The last time the MTG Commander ban list was updated was three years ago, and since then the community has constantly complained about the lack of change. Commander should be a place where players can play any card they want, while individual playgroups have the opportunity to shape their gaming experience however they want. But even then, some cards are too powerful.

Nobody expected four new Commander bans to appear today. All of these bans are absolutely massive, affecting multiple cards valued at over $90. This is a day that the MTG community will remember for years to come.

Mana Crypt banned in Commander

To kick off the butchery effect of bans on the Commander format, Mana Crypt, one of the format’s most iconic symbols, was banned.

It’s not too hard to understand why this card left the Commander format. A mana-free artifact that costs two mana every turn is a game- and format-changing fast mana effect. Mana Crypt wasn’t just one of the most powerful cards in Commander, it’s one of the most powerful cards in all of Magic: The Gathering.

This essentially lets you skip two turns of mana generation at little to no cost. While the life loss is occasionally a concern, the benefit of Mana Crypt far outweighs the cost. The Commander Advisory Group shows that Mana Crypt can unlock other plays in your opening hand and easily generate five mana on the first turn. This was deemed too powerful for the Commander format.

Mana Crypt typically costs around $200 depending on the variant, making this card very unrealistic for the average Commander player. This ban will most likely drastically lower the value of Mana Crypt as the card loses its biggest home. It is banned in virtually every format except Vintage. This is an absolutely astronomical ban.

Jeweled Lotus banned in Commander

The Mana Crypt ban alone would have been enough to shake the entire MTG world, but there are three more bans that are just as shocking as the first.

Jeweled Lotus, an MTG card designed specifically for the Commander format, will also be going away today. An obvious nod to Black Lotus, the most expensive card in all of MTG, Jeweled Lotus offers a free shot of mana that you can use to deploy your Commander ahead of time.

Much like Mana Crypt, the presence of any of these cards in the early game will completely distort your Commander experience. Jeweled Lotus can produce some absurdly powerful Commanders up front, allowing a player to get into a winning position before the rest of the table has time to react. Much like Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus can easily generate five mana plays in early turns.

Notably, Jeweled Lotus also sees fringe play as a legacy card alongside Doubling Cube, but that won’t be enough to save the card’s value on the secondary market.

Another similarity to Mana Crypt is that Jeweled Lotus is also absurdly expensive. Jeweled Lotus costs $90 at its cheapest and also loses the only format it’s played in, meaning the card will crash. This will likely impact how Wizards of the Coast develops direct-to-Commander cards from now on.

Port extortionist banned in Commander

Dockside Extortionist is one of the most problematic cards in the Commander format. This is one of the few MTG cards that the group responsible for maintaining the Commander ban list has had on their watch list for a long time. Although Dockside Extortionist is a bit cheaper than the previous two bans, it is probably the strongest card in the Commander format to go away today.

Like Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist is problematic because it provides a ton of free mana. Since it only costs two mana, it’s not uncommon for Dockside Extortionist to show up in the early game and produce six or more treasure counters. The real problem with this card, however, is that Dockside Extortionist is incredibly easy to abuse. Since it generates treasure counters upon entry, all you have to do is find a way to repeatedly re-deploy the card to get infinite mana. Even without that abuse, Dockside Extortionist can easily provide enough mana to allow for an early win attempt.

The cheapest copy of Dockside Extortionist currently costs $85 on the secondary market. Like the other bans in this announcement, Dockside Extortionist has seen almost exclusive play in the Commander format. Expect the price of this card to drop in the next few days.

Nadu, winged wisdom banned in Commander

I find it ironic that by trying to make Nadu, Winged Wisdom more balanced in the Commander format, Wizards of the Coast have actually made Nadu a much bigger problem for multiple formats. After leaving the Modern format due to a design flaw, Nadu, Winged Wisdom will now be leaving the Commander format for the same reason.

Originally, Nadu Winged Wisdom was supposed to be a Flash Commander that let you play your permanents immediately. The card itself also had Flash, granting all of your nonland permanents the same protection that Nadu now provides. The catch? Only your opponent’s effects triggered Nadu.

Thanks to a last-minute change meant to soften the original design a bit, MTG designers missed a crucial interaction with Nadu, Winged Wisdom: the ability to abuse effects like Shuko to create long combo chains. Players targeting their own cards and triggering Nadu’s effects got it into more trouble across formats than the original design would have caused in any format.

Not only does this lead to absurdly powerful combo rounds, but these rounds are incredibly convoluted, leading to chaotic game states and creating long, non-deterministic win attempts that force players to play through the entire loop only for the combo to sometimes fizzle out. This is an incredibly lackluster gaming experience in a social format that focuses more on game state than the competitive outcome of a match.

Even when not played as Commander, Nadu, Winged Wisdom is strong (and cheap) enough to warrant a spot in the 99-cards of many Simic decks. Nadu, Winged Wisdom interacts problematically with Commander super staples (namely Lightning Greaves) and can therefore create this obnoxious play experience in decks where Nadu isn’t even the focus. This is why Nadu, Winged Wisdom was banned in the Commander format, and frankly, a lot of people are glad it’s gone.

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An unprecedented change

These incredibly surprising bans will shake Commander players to their core. Not only are these bans having a huge impact on Commander at every level, the format has also become much more accessible. Almost all of the cards leaving the format were incredibly expensive for the average MTG player, and lowering the barrier to entry as well as the percentage of games in which a player gains an unbeatable early advantage will likely be a good thing for the majority of Commander players.

On the other hand, many Commander players today will lose hundreds of dollars in secondary market value. The ban on Mox Opal in the past was such a blow to some MTG players that it caused them to turn away from the Modern format entirely. We don’t expect these bans to have quite the same effect on Commander, but there will likely be some players who are upset that their collection has taken a financial hit.

In our opinion, this is mostly a positive for the Commander format. It shows that the Commander ban list can change and have a positive impact on Magic’s biggest format. However, it was stated that the Commander Advisory Group is hoping for some quieter updates in the future, so this could potentially be a loud anomaly.

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