Explaining the Commander Ban List to  

Rarran's 'EWWWWWW' for Nadu was my exact reaction when first seeing it too 😂

> do you have 10 minutes for story time? > proceeds to tell the whole story in 1 minute

Hi, yeah, its me! The guy who got hit by a WEASEL TUNNELER at Commandfest Atlanta! I cant believe it made it into a video let alone to Rarran lmao. Im honored, but also, demand the run-back! See you next time CGB!!!

Rarran's observation of the tension between "fun for me" Vs "fun for everyone" is a really key balance point for commander, and I think that Nadu will be assessed on these lines eventually especially with the over representation at modern tournaments.

*vietnam flashbacks to turn 2-3 griselbrands in every single game of commander in 2012*

New series title: “Is a hearthstone player smarter than the commander rules committee?”

Rarran being able to immediately peg Nadu as a problem is so funny 😂

When Rarran said the part about how playing Griselbrand into Thassa's Oracle being cooler because you did it later and payed all your life, I thought "NOW your thinking like a casual commander player!"

Conspiracy is just a multi-player draft format. There are draftable cards called conspiracies that are only legal in the associated draft format, existed outside your deck but the number you had drafted had to be announced at the start of the game. These either provided pre-game effects (like all your creatures are birds of paradise) or were like hidden trap cards that you could reveal when a certain condition was met (you name a card before the game starts and write it on the conspiracy, then you reveal the effect when you play the named card). Additionally there were cards that interacted with the actual draft process itself with effects like announcing it and putting it aside and letting you later take the entirety of the rest of a pack and then skipping all picks from the rest of that pack.

We need a Rarran episode of Worst Possible. That would be cool

6:50 - It doesn't have to be a card you own, nor even a card which is legal in the current format, but it does have to be a Magic: the Gathering card. You can name Shahrazad, but you cannot name Charizard. (Rule 201.3)

Even if Demonic Consultation forced you to pick a card in your deck it wouldn't matter since there's only one of each card in your deck in Commander. You could just name Demonic Consultation and you're good to go.

If somebody slaps down a Nadu deck in "casual" EDH, nobody is letting them join. There is no "but it's a power 6" with that mistake at the head.

This is quickly becoming my favourite video series of the channel Would love more guests Mayhaps a competition with Rarran?

33:48 One of the reasons they banned Iona in 2019 was because as they banned this card they unbanned Painter's Servant which for those who don't know makes every card a color you choose. So if they didn't ban this people would have just been able to completely lock down the game.

Rarran being already angry at 7 and a half minute in is exactly in line on how the commander banlist should make you feel

Conspiracy was a set designed to be drafted. It introduced 'The Monarch', 'Goad', and 'Council's Dilemma' voting mechanics as well as several other draft/set specific mechanics related to the drafting experience. (ex. setting card attributes to pick#, letting you trade out drafted cards, secret objectives that operated like emblems, etc... It is a great sealed draft party if you have 8 or 10 people that play MTG for a birthday or something.

Thassas Oracle would likely be banned if it was printed 10 years earlier. But in recent years, the rules commitee has pretty much given up banning anything unless it makes commander in general absolute misery

Three things about Sway that make it atrocious to play in real life. First, you lose everything with the notable exception of floating mana. If you still have 4-5 mana floating around after Sway resolves, you can cast spells and come out with a considerable advantage. Second, something that doesn't get reset by sway is the amount of times you've cast your commander from the command zone. Considering a normal commander game, this may leave you with no lands and your commander costing 4-6 mana more, removing it from the game forever. Finally, resolving a sway is CONSIDERABLY worse than restarting a game because you can't mulligan, which means you only have 1 shot at a playable hand. The odds are not in your favor.

In magic in general, and especially highlander formats, drawing cards is the most powerful thing you can do. Griselbrand is banned because he lets you draw an absurd amount of cards for essentially free at a moments notice. There are so many way to get him into your graveyard and reanimate him. As the power of the average card goes up, so too does the power of his ability because it lets you draw those powerful cards. It's templating was designed when that wasn't as big of an issue, but it being instant speed and reusable is why it is so insane.

