Commander is chock full of decks that will eat any deck without counterspells for breakfast, so Voja might STILL feel like they don’t quite belong.

Wizards needs to stop making commanders that by themselves are win cons, draw engines, payoffs and make you coffee all wrapped up into one.

My favorite statement joel made and the one i personally feel. It isn’t that this commander needs to be banned but it falls in the atraxa style of power where it has to be killed and a lot and either you won’t have fun playing the deck because you won’t have a hand filled up enough to deal with the constant interaction players will use on you and it’ll lead to boring games. Or you pub stomp people that don’t know how to deal with that level of threat

The Ward 3 on it is ridiculous. If you don't start with ramp and removal in your opening hand it's extraordinarily difficult to remove before it starts popping off

There's a line of text in the game I used to hate and that was "this spell can't be countered". Voja has changed my opinion about that line of text.

“Creatures either get to be Mulldrifter, or Baneslayer Angel, but not both.” Voja- “Watch this though”

If your entire playgroup have to all change their playstyle just to compensate for this one new commander it might be a sign it's a little to powerful. But at the same time, PEOPLE DONT RUN ENOUGH INTERACTION!!!!!

Karlov Manor just released quite a few interaction cards that can't be countered too, all because Ward was a very common occurrence in that set.

I don't want Voja banned in commander. I do however want it banned in brawl as it is absolutely miserable in a 1 vs 1 format.

I was already on your thought process when I was building Voja. Every elfball Commander deck I've ever built gets wrecked by board wipes. In Voja, I leaned heavily into the white in (his? her? Forgive me for not knowing) color identity to run roughly a dozen instants that either make the team indestructible or phase the team out until end of turn. I may be a turn later casting Voja sometimes, but I typically won't cast the wolf unless I can hold up board wipe mitigation on top of it. I've had a lot of success with this strategy thus far.

I would like to bring up Jodah the unifier. They split it into Voja and pantlaza, and all three commanders have the problem that they demand that someone not play the game. Either Voja/pant/JodahU gets to play their game plan and they're the only one getting to play the game since they end the game so quick, or Voja/pant/jodahU is being hard targetted so much that they don't get to play the game. This is just feel bad because I don't want to hate someone out of the game, but if I don't, then I don't get to play the game.

WotC really went ‘You know that custom card we gave Werewolf tribal? Give it to elves and give it protection.’

If wizards let’s 4c partner commanders run rampant, Voja isn’t even on their radar.

As someone who has built and played against Voja... He is definitely too much. Against him, I saw him drop turn 3, and there was nothing we could do to stop the following attack. And that one attack managed to give his whole team 4 +1/+1 counters, that were a problem most of that game. The only saving grace for the game was the facedown deck playing Ixidron, which stopped further shenanigans for a while.

I didn’t even consider this creature as a commander. I use it as a piece in my Rukarumel Tribal Tribal deck.

i think the only reason Voja is being such a big deal is that it's probably the first time Brawl has had to deal with something on a Commander scale Brawl has much less Kill on Sight Commanders. so now that they have one, it's a big reality check.. that low cost removal/Counters are necessary

With Ward 1 it would be ok. With Ward 3, even Deadly rollick is minimum 3 Mana and I do not play it, cause it is also badass. WTF.

Honestly the thing that bugs me the most is that it’s another elfball commander, I want some cracked tribal commanders for the underplayed tribes of mtg

Honestly, the biggest issue with Voja for me is the fact Wizards felt the need to staple Ward 3 onto it despite it already not having much of a downside. It necessitating boardwipes is just not a fun play experience, and when dealing with a format like commander, a fun play experience is more important than technical balance. A Voja either is answered with boardwipes and does nothing, or the table can do nothing and get stomped because it takes 5 or 6 mana on average to remove it in most colors, meaning you have to dedicate almost all your mana to outing it if you use a single target removal spell. About as much as the average boardwipe if not more expensive. Of course, Voja having keyword soup is also irritating, but the ward part just fuels the need for boardwipes or dying which is a not fun experience for a casual format

The only thing I don't like about Voja is the way it was distributed.

As soon as I saw this card release I started to read it and thought "Oh this is awesome.. oh this is way too much."

Made a standard brawl deck in Arena...not many mana dork elves in standard right now, but I'm still finding some pretty consistent success. There are enough wolves out there in standard to make keep things moving along.

I planned for my Voja team being board wiped by deploying greater good the turn before. Drew 51 cards, discarded 15. Had all the protection I needed for the rest of the game as I drew reliquary tower in the 51.

