Wizards of the Coast has announced that the community-managed rules committee for Magic: The Gathering ‘s most popular format, Commander, has transferred management of the game to the publisher’s development teams. “The past week has been tumultuous for Commander fans, members of the Commander Rules Committee, and the Magic community as a whole. Along the way, we’ve seen players and fans share a diverse range of passionate opinions—far too many of which were harmful or malicious,” Wizards’ statement announcing the transition of power opened.
Last week, the Commander Rules Committee announced its latest balance update for the multiplayer, large-scale format, banning four popular cards from competitive play—the first such card bans since 2021, and the first bannings in the format since Commander pioneer Sheldon Menery, who helped establish the CRC, passed away last year . Three of the four banned cards—Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt—were largely banned for their powerful abilities to let players gain a large amount of mana resources early on in a game, creating a significant snowballing advantage for their player, while Nadu, Winged Wisdom (which has been banned from several other competitive Magic formats already) was removed for its ability to slow down the flow of a game while its player monopolized play time setting up its resource accrual mechanics. Response to the bans from the Commander community was immediately heated, given the.