Easiest way to describe Iona vs Thassa's Oracle - one says, "lets play again," while the other says, "you can't play." There's a reason why so many people hate things like land destruction and blue decks that are loaded with an abundance of counters - they prevent a lot of actions and slow down play... Iona fully halts it and since you're locked out of playing spells, you can't even play removal if you're in mono-color.

I assume the Thassa's combo isn't banned because if you do it too often your friends will hit you. It self-regulates

Important probably to point out, that painter's servant unbanning was why emeria was banned, though not sure how much play servant now sees compared to what emeria did see.

Watching CGB dying of laughter silently during the sol ring part was hilarious

I think Rarran is underestimating how powerful drawing 35 cards is

As someone who has never played Magic before, every time I see the card featured in the background art of the episode, I do my best impression of the "Pointing Di Caprio" meme.

To add on to what you said about iona compared to Thoracle. I once had a game where my mono red burn deck was locked out by someone with Iona, and the game went on for 6 more turns around the table before I left, no one removing Iona at all since it didn't affect *their* boards. And since I was effectively 100% neutralized, I just conceded and got up. Guy who played Iona was salty since his card was no longer affecting his board and I said "yeah and I'd rather use my time to actually play a game today. Bye" It definitely needed to be banned

I still chuckle on the wording "brutally efficient" when talking about a 9 mana creature. Not a comment on whether it should be banned, but that wording is still so silly.

Showing Rarran Karakas JUST as MTGRemy made a video about Karakas is soooo good

Few things. The commander banlist was not initially intended to be a hard and fast list. It was originally a guideline that highlighted cards to use as examples for the kinds of cards your playgroup might want to ban. Over time everyone just adopted it and it sort of turned into something it wasn't initially intended to be, thus some of the goofy inclusions. Additionally, nowadays they don't ban for power level. They ban for casual player play experience. Thassa's oracle ends the game quickly and efficiently and players can move on. Griselbrand getting cheated out and the player drawing 21 cards, but not winning the game, usually creates a miserable experience for the rest of the table for the rest of the game. That is the type of reasoning that explains modern bans. I agree they should overhaul the ban list to be more consistent one way or the other.

The reason stuff like Griselbrand and Emrakul are banned but Thoracle isn't is because the banlist is designed to protect mid to low level pods from accidentally ruining games. When someone puts Thoracle + Consultation in their deck they know what they're doing, and they're probably aiming to play a high-power game of commander or cedh. When someone puts Emrakul in their mono green stompy ramp deck and accidentally tortures their casual playgroup by slowly annihilating all their lands, that's not their fault. They were just trying to put another big flashy creature in their dumb timmy deck and have fun.

The sol ring reaction 😄 and now show him mana crypt 🤣😂

I think Rarran may be conflating "casual (playing socially, not competitively)" with "casual (doesnt spend that much time learning/minmaxing the game)" Casual players can still be great players with an amazing understanding of the game, its just theyre not out to curbstomp everyone else they play with because they're here to have fun. Brian Kibler (Hall of Famer) and Olivia Gobert-Hicks (Literally on the Commander Rules Committee) have a show where they play commander for funzies and its just a chill time where you can mostly mess around.

CGB trying to restrain himself while rarran was giving his initial thoughts about sol ring is the best part of this video

I think the real reason Sol Ring is not banned in Commander is just that it's a Sol Ring format. In the same way Legacy is a Brainstorm format. They recognize the card is too powerful for the format, but they're willing to let the format warp around the card, and base card bans around it to keep it somewhat in check, just so people can play the iconic card of the format in the format. It's basically the only format where you can play Sol Ring. Cube is kind of a hard format to play (and many cubes cut it for power level reasons) and Vintage is just not a real format. Other unofficial formats are niche and hard to find a group for. It's also one of the cornerstones for setting the tone of Commander in terms of power and direction. It's a big mana format that does high power things, and Sol Ring is a key part of that identity.

The only thing I'd like Rarran to learn is about casual players - casual commander players *definitely* know that fast mana is good and they *definitely* know that card drawing is good.