Voja is the perfect power level with most of the players in my local meta, and the first deck I've built where I sit down and actually feel like the threat. And it STILL loses plenty of games

In commander there are 3 important factors. Card Advantage, Ramp/Mana, and a way to win. A commander should always do at least one of those. A good commander should always do 2 or more. Voja provides Card Advantage and a Wincon, and being a tribal commander for elves takes care of the ramp for him. That makes him a great casual commander, but he does have weaknesses. His limitations are mainly with his color selection, the fact that he is a tribal commander, and the fact that he doesn't do anything on his own if you pick off the elves. You need to build around him and have other things on the board with him for him to do his job. Then his biggest weakness is interaction, which a lot of people are just very bad at including in their decks. He excels against poorly built decks and is a great benchmark commander to test decks against. A well-built deck will not have many issues dealing with a Voja player at the same power level. I think that being tribal and not having access to black make him a well-balanced commander overall, and better commanders have been printed in parecons and also in the same set.

I’m hearing a lot of whining in a format where things like korvold, winota, exist. You dismiss jetmir because you can remove him, but jetmir gets around that by not being cast until your hatebears make it safe. You just lock down the board with stax then overrun and double strike to win. Obviously voja (pronounced voy ah btw) is strong. No one will dispute that. But to say that it’s a format warping, near bannable commander makes it seem like you’re just upset that you lost to it. Honestly, at least voja is very open with what he wants to do. Play elves, attack. Other commanders like vadrik or mizzix just win instantly from zero board state. Commanders like Kess or shalai or Malcolm have one card combos. Godo is a zero card combo! Theres just a lot of broken things in commander. Voja isn’t the worst offender.

See, this discussion is meaningless to me as a Judith player. Ward or not, 1 mana destroys their entire board. My power knows no bounds.

At my LGS we did a 4 player Voja table. Things hit the fan quick. It could be it's own game move how crazy Voja deck can blow up.

Voja is Craterhoof at home!

I think Voja is incredibly strong…but it has to attack. So this is just another “just wait till I untap!” cards - you can’t let it get another turn or you’ll probably lose…but there’s a bunch of commanders in that same bucket

3 things: The Conclave is Selesnya, Voja shouldn't have red. It should be +1/+1 until end of turn, not +1/+1 counters. And ward 3 shouldn't be on there unless there is some reason that this wolf has fur blessed by the Gods. BOOM! That easy! How to make a fun, but not broken Elf/Wolf commander!

As a heavy aggro player, I love Voja. Started building him the moment I received it. So far I've played 6 games with Voja and went 3-3. He is definitely a target the moment he hits the battlefield.

Interesting take on the Ward. My initial reaction to reading Voja was two. 1. I puked alittle in my mouth and became instantly salty with this card. 2. I decided I wanted to build it so that everytime someone pulled out another broken ass commander deck I had mine ready and waiting.

this with Maskwood Nexus, or any other way to have your entire field gain Changeling would be sick. Everything you have is an Elf and also a Wolf, so all of those conditions are now "for each creature you control"

I grabbed a bunch of random elves, about 10 protection spells with 2 or less mana, and chucke them into a Voja deck. It absolutely annihilates. Forcing opponents to pay 5 to 7 mana for removal and then making voja hexproof anyways is back breaking. I will say after playing about 10 games with the deck so far, the table will usually kill voja repeatedly if they can which can absolutely shut the deck down. I recommend including Heliod and Shalai as a backup wincon.

I agree with your closing thoughts, ward 3 is necessary evil on this type of commander.

I’ve played against this deck in its most powerful form a few times now and JEEEBUS it slaps… but not ban worthy. You can sweep the elves, counter wolf, stoping combat etc… you can play against it.

Voja is litmus test card. If you think it needs to be banned, unfortunately, you are probably not very good at magic the gathering.

I just stop building Kill on Sight commanders. Especially if your deck is dependant on your commander being on the board. If you can't keep it on the board, then you won't enjoy the game. And don't get mad at the other players for continuously removing it.

