Explaining Every Banned Cards In The Commander Format Part 1 

When my wife and I first got into Magic, she was devastated to find out that Lutri was one of the few cards banned in the commander format. She actually only wanted to play it because it was cute, and so we have a house rule that Lutri is legal as long as it’s not a companion.

This is the 1st time youtube recommend me your video to me, and it is what I have been looking for for years.

Generally, I think the types of cards the Rules Committee bans are extreme cases of cards in an archetype to say "We think stuff like this is unhealthy/unfun at most tables." Hence why a lot of cards banned are ones that make games incredibly one-sided (Prophet of Kruphix, Hullbreacher, Leovold) and cards that have the potential to ruin a single player's experience (Sundering Titan and Iona) and time-wasting cards (Upheaval and Prophet again). A good experience for the whole group is prioritized by the RC. There are cards *like* these that are unbanned, but the banlist is primarily there to take out the extreme cases and act as advisories for deckbuilders wanting to maintain their friendships.

Yeah, a lot of the argument for unbanning Lutri is also hinged around the fact that no one asked for Companion to function in Commander, and the card isn't in the slightest bit problematic in the 99 or as your Commander. Many argue that getting rid of "Banned as" was a massive mistake that has just made the format worse while claiming it made it "easier to understand" despite how directly intuitive "Banned as" was.

One other point about limited resources is when it's cast early. If player 1 or 2 casts limited resources early on, then eventually two players will have 3 lands, two players will have 2 lands and nobody can play any further lands, so especially the two players with two lands will be completely locked out. Again in a 1v1 it would still let both players get up to 5 lands onto the field, but in a multiplayer format it's much stronger.

Limited resources wouldn’t stop green ramp. If anything, they’d put them even more ahead. As ramp spells like rampant growth don’t play the lands, they just put them on the battlefield. So, they can still cast their ramp spells and get far ahead, and probably win.

One thing that you missed with Prophet of Kruphix and Sundering Titan is that the cards warped the game around them. They’re almost always the best target to reanimate, flicker, or clone - so it was extremely common for players to run cards specifically to answer or cheat out their own titan/prophet, or just steal their opponent’s titan/prophet The same thing was the case with Sylvan Primordial and Primeval Titan - the best version of the cards was the one you stole from your opponent’s deck with Bribery.

It is also important to let people know that the format is mainly "Self-policing" meaning that even though there are "Legal" banned cards, it is up to the person explaining into the Playgroup what they are intending to accomplish. One may play nothing but "Im here to win" cards and another may play nothing but "im just here being the clown" cards. The Self-Policing part comes when after a few games (over the course of their commander nights) they finally tune down to match the playgroup OR they finally tune up to actually compete fairly in a playgroup. The players themselves are free to discuss what to ban and what to allow. So if someone chooses to only "play to win, always" then it may be up to the other 3 players to choose to team up and take out the "Problem".

Can't wait to see the rest of the banned cards! Love seeing the reasoning behind the bans.

About Green being the best color in the format, it depends heavily on what kind of game you are playing. In slower paced, more casual games, I'd agree, but if we're talking the most powerful way of playing the format Green is probably among the worst colors because its ramp is slower than artifacts and it's ways to protect your combo are worse than white or red or blue

What makes Sundering Titan real punishing is because it says basic land TYPE and not just basic land.

The other big reason Karakas is a problem is that there's barely any opportunity cost to include it. Drannith Magistrate and anything else take a deck slot; Karakas just replaces a basic Plains. This makes it an auto-include in every white deck.

just found trade secrets recently in my bulk and thought, wow this looks interesting, but i didnt check the banned list. thx for saving me a weird moment playing a banned card :D

Ah yes, the video I've been waiting for! I absolutely love Commander format! Thanks for covering this!

Welcome to MTG mi friend, been watching the duel logs for a long time, we really needed your format on mtg.

To me very cool and complete reasoning on each card, very meticulous and wide spectrum of povs. Nice much Thx!