Thassa Consultation is not ban mainly for 2 reasons: 1- it was printed in 2020, when the commander rules committee stopped banning weird win cons because the format was already well established 2- it doesn’t ruin casual games as often, most players won’t use this combo in their low to mid powered decks because it’s cheesy and everyone knows it is a “competitive” option so they reserve it for competitive or high powered games And I agree, I think Thassa’s fine in cEDH and I don’t remember the last time I saw it in casual, there are saltier cards that are way more common even if not as strong (ie: Tergrid)

Fun fact. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is banned in ALL Two-Headed Giant constructed tournaments, in addition to any other banlist of the format See MTG Tournament rule 9.5 - Two-Headed Giant Constructed Rules.

Personally i think the reason for Thassa´s Oracle not being banned in Commander, that somehow everyone outside of cedh basically agreed on not running this card. I only ever considered playing it in CEDH and never crossed my mind to play it in a normal game, i never saw it outside of cedh either maybe an anomaly of probability maybe not.

An easy way to think about the ban list in terms of action per turn. If you are ever taking all the actions (grisslebrand) or if you take the only action (auto wins) its probably a target of a ban

Griselbrand loops were "The first few turns are build up to Griselbrand, the turn after Griselbrand is "In response to anything I pay 7, draw 7, respond with ____ spell for the situation, oh didn't get a response, pay 7, draw 7" and a lot of the time it was coming out 3 or 4 turns earlier everytime due to Dark ritual or Kaalia of the Vast(cheats a demon into play on attack)as a commander made it just one of those "I always get this card" cards.

40:48 Two key things about Sway of the Stars that MUST be considered here, and why it is definitely worthy of a ban: 1. Rarran‬ said he wasn't sure how to break this. The simplest way is to ramp a TON, then cast this and float all the extra mana. So now you're starting a new game with 7 life, but you have 10 mana to immediately spend on new "turn 1". That's a HUGE advantage and you almost certainly will snowball it into a win, especially with the super low life totals. So Sway of the Stars might as well just say "10 mana win the game 10 minutes from now", which is obviously not great for the other players who know they probably can't catch back up to the headstart you got, but aren't *actually* dead yet to go start a new game. It's also possible to have multiple things on the stack at the same time, and notably Sway of the Stars doesn't clear the stack. So you could have Sway of the Stars and several other spells essentially queued up at the same time (or things in exile coming in next turn via Suspend etc), once again breaking the symmetry that the "new game" is supposed to have. 2. Keep in mind some decks are WAY better at quickly dealing 7 damage than others, so Sway of the Stars is not nearly as fair/symmetrical as it might look. Even just a 1 mana 2/2 or a deck with a cheap ramp spell into a hastey 3/3 on turn 2, or a deck with a bunch of "burn" spells that deal damage directly to an opponent's face are suddenly extremely lethal threats. Compare that to the much slower grindier deck that's trying to control the game and slowly snowball and advantage... well that player suddenly doesn't stand a chance with all its resources reset and at 7 health. And again, the player who cast Sway of the Stars likely knows this and has their deck built to take advantage.

My thoughts on why thoracle isn’t banned, is it isn’t a Timmy card like grislebrand, I’ve played a fair share of commander, and players like to play with the biggest baddest cards like griselbrand so it would be super popular at a casual level, thoracle on the other hand I’ve never seen casually because casual players either don’t know abt it, don’t know enough abt it to make it good, or aren’t attracted to it cuz it isn’t flashy, pretty much they ban the big cool cards cuz casual players play them a lot more than small repressive cards

I think the logic w/ thoracle is that it's hard to abuse by accident. The things it combos with are pretty specific, so it creates pretty clear categories of "runs thoracle+consultation" or "does not". In that regard, I think it's pretty easy to self-moderate out of your games EDIT: Also, I would argue that low cmc instant speed tutors/library exilers like tainted pact and consultation are more egregious than thoracle

Cant wait for the deck building episode with Rarran for commander

Can’t wait for the eventual CGB builds a commander deck with Rarran

This comment will probably just get buried, but since CGB asked: The Conspiracy sets were specifically built for drafting, not Commander. You would still play the games 1v1. The gimmick was that some cards had effects DURING the draft, which was really unique.

The Thassa's oracle + Demonic Consultation combo is fun to watch on Magic Online because you have to select a card name for the Demonic Consultation, and any card not in your deck will work. One of the first cards in the alphabetic card name picker is Abandon Hope.

Rarran picked up on the card being printed in 2024 just a few seconds later than me and he was so on point this whole video! ...and now I'm looking at the LAST CARD, OMG, YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING, CGB!

