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Did You Say This Card Was Banned In The Format? I Thought You Said It Was Crammed Under The Doormat
What if, instead of asking questions about planeswalkers leading decks in everyone’s favorite 100 cards format, we were given a gift for all our hard work and play throughout the year? That is the question this week, and like always, my name is Nick, and in the twelfth installment of Myth Realized, the Magic-playing collective asks the holiday deity of their choice to give them a gift straight off the Commander banned list this year.
Many players might not know that in the Commander/EDH format, not everything is “playable” as it is written in the rules. Rule Zero conversations notwithstanding, the banned list for Commander includes 25 cards with the type “Conspiracy,” nine cards that reference “playing for ante,” and currently seven cards whose art, text, name, or combination are racially or culturally offensive.
What if, for the upcoming year of 2024, the end of 2023 was to provide us with a gift going forward? I could tell you just the card or cards that I would want to see freedom in the upcoming twelve months, but I alone am not the sole voice of the people. So, I recruited the bright minds of other Magic: The Gathering writers to give me insights on what they would want unbanned.
This is not a comprehensive survey and a small sample size, but I will take some artistic liberties in pursuing entertainment. First is the list of cards that got zero votes from my recipients and me, along with some small reasoning.
The first three cards all fall under a similar umbrella: too strong. Black Lotus should need no explanation, as it is likely the strongest card ever made and one of the game’s most prolific. Time Vault and Time Walk take a noted salt-inducing type of card and make them far too efficient to run without your playgroup leaving you alone at the table between your fourth and twenty-second extra turn, so those also got zero votes. But Black Lotus is far too powerful (even compared to other cards on this list) to be let free.
If you’ve never played with Fastbond, you might not be aware that the “drawback” of losing a life each time you play an extra land with this card is a nonfactor for what this card allows you to do. Fastbond and a wheel effect can get you so far ahead that it would make Sol Ring look like Manalith. Hullbreacher promotes harmful play patterns and is highly annoying when starting at turn two or three; the table is at a standoff around this card. Paradox Engine takes people’s problems with extra turns and jams it all into one turn that takes 45 minutes to complete while one person plays solitaire.
Karakas might be one of the cards that come up the most in conversation to get unbanned, so I found it surprising that it received no votes. But the effect of nullifying most commanders for free would shift the format too far to one side. Library of Alexandria is not good in every style of deck, but since you draw a card, as long as you are not going first in the format, losing the die role might be the wanted outcome for anyone running this card. Tolarian Academy is… a card I cannot explain. There is a well-written reasoning for why this card is banned, and Gaea’s Cradle is free by the Godfather himself, Sheldon Menery, but to me, they should both occupy the same place either on or off the list.
It’s no secret that mass land destruction and stack effects make a table want to throw their cards in the trash most days. So Limited Resources, a cheap combination of the two, sends it straight to jail. Trade Secrets is the only card on here, not because of how strong the effect is, and it is very strong, but because it promotes collusive gameplay between half of the table. Two players get to draw their entire deck while the others sit and watch, which is not fun for a format. Another card more familiar to cube enthusiasts than Commander players, Upheaval would make everyone forget about getting hit with an end-of-turn Cyclonic Rift. It also can double as a combo card if you can recast cheap artifacts and creatures after resolving this card.
This one was for the cEDH crowd out there. Flash, combined with its partner in crime, Protean Hulk, made for a very unfun “best thing to do” in the format. Some splash damage might have come to the “casual” crowd, but this one is for the best.
So, if these are all the cards that no one wanted off the banned list, what did all the good Magic players want when they looked under their tree in the morning? Two cards tied for the top of the table in votes:
I am all in on the unban Prime Time train. The card is powerful, but like most powerful cards that work well for every deck, people will get bored, and it will relegate itself to fill a hole in the hearts of all Maze’s End players worldwide. As for Recurring Nightmare, I think Mike Carrozza summed it up best by saying “GRAVEYARD DECKS ARE THE REASON FOR THE SEASON BABY!!!!!!!!”
Trailing just behind those two very different cards are:
Two of these cards count as alternate win conditions. Two cards are in my picks for things I want off the banned list. And two of these cards have some form of added hope to win the game. The other card is Braids. I appear to be on the outside looking in for this one, but my respondents seemed to think that Braids, Cabal Minion isn’t as frightening as it was in days gone by. Maybe cards constantly making other game pieces like Blood, Treasure, and Food tokens are enough to force Braids players to think outside the box. The part that worries me about this card is the colorless comparison to this card, Smokestack, which does not live in your command zone.
If I spend eight mana on a card, I should be able to win the game. I am looking at you, Craterhoof Behemoth, Moonshaker Cavalry, and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn. I can read every article, social media post, podcast, and video about how Biorhythm and Coalition Victory are too easy for people to win the game with. Still, if I am spending eight mana and assembling enough creatures in either number or color and land of every basic land type, I should be able to win the game. If I can only pick one, I will defer to the choice of a person much more intelligent than me regarding the cardboard rectangles we use. Jason Alt says, “Cards that auto-win are fun, and this is among the hardest things to pull off early.”
Some of the cards on this list are people’s favorites from when they started their journey in the format, and some are ones that people have never gotten to sink their teeth into. If it were up to me, every stocking would be filled with Victories for the Coalition, and underneath, every tree would feature the rhythm of biology itself. Everyone, no matter their positions on the naughty or nice list, would be able to look into the Panoptic Mirror and see the most adorable otter named Lutri, the Spellchaser, staring back at you with a note pinned to their chest (banned as a companion).
Thankfully, we play a format that values expression and exploration over winning the game, so as long as it is ok with the people you are playing with, slam that Shahrazad on the table and make sure to search up a Chaos Orb with your Tinker when the board becomes a problem. And finally, enjoy what remains of 2023. I hope to catch a game with any of you in the upcoming year. And if you like my articles, check out everything Myth Realized and find me in the same place talking about a ghost hunter and a vampire lord as we look at the planeswalkers of the Orzhov guild come January.
Happy Holidays!
Read more:
Myth Realized – What if Any Planeswalker Could Be Your Commander? (Rakdos)
What card would you like to see unbanned in 2024? Read More Articles, banned, banned list, biorhythm, black lotus, braids, coalition victory, commander, fastbond, holiday, hullbreacher, karakas, library of alexandria, limited resources, paradox engine, prime time, primeval titan, recurring nightmare, time vault, time walk, tolarian academy, trade secrets, upheaval, voting EDHREC