I would be interested in seeing a commander series where you discuss why certain commanders are considered good. Especially iff you brike it down inti themes, (ex. What makes a good token commander, or What makes a good tribal commander)

I think the biggest problem with sundering Titan is that it basically “combos” with EVERYTHING (blink, sacrifice, artifact/creature reanimation, clones, etc.) Not only that, it’s also easily searchable, colorless, and good at any stage of the game. Even if it gets dealt with quickly, you’re still blowing up 10 lands, which puts you 3-4 mana ahead of each opponent. Or, the 5 color player no longer gets to play the game.

I always really enjoyed your WoW videos, I’m glad I get to see you do them for mtg!

Omg. I've played wow and watched your videos for a long time, and I just started playing magic this year. I immediately recognised your voice. Love your videos, for both games.

love yo see this Still want to see formally banned cards and why they were banned and why they are unbanned.

I played during prophet being legal. The main issue came not only it's effects, but in it's color identity. Simic (blue/green) is probably the best color combo to snowball but usually its balanced out by needing it's permission magic to defend. With prophet, the deck was really only shields down before the next players untap step. It was a kill on sight card every game.

Another thing about Titan is that Commander has colorless decks, who don't play land of basic land types in the first place, so in that decks it would simply never hit your lands. Also, I never understood why they got rid of the distinction of banning cards in the 99 or as commander (yeah, for simplicity, but it made the format more interesting and unique).

Even though commander has a ban list everyone should remember rule 0. If you want to play a banned card, talk to your play group to ask if it’s ok. My group already had the Lutri discussion. We are fine if someone plays it in the 99 or as a commander.

I miss commander having multiple ban lists. The Lutria case is just one of many case where the card is fine in the 99.

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading! Personally, I find it kind of weird that a card like Lutri can be banned for being overpowered & exclusive, but a card like Sundering Titan can be banned for being too accessible for eveeryone. Also, I dislike Wizard's pushing of creatures matter, Legendary creatures & land. As said, it's biased towards Green in Commander, & I think Land destruction can be interesting. Restrictions breed creativity, & greedy manabases can be bad, too; Like you said, people don't like excessively long turns or swingy games. Anyway, neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

i would actually love to see more stuff about commander 😊😊😊

"Lutri is cute" This is no joke half my arguement lol. Im glad you brought it up. I would love to have the adorable elemental otter dualcaster mage in my deck. It really should just be banned as companion cause it is actually worse then dualcaster mage outside of the companion thing (cause it can only copy your own stuff. Dual caster can copy other players spells) And while sure having something banned as companion is slightly more complicated, it would be way less complicated than even explaining what companion is to new players lol. Magic players are typically smart enough to figure these things out i dont think a "banned as companion" is that difficult.

The other important thing about Limited Resources is that it doesn't prevent lands from entering the battlefield, just from being played, so ramping from the deck still works under it.

Would really appreciate a take on this list but through the perspective of cEDH instead of just EDH, since I don't play casual and some arguments here just don't line up with the competitive format. Thanks for the video either way.

Good old prophet and animar, i cant wait for him to cover paradox engine, love that card lol

Really good topic

I also think that “it’s funny” is a fundamental piece of information that needs to be considered

As a note it's 'moot' not 'mute' when talking about an argument becoming pointless or fruitless.

Motherf- Hirumaredx does MTG vids too?! I feel silly for not having found this early. More to binge! Cheers!

Mostly play modern and yugioh. But big fan of both channels! This video was very interesting with my 0 Knowledge on commander

I'd love to see Braids and Panoptic Mirror in Pt. 2

I got a Masterpiece Sundering Titan from Kaladesh that I occasionally take out, weep a little, then put away.

Yorion is also a banned companion in commander, since you cant abide by her companion restriction. Would be 2 ''banned as companions'' in that case

An errata to cards like 'Limited Resources' to specify that the '10' lands should be scaled to account for additional players in Commander would help a lot of fun plays.

I built a casual Prophet of Kruphix deck with 'Tim' Wizards, Death-touch enabling artifacts, a few efficiency elves, and Counterspells. Called it "Itai! Itai!"