I think you should show him "Entomb" and "Reanimate". The possibility to have next to any creature on your battlefield as soon as turn 1. Because the mana symbols and mana cost always get's them but you can have any creature on your battlefield for just 1 mana with "reanimate".

We have CGB collab-ing with Rarran, and Rarran collab-ing with Frost Prime, now we just need to get Frost Prime to collab with CGB and the cycle will be complete.

Even though it was a joke, the words "our last video together" genuinely made me shudder. Genuinely love the chemistry you two guys have in all your videos

I think Rarran keeps forgetting that with cards like Dockside extorsionist, the effect is basically multiplied by 3 in commander vs 1 on 1

Scrolling through the time feed to see if Iona made it into this video lol

round 2 of hoping for rarran commander content, possibly with a "friendly orb-theme" deck

I love how Rarran has gotten the standard "Everything is worse (as in more broken) if it can be used in blue" mindset

The conspiracy sets were multiplayer draft sets, meant to play typical draft games except in groups of 4, and it was printed with cards that interact uniquely with the draft itself.

Sway of the Stars, hold priority, Teferi’s Protection? Now that’s a spicy meatball

I just want to say that I used to play magic and I used to play hearthstone; I don’t play either anymore but I love your collaboration! It’s a beautiful celebration of knowledge structured in as entertaining a way as possible :)

34:32 I think what Rarran is missing is that if someone does a turn 2 win, we just shuffle up and play a second game. Maybe ask the combo player to play a different deck. Iona and similar cards represent "don't-lose con" cards. They don't push your game plan forward. They simply make it harder to lose. Most of these cards are fine, but in my opinion, Iona was too far. It can take one or more players completely out of the game. The other players are not incentived to remove it because it opens up more players back into the game. And the players who are Iona locked won't leave because there is a chance they could be back in the game at any moment. Prior to its banning, all of my monocolored decks had an Unnstable Obelisk and a Scour from Existence, just so I could hopefully deal with an Iona if one was played. In my opinion, if you need to include a seven mana removal spell just to feel agency against a card, then that card is the problem and is right to be banned.

The more I learn about the commander ban list the less logic I see in it and the more I feel like they just banned whatever card they lost to that week.

Loved the episode. I think Rarran got a couple misconceptions about cEDH though, the format isn't just wham-bam 3 mana I win. Resource management, denial and interaction is a huge part of it. Basically yeah, you may get the nuts but usually you don't so tutors are great, card draw to get you more interaction, mana and stax pieces is great. I have no doubt that if Leovold was legal in the format he'd be a great Commander as he gives you 3 colours and is pretty taxing. In addition, it should be mentioned that the RC does NOT ban with cEDH in mind. The one time they have was Flash in 2020 and that happened after a LOT of community pressure to acknowledge that the subformat exists and was incredibly dominated by Flash-Hulk combos at the time (usually ending in Thoracle ofc). Their announcement at the time read to a lot of people as a condescending "fine you can have this, now stop bothering us" and IMO added to the growing list of dissatisfaction with the RC's management. Thassa's Oracle is still legal probably largely because the community self-regulates well on it, knows that it's not a casual table card and avoids it and balancing the top of the format isn't in the RC's interests. I've seen house rules, usually for Cubes, that turn Chaos Orb into basically Vindicate, removing the manual dexterity requirements of the card. Just 2 to cast, 1, T, sac: destroy target permanent. I'm a fan of it. Griselbrand is certainly format-warping for mid-level EDH. Everyone has easy access to reanimation or steal spells and even 1-2 activations can turn the game into Archenemy. Iona didn't deserve it. :( Conspiracy and Conspiracy: Take the Crown were supplemental sets designed to be drafted and played in multiplayer games, either free-for-all or 2-headed giant. This means their cards are only legal in formats like Legacy, Vintage and Commander and the nature of being designed for multiplayer made them a great fit for cards being ported to Commander decks. They also included some cards that are only playable during or affect the drafting process. Marchesa, seen recently in OTJ, was from Conspiracy. And while I'm not overly familiar with the format I do believe Leovold has seen some Legacy play. Nadu is just busted man, w t f.