Day 0 is too soon, Lutri could have just been denied use as a Companion for the immense ease of use. Ward 3 on Voja is out of place on a Legendary Creature of the Selesnya Conclave whose protection are thematically spells they actively cast to defend themselves. Passive protection like Ward would be seen on guilds like Dimir, Azorius, and Orzhov. Also note your 2 mana removal and paying the 3 extra for ward is terrible as the Voja player has been ramping so Voja can be on board well before you have that 5 mana because green and elves love mana ramp. Drawing per Wolf is wild btw

For removal you guys should try the one that makes people sacrifice they’re highest cmc creature

This card was made for people who like to turn commander into a boss fight. And I hope people have that really clear in their minds, this is a 3v1 scenario, we CAN'T let you play, this is some Korvold levels of BS. And when everyone at the table understands that and agree with it is a blast to play!

Run choice based removal like Make an Example. You get to pick what you remove and gets around ward. You’re welcome.

I'd definitely prefer haste. Voja is telegraphed so you can hold up mana to interact with him but if you're not playing green and can pay the cost... what do you do? At least if he as hasted you could be confident that your instant speed removal will be effective. Voja also comes off the back of the whole Farewell discussion and singlehandedly makes a boardwipe more cost effective than any single target removal.

The hell is wrong with board wipe pass? Usually when it's done, it's necessary; everyone thanks you. Also, haste on it instead would be BROKEN. At that point, then it would be absurd. But having summoning sickness at all, with or without ward, is great because it gives three other players a cycle to deal with it.

4 people in my pod of 12 friends have been playing this commander a lot all with different builds. None have won a game yet and tend to be killed first almost every time. Without ward it would not be even talked about, just a fun commander. Ward lets it stick around. Think about what removal you have and how it interacts with cards like this. There are so many mass removal spells that cost less mana than this commander. When you have 3 other people at the table it should die before it gets to that players turn again. It is a powerful new commander and people will have fun with it. The real question people should ask is "Why is Primeval Titan still banned?".

really good analysis. so many things these days just require decks to have removal at almost all times.

"Yeah voja basically wins the game if she attacks once and it doesn't doesn't matter that much if you remove her and she is basically nuts in every aspect and has easy access to haste, but a creature like that should have ward on it." Yeah, yeah that is some solid logic. See this creature is impossibly strong therefore it should also have strong inbuild protection. Edit: by this logic Aesi should probably have build in hexproof.

I've played a game against Voja where the board was wiped like 4 times. Guess who still won.

Wait a 5/5 for 5 mana. With not one, not two, but three keyword abilities. Of which provide additional offensive power, additional defensive power and protection. As well as an additional mass draw(min 1). AND a mass pump effect that is permanent, only growing larger each time. Modern card design in a nutshell. This is what happens when the game leaves its roots to chase the money in the leaves.

Voja is strong yes but to say no downsides or weakness is a bit much. One it requires a board state and two like you said it needs to survive for 3 players turns to then be able to trigger... If you start saying yeah but if you build it like this... That's the same as any EDH deck.

Damn is a 4 mana boardwhipe correct? as you pay 2UU to cast it and replace target for each. Resulting in all creatures being destroyed. I think that is how Overload works, if I got it wrong, please correct me so I can stop cheating.

I had a fun interaction where I had Zask and Mortipede with Swarmyard. So that Vigilance was a MAJOR downside. All the Voja player's creatures had to block Mortipede, Zask gave Mortipede +1/+0 and Deathtouch, and Swarmyard regenerated Mortipede.

"Stacked, jacked and ready to attack" I'm gonna steal that quote for my Vorinclex Monstrous Raider deck whenever I summon him and just give it over 20 +1/+1 counters

People act like we haven’t seen power creep before.

I'm convinced that WOTC wants players to run more interaction in their decks, so they make commanders like this to force it.

Nice analogy… “Goblin Ding Dong” LOL… so mom goes to the market and starts talking about the fact that she and her son were discussing, gobbling ding dong to her friends?!?

Absolutely *hilarious* that people think they're entitled to dictate what other people play as a Commander. The self-centered mindset is wild. People have access to over 28k cards and are complaining about a battle phase focused commander that needs to wait a turn to be effective unless *given* haste. I would love to see the other player's decks that are allowing someone to set up such a field presence. I use *Ghost Council of Orzhova* , *Experiment Kraj* and *Jeleva* and Voja isn't a threat since I play with cards that manipulate/remove permanents and discourage players from attacking me. Players just need to play accordingly and stop expecting the world to play on their terms. Casual or not, it's still a battlefield.