I was playing Commander when Prophet of Kruphix was first printed. Momir Vig, Simic Visionary was the Commander of choice because you could just run him out and then cast anything to find your Prophet and just keep rolling to always find your Mystic Snake for backup. Deck was ABSURD and I don't blame anyone for banning Prophet.

Prophet is seedborne muse and Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalkan Perry/Yeva in one card.

Waiting for part 2, hopefully you'll mention my dear wife Emrakul. Great video btw!

Did you already do a video on the cards that are banned in all formats? Would be great if you did a collabe with Nizzahon Magic!

I run a mono green prophet of kruphix, with some funky draw like spells. When it happens, I always call opponents turns "our turn"

I'd like to say that with the addition of ward and a lot of really powerful commanders having it, it limits Karakas more also it makes etb effects way, way more powerful And with a lot of cards that give shroud/hexproof, I see that argument for it's unbanning. As the game developing more and more it should be unbanned, BUT as of right now, no keep it banned.

Hi can you do a top 10 of the best lands?

Back in the day, playing Prophet just made the game all about copying or fighting over control of Prophet. Nobody hated the card when they could take it for themselves, or share its effect by copying it for themselves.

In my opinion another reason for Lutri to be unbanned is that it's mana cost has basically doubled with the Companion rules change. And you can only put it to your hand as a Sorcery so there's no way to surprise your opponents with it.

With Sundering Titan, there are 6 Basic lands. Wastes is the 6th. It is easily forgotten about because not everyone runs it.

Limi resources could be errataed to base the cap on the number of players, so 5xplayers rather than 10 which was because 2 players was assumed

Great start to hopefully a complete series. Call me a Marlian but I fucking hate titans lol

I feel like people who would argue Prophet could be unbanned haven't played against it enough. And the format having more cards to deal with it also gives you more cards to break it (think Great Henge), which Prophet decks were already built around to abuse anyway. Every player's turn is also accompanied by the Prophet player's taking even more time to do their "mini turn," which typically has more crap going on than your typical control/flash decks because they want to make use of all that free mana they're getting! They're not holding onto anything they don't have to, so they're going to repeatedly use up all that mana, then untap all lands during the next person's turn to just do it all again. Only reason I'm even ranting about it is because that card made all games turn into "who gets Prophet out first?" in my play groups. Was thrilled to see it banned so I could start enjoying EDH again 🤣

What about cards that are way more powerful in specific formats than in anywhere else? Like how Paradoxical Outcome isn’t good anywhere outside of vintage, where it’s busted since it bounces moxen to draw cards

You could make a video about card that are generally asked to be banned.

They should rework trade secrets to a newer card, „Each opponent may draw two cards. For each opponent drawing cards this way, you may draw up to four cards“ make it cost 5 (BBB and 2) and sorcery speed, remove the „repeat this process“ stuff and bam. Okayish card that isn‘t broken but could be fun for casual commander

What about cards that are way more powerful in specific formats than in anywhere else? Like how Paradoxical Outcome isn’t good anywhere outside of vintage, where it’s busted since it bounces moxen

I feel for #3 Luiri, also if im correct there wqd a rule change were you had to pay 3generic mana to get your companian into your hand then you can cast it, so those 5 mana extra turn spells turn into 11mana not the 8 mana. Just noting that cause it was noted with that card. Love the videos and hopw to see more

Lutri makes me want to see a 10 cutest cards video. That otter is adorable.

Amazing!!!!!

