The problem with Rofellos is that a deck of just commons and bargain-bin rares can always guarantee six mana on turn three. They may require slightly more focused deckbuilding to reach their full potential but they are certainly the stronger cards. They both produce more mana at a quicker rate and have inbuilt card advantage. But it's 2021, and both Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds exist. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary made a lot more sense to be on the banned in commander list back in 2014. There are currently eight banned legendary creatures and it wouldn't be fair to advocate for this change without being upfront about my thoughts on each one. Rules for corner cases are a good thing and allow for more freedom for both deck builders and card designers. I'll concede that the return of banned as commander would also be a corner case, but with the amount of cards being printed every year increasing rapidly and WotC working in curiouser and curiouser spaces, I wager we'll be seeing a lot more corners. If not a format-level rule for a corner case, I'm not sure what else to call this change. Sheldon makes clear in his reassessment of bringing back banned as commander that "you don't make format-level rules for corner cases." While this sounds reasonable, the printing of companions and their friction with Commander's lack of sideboards lead to a rewriting of rule 11 and a mention in rule 3. WotC would have more freedom in how they design their legendaries if they knew BAC was an option: cards could be printed without fear of being removed entirely from the most popular format. I don't pretend to know the inner workings of how cards are designed, but it's safe to assume every legendary creature has to be considered in the context of Commander. Even if the reintroduction of a BAC list did mean cards were added to it, I'd argue this would create a healthy safety valve for WotC. I'm not arguing Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Hokori, Dust Drinker or Sen Triplets make for fun play experiences, but I struggle to see how they've become more problematic over time. The card you're picturing is unlikely to cause any problems at all. Imagine Lurrus without its first line of text. What makes Lurrus - and the companion mechanic at large - so incredibly powerful is having guaranteed access to a card in a zone separate from your deck. The ability to recur cards from the graveyard every turn is a strong effect, but not a broken one. To look briefly at more traditional 60-card Constructed formats, take Lurrus of the Dream-Den. It isn't hard to see that having a banned as commander list allows for a more nuanced approach to banning in general. (Spoiler alert: I think there should be three banned lists, but we'll get to that.) The Virtues of Banned As Commander If the average Magic player can make sense of a more nuanced banlist, surely said list can tolerate being ever so slightly less crisp and clean? He has every faith in the average Magic player's ability to understand two banlists, but feels maintaining a unified list is "crisp, clean, and straightforward to communicate". Sheldon stated that overwhelming complexity was not the reason for the change. Commander players at large took this as the RC lacking faith in their ability to make sense of two banlists, at least enough for Sheldon Menery to address it earlier this year. Why Did The RC Remove Banned As Commander (BAC)?Īt the time, the RC said that having two banlists was "unnecessary information overhead" and a single list would be more streamlined.
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