“Weasel tunneler-ed someone in Commander” is an amazing line to end the video

I will never get tired of seeing Rarran’s reaction to seeing the card before it’s even up on screen 😂

Small note but it's arguable that the best combo in cEDH isn't Thoracle but Underworld breach, though it's nowhere near as streamlined. Reason being is that breach lets you turn any tutor in your deck into a 1 card wincon as long as you have enough resources to make it work and it's a better card on it's own, often winning you the game without needing to combo. Edit: if you do this again show him Ad Nauseum lol

CGB has gotta be one of the smartest players out there, but I just cannot understand his thoughts around the banlist. This banlist is a lot of guideline bans tailored to casual tables. CEDH players regularly play with a modified banlist and Coalition Victory is not seeing play at that level. But if we unban it, how many casual players are going to shove it into their Jodah decks? Emrakul was straight up invalidating the ability to win with Mill at some tables. Despite Rule 0 being a thing, when Emrakul was unbanned, you could not walk table to table going "No Emrakul game? No Emrakul? You guys playing with no Emrakul?" there was one at nearly every table. If someone today is playing an Eldrazi deck and wants to Rule 0 their Emrakul, that's fine by me. But you could not reasonably Rule 0 it out of casual tables. The same goes for Golos or Iona or Primeval Titan. They're all so good and would be so ubiquitous that Commander would be an objectively worse format for their legality. And the last thing I'll say: I had 15 mana on Turn 8 last night playing Tor Wauki The Younger.

I love this videos dude, i love the chemistry and the approach from the outside, learning more about magic, great work guys!

Rarran's point at 50:45 that a game that was all Yeti-type vanilla cards would be un-fun... I HARD disagree. I think a bare-bones card game would be a TON of fun, and would make for very interesting competitive strategy. My thoughts on the matter are comparing it to chess. When you both have an identical collection of very simple tools, the game becomes about the ability to USE those tools in the most effective way. It forces players to think many moves ahead, predicting what their opponent will do and trying to be unpredictable themselves.

I run Thoracle in one deck, and it’s not even there as a part of a combo, it’s there as a shortcut. For reference, this is a deck that plays exclusively at pods where things like hard stax decks are the everyday, mass land destruction is totally acceptable, and the whole table getting stripmine locked on turn two is a common occurrence. My friends and I go hard, and have zero mercy for each other. The deck is a super high power Izzet deck, that wins by removing itself from the library. The deck can be in exile, in hand, or in the graveyard, doesn’t matter, but the moment it’s not in the library anymore the game is over through any number of lines. It can make infinite mana, take infinite turns, do infinite damage, mill everyone out, draw everyone out, permanently remove every permanent from everyone’s board, infinitely recur interaction, basically whatever it wants. However, all of those lines take time to demonstrate, so the deck runs a Thoracle so I can shortcut the win and we can all shuffle up and play again.

let's be honest. There is only 1 card to be named with consultation. "You are already dead"

So, thoracles lack of a ban is due to 2 factors: 1: A survey went out a while ago and showed thoracle was legit non-existent outside of cedh tables. (don't remember 100% but I think it was directly from the rules committee) No one played it. Considering the ban list is made with casual in mind, it makes sense to just leave it if it doesn't do anything. In my limited experience, cedh tables tend to love thoracle as an alt win-con. No point in banning if the only players using it like it. 2: thoracle is insanely fragile; a single counter on the trigger and you just lose the game on the spot since consult deleted your entire deck. You typically don't use it if you can't protect it, which means you have to draw into counters+combo first too.

@Rarran one of the biggest issues with the commander banlist and the Commander Rules Committee is that too much is offloaded to rule 0. Rule 0: make up your own shit. The commander banlist isnt supposed to be the be all end all of banlists, rather it's supposed to be a template and example for each play group to make their own banlist.

That weasel tunnelered story I feel like could make for a somewhat viral shorts!

Half of these interactions: Rarran: asks a bizarre question CGB: points something out Rarran: “Oooh I get it!!” Rarran: says something that proves he doesn’t get it

1:10:45 That genuine burst of laughter when Rarran understood you can target Nadu yourself was golden 😂

I just started watching this video and I can tell I'm going to love this one! Please make more like this!

The fact that Saw In Half didn't make it to test Rarran is a real shame. It would be phenomenal to hear his reaction to the concept.