Limited Resources could easily be fixed by an errata to the last ability, "As long as a player controls 5 or more lands, that player cannot play lands.". It would preserve the intent of the effect while stopping it from being busted in multiplayer formats, it would be intuitive to explain the printed vs. oracle difference to people if it came up, and since it would, for *most* purposes still work the same way in 2-player formats I wouldn't see it as a "power level" errata (it would get slightly *worse* in 2 player since the "limited, destroy your lands, play more lands" wouldn't work, but is this really "power level"? I'm not sure). Or, to avoid even that, "As long as there are X or more lands on the battlefield, where X is 5 times the number of players in the game, players cannot play lands", which is clunkier but preserves the intent even further. Also, the entire Companion mechanic should just be banned from Commander and Lutri unbanned. I think it was a really dumb mechanic all around, and this change would open up the creatures to be commanders or maindeck additions without being busted. I'm sort of amazed this hasn't happened yet with all the brokenness it seems to cause in multiple formats, and especially since Wizards already just completely eratta'd how the ability works. It was a mistake, everyone's admitted to it, and it would honestly be easy, if unprecidented, for Wizards to just say "you can't use this ability anywhere anymore".

I feel like trade secrets can just backfire. Say I let an opponent draw 2 cards and I draw 4. They can repeat that process enough times to deck me out and they end up with a monster hand whilst I lose by attrition.

Trade Secrets has the tradeoff of potentially instantly making the caster lose the game by deckout, because priority doesn't get passed while effects are resolving, and the targeted player would generally only need to draw half their library +2 to make you lose

5:47 awww it’s an otter. “It has companion” uh oh

Limited Resources is just too good. By turn 3, if I'm playing Green-white, I could have 6 lands, a couple of rocks and tap a plains to play Limited Resources, sacking it, now I have 5, each of my opponents has 2 lands and now they can't play lands and if they don't have a signet/talisman in hand, they're out of the game. If they blow it up, I'm still way ahead. Plus Green-white is the KING of token strategies, so I'd also run Cryptolith Rites, which lets me tap creatures for mana.

As someone that had Animar as their first commander and who absolutely put Prophet in the deck when it came out, I can VERY much confirm that Prophet is a card that should stay banned. As for Sundering Titan, one could argue that it should remained banned for the same reason that Iona is banned: It can completely screw a mono-color player(s) by making it so they can't play the game. This isn't to say that ST is anywhere near as bad as Iona, but mono-color decks are more likely to play basic lands, so they will absolutely suffer the effects of ST harder.

I have a bit of a nihilist belief in the ban list in commander where the EDH ban list doesn't make sense to me because they'll ban one card but leave a similar one unbanned. Additionally, because EDH is a casual format, a play group should have final decision on what cards are or aren't legal. So i believe that either all broken cards should be banned or none of them should be banned because that makes way more sense to me than having Sundering Titan be banned but Armageddon isn't or Biorhythm is banned but Expropriate isn't.

The errata for the Companions rule makes Lutri much more reasonable for EDH. Now, you need to pay 3 colorless mana at sorcery speed to put your companion from outside the game to your hand. You still need to cast it by paying it's regular mana cost. I feel like this is the only card that should really be unbanned.

7:40 you guys wait until you hear about my idea for “you can play banned cards but you have to put duct tape over the shitty parts of the card”

For trade secrets, cant the opponent just deck the player who cast it, since theyll draw twice as many cards? Its still broken with thassa's oracle type effects but-

I'm interested to see what's in Part 2 because while I think the reason for their bans is pretty self-evident, I'm interested to know the nuances behind Iona Shield Of Emeria and Emrakul The Aeons Torn's bans. Especially since they're both banned _exclusively_ from Commander.

5:05 Did you type and say "mute" instead of "moot"? lol

How about errata Limited Resources to read five lands per player.

Karakas is a free bounce thats infinitely repeatable unless you run land destruction, which is Rule 0. Leave the lands alone.

Do people not run stripe mine and wasteland anymore?

I can't wait to see golgos

isnt emrakul banner too?

Boy do i wanna see the reason for Golos. Like, who on the RC lost to it?

Non basic land destruction is very accessible in every color, Im not sure why Karakas is banned

thats well known! and im eating cheeddar!

Sundering Titan combined with Limited Resources seems like it would just wreck someone's day. You pop off Limited resources and then every time you have sundering titan enter or leave the battlefield, the lands destroyed aren't coming back. It really does seem anti-fun

Is this the same guy that makes Top X wow videos? They sound so similar

i would like to ask where i can find the official 1vs1 commander ban list? i have heared there is one but where? Not on the MTG site +Iona got unbanned? Really?

the best solution to lutri is consistency of the RC. Wish cards dont work. Companions need to be in the side board, commander doenst have a side board so companion doesnt work.

