Wizards of the Coast is radically changing the way Magic: The Gathering‘s most popular format will work. Earlier this week, the card game publisher announced it would take control of the Commander format after a week of controversial decisions punctuated by a flurry of violent teases. The decision ends the format’s 13-year run as a volunteer-led, community-driven entity entirely independent of Wizards of the Coast.
Last week, the Commander Rules Committee, a volunteer panel of Magic: The Gathering experts, made the decision to ban four highly sought after and powerful cards, banning their inclusion in the Commander deck. In response, some players began harassing committee members, which included sending death and rape threats. In addition to the rules committee, players also harassed members of the Commander’s advisory group, a subcommittee of the Magic: The Gathering players and content creators who act as a bridge between the wider Commander community and the rules committee.
“It reminds me of the early days of Gamergate,” says Shivam Bhatt, a member of the Commander advisory group. threshold.
After a week of teasing, on September 30, Wizards of the Coast announced that the rules committee would no longer control the Commander format, writing: “The Rules Committee is handing over management of the Commander format to the Wizards of the Coast game design team . .
Commander began in the late 90s as Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH, a fan-made game mode focused on casual play with groups of friends versus the competitive, one-on-one playstyle of others. Magical formats. In the years following its creation, the EDH rules were further refined by a small but growing community of Magical players led by Adam Staley and Sheldon Menery. In 2005, Menery introduced the format to Magic: The Gatheringprofessional tournament manager Scott Larabee, who, in turn, introduced the format to Wizards of the Coast.
In 2011, EDH, now known as Commander, was officially recognized by Wizards of the Coast and the company began producing card sets designed specifically for the format. However, unlike the others Magical formats where Wizards of the Coast has the power to create or change rules and issue card bans, decisions regarding Commander will remain in the hands of its creators. Menery, along with several others, created a rules committee, where control of the format has remained for nearly 20 years, before last week’s events.
Since official recognition by Wizards in 2011, Commander has exploded in popularity. Magicians of the Coast, which also publishes Dungeons & Dragonsis a subsidiary of Hasbro. And while Magical AND D&D remain popular, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have run into trouble with both companies, beset by layoffs and a string of controversial blunders related to their most popular products. So leveraging Commander’s popularity represents a profitable stream for the company.
“WotC started printing cards that were hyper-efficient and more powerful than anything else,” Bhatt said. “And that gave rise to a super competitive tournament-focused Commander format.”
At the heart of the issue is the tension between the spirit of Commander as a casual format and the commercial interests of both Wizards of the Coast and a subcommunity of players. As demand increases for these powerful cards, which are already more expensive than regular cards as they come in more expensive booster packs, they become even more expensive on the secondary market. Players then spend big bucks to put them in their decks or hold onto them in hopes of reselling them at even higher prices. For this subset of players, Magical cards are not so much a game to play with friends as they are an investment tool. It’s a smaller scale version of when people used to buy boxes Pokémon wholesale cards, hoping to score the prized Pikachu that could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So while requiring these powerful cards may help Wizards of the Coast boost its bottom line, according to Bhatt and the Commander rules committee, it’s also against the spirit of the format. “Commander is meant to be the opposite of tournament play,” Bhatt said.
The rules committee agreed, banning the four cards that had come to dominate the deck in the Commander format. “Commander’s philosophy prioritizes creativity, and one of the ways we’ve historically reflected that in the rules and banning is to encourage a slower pace of play,” the committee wrote in a blog post.
Others Magical formats, especially tournament games, are driven by a fluctuating metagame determined by the most powerful cards eligible. A player’s success is heavily skewed toward their ability to afford those high-performance, expensive cards, rather than their skill. Tournament play is also typically lightning fast, with matches ending within three to five turns. This creates an environment where matches are fast and very one-sided.
Imagine if the average baseball game ended in the third round, 20–0, because a team could afford to pay for Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Now imagine that humanity has invented cloning technology and every rich baseball team has an Ohtani and a Judge on their roster. Each game would essentially be a mirror match of the same two players hitting pitches over the fence. This is what the standard game looks like – similar decks with the same expensive cards – and what Commander as a format stood against.
Bhatt said the decision to ban these cards was not taken lightly, with the committee acknowledging that such a decision would have financial implications for some players. “But we’ve always held the idea that you can’t be shackled by finances,” Bhatt said.
Banning cards is not new Magicalnot even in Commander, although they happen less often. But because these cards were so expensive and in high demand, their ban became a lightning rod for players upset that their decks were no longer legal to play or their investments were now worthless.
“The community exploded,” Bhatt said. “First came the expected, ‘I hate bans.’ But then the content creators, the finance guys and the shop owners started fanning more and more flames and the threats started pouring in.”
The rules committee then made the choice to relinquish its control to the Wizards of the Coast Commander. “These threats drove home that [rules committee] can no longer voluntarily run something as large as the Commander,” Bhatt said, “at least without the protection of a corporation.
Wizards released a statement commenting on the events, condemning the bullying and offering a brief explanation of the company’s plans for the future of the format.
“While ownership of the format may change, members of the Rules Committee and others in the community will continue to be involved, and the vision for a social format will not change,” Wizards wrote.
However, Wizards of the Coast taking on the Commander doesn’t guarantee that either side will get what they want. There is no word on whether Wizards will unlock the controversial cards. And now that Wizards controls which cards can be banned, there’s nothing stopping it from continuing to print powerful and degrading cards in the service of increasing sales.
Reactions on social networks have been mixed. Many players realize that while the situation was handled poorly by the rules committee, the harassment they received after it was worse. “Is it good or not? I don’t know,” said Bhatt. “I just know that right or wrong, it was necessary.”