She Tunnel on my Weasel until I Mesa Falcon. ...What?

1:06:48 Conspiracy was a "draft matters" type of set that was created with multiplayer in mind. That's why all of the Conspiracy card types (the ones that start in the Command Zone) and similar cards that say "as you draft this" are banned in every constructed format, because they only work in limited formats like draft and cube.

The sol ring is the first time I notice CGB actually having to hold himself from laughing. Great video

i think the heart of the rule zero counterpoint is something that makes a lot of sense, it's just that bringing up rule zero itself is a _very_ indirect statement: the commander banlist is pretty much irrelevant, because of the shift of the commander culture from being centrally governed by the committee to being governed by individual playgroups, meaning the banlist itself really ain't more than a time capsule. so newer cards end up off the banlist despite doing exactly what older cards on the banlist do but better, and said old cards get stuck on there despite being easily outclassed by legal stuff, because ... who really cares what's on there? events not running their own banlists, mostly. so the banlist conforms to the needs of those while letting everyone else set the rules ( explicitly or implicitly ) for their own table

I really would love to see Rarran playing commander

Back again for more great magic card rating content! Thanks for the excellent collab you two!

Wooooooooooo that story about Mesa Falcon at Magic Con was insane hahaha ! I was queueing at the Ultra Pro stand at MC Amsterdam, saw you but hadn't the chance to say hi..

I have a Liliana themed deck with the contract and all 4 demons, including Griseldaddy. It’s always a part of the rule 0 and i have Vilis to use in case the others don’t want to play against a banned card. I got it out turn 5 after a sheoldred and yeah, should probably stay banned haha

The intro reminded me how much your friendly and playful personality carries your content. Really enjoy seeing you interact with other creators! Fun vids

I love these! Good stuff, keep it going

Turn Zero conversation is actually a term from Dungeons and Dragons that was adopted by commander. The conversation the DM has with their players about what the players want from the campaign and what they can expect. You can't play an evil slaying paladin if it's an evil campaign etc.

I'm shocked Rarran said Griselbrand is "fine." It's essentially 0 mana and 1 life to draw 1 card, in Hearthstone they pay 2 mana and 2 life for 1 card.

The Commander ban list criteria is mostly "Imagine the worst possible 'that guy' playing this card. You know the one, the most selfish, miserable, whiney, cruel, petty bastard. Is it a fucking miserable time? If so, then it goes on the list."

Yall have no idea how much I enjoy these, it's always the highlight of my week. Keep up the great work ❤

i would LOVE to see Rarran join you on a Commander Table..

Iona died for Painter's servants' sins

A large part of why things are not banned that look like they should be are just because they are cards that are easy for people to self regulate out. Thassa's Oracle combos naturally regulate out, other cards (like Golos, or paradox engine) players have shown to not have the same restraint for, so banning was used to help steer the casual players from, perhaps unknowingly, created OP or unfun game states.

That story at the end had better make it into a Short. I laughed so hard! xD

Conspiracy 2: Take the Crown is my favorite draft format of all time. The product attempted to find middle ground between two of the most popular ways to play: casual multi-player and drafting. Drafted in normal 8-player pods and played in 4-player free for all games. Notable features include Conspiracies (cards that are drafted and sit outside the game but affect your deckbuilding. Similar to Companions), and draft-matters cards (cards that are revealed when drafted and either affect the draft itself or gain effects when picked). Unfortunately, many established drafters dismissed the conspiracy sets as gimmicks, and the more casual players didn't see any value in needing to draft before their multi-player games. Based on sales relative to other products at the time, and of other non-standard sets released after it (Battlebond and UB), we are unlikely to see another Conspiracy set.

Yeah, I don't get it. They ban Primeval Titan, but not Thassa's Oracle. I've never lost on Turn 1 to Primeval Titan, though. It seems like the mixture of 'Is it banned, or will it just get no one to play with you at the LGS' are two separate lists in Commander, when they should be the same list.

This is a bit of a ridiculous video given that you're asking Rarran to rationally think about whether a card is banned or not when there is no rational because the Rules Committee is incompetent

Back toward the start of the format sway of the stars would get cast if drawn. Regardless of what colors you had in terms of ramp.

Still loving this series so much. Keep 'em coming