I like how elfball is basically a problem "now", and never throughout commanders history. Elf themed decks in casual commander have been insane forever. It's even one of those decks where having interaction is not enough. You can't possibly have enough interaction to deal with Elves. But oh nooooooooooo, not VOJA... That's too much to deal with now. Literally no other tribal deck is as devastating as elves and voja as a commander is no different than any other elf themed commander.This coming from a MonoBlack player who people hate because tutors are like our best mechanic and is somehow unfair, but every other color gets to use their best mechanics and that's considered fair. Edit: I'm not complaining about elves of Voja, I'm just kinda mocking that people now care about the power level of elves. It's like they've never really faced off against a decent deck before. xD

I did playa. Game where I cast a blast act vs voja turn 4. And one person still does turn 6. And game ended turn 8

I built him and so far love it, he gets removed often and I haven’t had too many issues with him being broken so far, ward doesn’t protect against counterspells and is negated by cards that say can’t be countered

Commander in general has evolved to run more targeted removal and far less board wipes. Voja breaks parody with the way the format has become. If your general meta has several players who run Voja, you need to revamp your decks to include more board wipes.

bruh, that elf wildlife intro. ☠️🐺

The truth about Voja is that it's an elf ball commander which is good! it's what it should be, but there were some design mistakes here. my first complaint which may fall on deaf ears Voja and Tolsimir have both been consistently white green legendries so adding red was a flavor fail. Voja consistently never had any keywords in any of it's printing minus one printing where it had vigilance which is a white-green convokey mechanic and is on flavor the rest came from seemingly nowhere? So yeah yeah I'm belaboring my point on why just randomly giving colors to cards is bad. I'm not sure why red is his "angry color" which seems to me the only way he actually gains red. (like the conclave has no red members beside him other then Ghired WHO IS A CONCLAVE EXILE). Now onto what makes this card problematic. this card gets played consistently on turn three and starts giving the elves that helped cast this spell overrun-esque counters. he draws a card every time he attacks no matter what. he has built-in protection meaning on turn 4 and 5 if your opponents didn't ramp with you he's going to continue adding counters and cards. now for more stupidity, he gets to run for free in his deck cards like Allosaurus Shepard, and Gaea's Herald, and veil of summer/autumns veil to protect even more against counters and removal. the colors are great for making sure you never get board wiped with cards like Teferi's Protection, flawless maneuver, heroic intervention, boros charm, clever concealment, everybody lives! and I can go on and on and on. also, one thing worth mentioning a lot of the time if you hold up 5 entire mana to hold up interaction on my turn I have effectively time-walked you. you're still down tremendously and are now just more behind the other 2 players at the table. I have a KOS commander in Elf ball who time-walks people just by threatening to play him that is a nasty card.

I agree 100% that this commander is KoS but the ppl calling for bans on this card are cowards.

For sure agree that the ward portion isn't bad for this card. I think ward is the best form of static protection they have come out with ever. However the problem with the "Just play more removal" argument is that they're making so many cards like this now that are "kill on sight" commanders that you can pretty easily get a full pod of kill on sight commanders and the games just turn into coin flips of who can get and keep their commander out first in groups that are running enough removal. And those games are super boring

Mtg players be like: The 85375th degenerate combo decks appear that does the exact same solitaire bs: "This is fine" Whenever an Aggro or Control deck becomes slightly relevant: "HURR DURR BAN IT MUH BROKEN PLS NERF"

I think im gonna built it. Love the aggro playstyle. I run Gishath and just make sure i have plenty of counterspells and protection in it

when you realize that Tolsimir had been printed 3 times and his wolf got printed once and everything changed 😂

who demands for a Voja ban is just a crybaby. I mean rule 0 is right there to prevent people who just wants to have fun get demolished by more powerful, more tuned decks like Atraxa, Edgar, Korvold, Miirym, Jetmir, Gishath, you name it. Of course "ward 3" is not fair. But have you guys ever played against Narset?? (Or any other indestructible commander for that matter) Commander is all about unfair magic most of the times and we all know it, but that's where our abilities as both players and, most importantly, deckbuilders are tested. We need to improve and learn how to play and do politics against these big threats.

I play Voja so I admittedly don't think it's a problem. It has the same weaknesses as an elf ball or Miirym deck. Board wipe the mana dorks and they probably won't have enough mana to recast. Pay the ward cost because letting it untap and do it's thing is a problem. If you can't do either, the good news is you'll be in a new game soon.

Can they errata this immediately so that it had haste in hidden ink

Yesterday: Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines Today: Voja

My group is a mid to high power casual. They don’t really care about my Voja deck… then again, I’m running half and half, not just elfball….