Prophet only untaps your creatures and lands where Seedborn untaps all your permanents. Giving your creatures flash is great, but unless your playing a creature heavy deck at least for games iv played it in is negligible. I will keep on saying this but the RC needs to bring back a banned as commander/companion list. Lutri is fine in the 99.

It really piss me off way out of proportion that the rules committee decided to use only "one" banlist. That's just stupid. Some cards are only a problem out of the 99 and it's absolutely not hard to have and entire on the banlist like "lutri ban as companion" or " Xyz :ban in the 99" heck even "John do : ban as a partner " And if "the rule committee don't want interfere with the game" maybe they shouldn't be acknowledge by players as a body that influence the rules of the game

I don't get how trade secret isn't just a "target player draw as many cards as they want, you lose the game" unless you have something like a lab maniac

I believe Lutri is banned because it’s technically a 3 mana infinite combo piece in the command zone as cEDH becomes more popular, the ban will be harder to remove

Let's go! Also man, the EDH banlist really needs some extra hits. Lol.

Also Lutri when banned used the old companion rule of being able to be straight up cast from the "sideboard"

Personally I struggle to see why Prophet is banned and Seedborn is not; I don't think giving creatures flash is enough to push the card overboard in terms of power level. Untapping all your permanents is far and away the best part of the card. I agree that cards that are too format-warping are good things to have banned, and these are cards that scale poorly in large games, but I think the solution here is banning Seedborn too. I've never seen a game where Seedborn hit the table without it either being removed or ending the game within 2 turns.

You didn't even mention that Companion...the whole mechanic got an errata. Now you need to pay 2 to add the card to your hand first

Stripes Mine which is recycable in some Decks Like korvold could Just remove karakas.

Lutri could be unbanned since they changed the companion rule. But maybe that is not enough.

Honestly, given the number of "Zero" cost instance spells, fast mana, and power creep while the RMC still blabbers about Rule Zero with an utterly lacking logic string, I'm fine with everything getting unbanned.

Unban Sway Of The Stars!

I have never of a card being banned before it was even released. Yeah, Yugioh has a bunch of match winner cards that you can't play in any deck, but they say on the card you can't use them.

I have a few opinions on each card you covered in this video. Trade Secrets: This is perfectly fine still being banned no problems with your opinion about it. Prophet of Kruphix: This one I am leaning on unbanning as power levels have gotten much higher and this commander biggest weakness as opponents know it's in your command zone but the counter debate would be if it's in the 99 in your commander deck which I do agree is a bit powerful but at the same time flashing creatures is not the biggest upside in the world compare to other effects in commander these days. I can see why people still want it banned but I feel like there are many other cards more worthy on the ban list these days. Lutri, the Spellchaser: This one I agree with but the companion effect still can happen in normal commander games as some of the companion effects are not too hard to build around. I would ban the companion effect to be able to be used in the game and unban Lutri since all those cards are basically a free extra card which I don't agree with in commander. Karakas: Can still be banned for having way too many strong effects working with it in commander and make games very unfun until the card is removed. Limited Resources: Can we easily unbanned these days no problem. We already have dumb unbanned stax effects that are way worse effects and adding back in this effect would actually help out White deal with green super turbo free ramp. This feels like a green deck counter but this would be a nice spice needed for playgroups who has problem turbo green ramp and also help level the playing field. Also green has tons of easy ways to remove this card these days even on amazing land effects like: Boseiju, Who Endures that can deal with it. This one easy unban in my books. Sundering Titan: Can easily can stay banned from easy build around these days and artifact cheap spells that can easily chain combo this card. It would make this game much worse as it's not a finisher rather than a massive slow down effect for players. Overall: Most I agree with but others I disagree with your opinions on but overall enjoy your videos. Also typo on 9:37

Just keep in mind, I can force each player to sacrifice all if their lands.