

This effectively puts all other players one turn behind, and yourself three turns ahead. You destroy three lands of your opponents and find yourself three basic lands. Let's say you play it on turn 4 or 5, which is very possible if you play a ramp deck. Imagine playing this in a four player Commander game. This is an example of another card that completely warps the game around it. I generally feel like a lot of people will ask themselves why this card is on the ban list. Library of AlexandriaĪnother interesting card. Although the card does require some build-around and is in my opinion not on the same power level as Fastbond or Channel, I'm still very glad it is banned. Just run all fast mana effects and rituals to bring him out as early as turn three, redraw your entire hand, and take over the game for there. Playing Griselbrand as a commander would simply be too easy. Having access to 40 life in Commander obviously makes this card even more powerful than the 20 life in Modern and Legacy. The 7/7 flyer with lifelink allows you to draw ANY number of cards the moment he resolves, completely nullifying any investment you made to put this card on the battlefield. But these cards don't even come close to the power level of Griselbrand. Consecrated Sphinx, Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Craterhoof Behemoth are all incredibly powerful. Large, powerful creatures are at home in commander, even if they seem unfair. FastbondĪvacyn's Demon nemesis is often the go-to creature for unfair strategies to "cheat" into play. While you might argue that these are niche scenarios, and only work every 1 in 10 games, considering the high variety of Commander decks, the power of this card is simply too high and outweigh the benefits of it being legal. Besides early game Eldrazi and other big colorless dudes, Channel allows you to do ridiculous stuff with X cards like Mind Twist, Blue Sun's Zenith, Genesis Wave, and Banefire. Starting at 40 life makes this card even better. You shake hands, thank each other for the fun and inspiring game, and decide to never invite him again.Ĭhannel is a broken card, no questions asked. You friend goes first and plays Forest + Elvish Spirit Guide + Channel into Blightsteel Colossus + Lightning Greaves, and swings at you for 11 infect damage. You shuffle your deck and decide to keep your hand. You sit down with your new deck, excited to play. Imagine you and your friends coming together for a night of commander, it wasn't that easy to plan, since you all have busy lives, but it finally happened. While this can be said for a lot of cards that are not on the ban list, these cards are not subtle or fair, nor do they contribute to a healthy format. Some cards create such an advantage over the other players that the game transforms into a situation where all the other players must work together as a team to take them down.

The first category we will be looking at is cards that provide an unfair advantage. To do so, I made three categories to group these cards as they often have a similar impact on the game: Cards That Provide an Unfair AdvantageĬards That Win the Game with Little to No Effort Let's look at why these cards are on the ban list. This might seem like a large ban list but keep in mind that the card pool of commander is the same as that of Vintage. Ignore the banned "Un" cards like Mox Lotus and we are left with 41 cards.

If we remove the obvious cards like the 9 "Ante" cards and the 25 "Conspiracy cards," we are left with 55 cards. The ban list as of today has, 89 cards on it.