I mean Zur, The enchantress and Vorniclex and Attraxa are still in so i guess it really doesnt matter.

Look i am going to be honest, i fucking love my Voja deck, and my groups dont mind simply because i go half wolf and half elf. it is powerful but it is not outstanding. look, sometimes i just wanna build a deck that does not require a fucking 30 minutes turn with: "i kill you all fuck you". And sometimes i just wanna go to combat with a deck that does not require a fucking PHD to navigate.

Isn't it a problem how many kill on sight targets there are in commander now? Everybody has to run so many board wipes now. I think Voja is just the scapegoat (scapewolf?), there is a wider problem of power creep in commander along with every set having cards specifically designed for commander is not helping.

A 5 mana 5/5 is fair. A 5 mana 5/5 with Trample and Haste is reasonable. A 5 mana 5/5 with Trample, Haste, Ward 3, heavy card draw and strong board grow is absurd. The games I've played against Voja have been extremely painful and if the RC doesn't consider it to be banned because of how overwhelming in value it is, then the little faith I want to have in them dwindles further.

Voja is SO disappointing, like they were *so* close to making a commander that would encourage you to build some weird Elf/Wolf tribal deck that has never had a reason to exist before, but nope, just make it generic as shit. Like, imagine if Voja said "when Voja attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on each wolf you control for each attacking elf you control, then create X 1/1 green Elf creature tokens, where X is the number of attacking wolves you control." Is it less powerful, most likely, but is now an interesting and unique card to build around? Abso-fucking-lutely

The Ward creep is a notable problem. Why waste 4 mana to swords voja when you can run a wrath of God and blow up the whole board?

Haste? On Voja? F no. Also, can someone explain why boardwipe pass is bad?

Didn't know aggro was bad in commander. At least in standard, aggro literally never runs out of gas, they play 5 creatures and still have 10 cards in hand somehow.

Iff it got counters for number of wolves and cards for elves i think it would be bet received

I think a big reason people are upset abt ward 3 is u cant use your one mana removal on it and still take your whole turn. You actually have to give up most of your mana on the turn voja is cast to remove it, and i think thats really healthy for an aggro deck to have.

I think haste is way worse than ward 3. Haste would mean on t 3/4 it just does the thing and even when removed they still draw at least 1 card and play it in a turn or two. Ward means it gets played may or may not attack, maybe is removed in a turn or two, but when it’s replayed it doesn’t come out swinging, it has to wait a turn to do something again. Ward is a threat, haste is an inevitability.

At lest for the kind of decks we play and against this card is just a afterthought due to everyone and there mother playing Counterspells like crazy or bored whip every other turn but hey thats just us.Much rather die to fast aggro then play 2hr long control matches every game just to lose cycrift

Pulled Voja at pre-release, took one look at it, and even as a green mage at heart who loves turning big stompies sideways, I said "thanks but no thanks". That card is absolutely bonkers. Still, I agree, far from ban worthy. This thing buckles from board wipes and removal

I don't think it should be banned but it does have the issue that it has zero design floor but a borderline limitless ceiling... until you hit cEDH. Until you hit that tier just about any variation of design level will lead it to be the "Problem" at the table. That will lead to exhausting, stressful games where it's 3 players trying to prevent the fourth from cataclysmically popping off. It stops being fun really quickly.

This card is way too “nuke on site” for its own good, but it’s nice to see Wizards recognizing that the format needs more decks than “U/G/x Midrange” and “B/G/x Graveyard Shenanigans.”

Damn son, only two snaps on that cap! Great content, keep up the good work.

leave my boy alone in the 99 of my rocco werewolf tribal

I built it i love it its a high power level commander but not broken/warping so just have fun with it

As a dude whose come from warhammer, i dont want cards banned. Different people want different things from their games. I very simple sit down dudes playing Voja, give him a hand and then never play him again.

If people cant handle a Voja deck, they run too little interaction….. Just fix your deck…

Perfectly balanced. Wrath’s exist for a reason.

Yeah, Voja isn't Chulane. But I do love it from a lore perspective, MKM was the first Rav where Tolsimir didn't make a Voja token.

The problem is too many people just want to develop their boards and not interact. Play removal, use removal. It's in the command zone, telegraphed right.

Had a rather drunken heated discussion this weekend regarding this WElf. Conclusion: if you dont like Voja, play cEdh decks in casual

change the word elves to wolf and the card is more than fine. so unnecessary. I say this as someone whos favorite color is green and plays elfball in any format i can.