COMMANDER/EDH BANNED LIST ANNOUNCEMENT: January 2016
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Jan. 18, 2016, 11:39 a.m. by Ender666666
Summary:
- Commander-specific mulligan rules are removed
- Rule 4 (mana generation restriction) is removed
- Prophet of Kruphix is banned
Mulligans:
We promised in the last update that, with the advent of the Vancouver Mulligan, we'd be evaluating the mulligan process in Commander. This announcement is the culmination of that research. After examining several popular options, and coming up with a few of our own, we've concluded that the Vancouver Mulligan (with the standard first-one-free in multiplayer and a scry once you go to 6 or fewer) is the best option. The RC continues to use and recommend the Gis ("Mulligan 7s to a playable hand. Don't abuse this") for trusted playgroups, but that's not something that can go in the rules.
Ultimately, the goal of mulligans in Commander is to ensure that you start the game with enough lands to be a participant. With Commander games running an hour plus, it's unfortunate if you can't play anything because you miss land drops and get run over quickly.
We didn't want to solve the problems of Magic itself - mana screw and mana flood are part of the game - and players need to make a reasonable effort with their land counts, but we wanted a mulligan rule that tried to minimize unplayable opening hands. So, we brainstormed, and ran computer simulations. And what ultimately came out was... it didn't much matter. Nothing provided a clear enough upgrade to justify having additional rules for mulligans. For example, with 37 lands, Partial Paris was "successful" (which we defined as playing a 4th land on turn 4) 89% of the time versus Multiplayer Vancouver at 86%, but it came at a cost of about a fifth of a card on average. On the whole, 86% success is a rate that seems reasonable.
If you find yourself playing 1v1 (perhaps while waiting for a friend to show up), you should still use the free multiplayer mulligan. With a deck this size, variance is high enough to make not having the free mulligan potentially punishing - without the free mulligan you drop down to about 80% success rate, which, combined with being the only opponent to focus on, leads to too many unfortunate games.
Finally, its not an official rule, but we recommend setting aside the hands you're mulliganning away until you get a keeper. That saves shuffling time, and we're all for minimizing shuffling 100-card decks.
Rule 4:
We still love Rule 4. It's a nice piece of flavor and reinforces the idea that this format goes beyond simple mechanical restrictions into a deeper philosophical approach around color and mana symbols. Its effect on the game was pretty small, but that flavor message made it worthwhile to preserve.
However, the mana system of Magic is very complicated, and trying to insert an extra rule there has consequences in the corners. Harvest Mage. Celestial Dawn. Gauntlet of Power. And now, colorless-only mana costs.
Being able to generate colorless mana more easily in Commander wasn't going to break anything. But, it represented another "gotcha" moment for players, who were now likely to learn about Rule 4 when someone exploited the colorless loophole. We could paper over it (both "mana generated from off-color sources can only pay generic costs" and "you can't pay a cost outside your color identity" were considered), but a lot of the flavor would be lost in the transition, defeating the purpose. Without the resonant flavor, Rule 4 was increasingly looking like mana burn - a rule that didn't come up enough to justify it's existence.
We don't expect removing the rule to have a big impact. Some Sunburst and Converge cards might get a bit more of a look. Sen Triplets works more like you'd expect, as does Praetor's Grasp. The clone-and-steal deck, already one of the most popular archetypes, gets better, but less than you might think. It turns out there really aren't that many impactful non-blue activated abilities on cards that commonly get stolen in Commander. It's OK if you can regenerate that creature you just stole, and you'll need to work for it a bit anyway.
One side benefit to the removal of both the color production and mulligan rules is that, in terms of game play, Commander becomes a normal game of multiplayer Magic with a higher life total and a set of additive rules to bring a new piece (your Commander) into the game. That's good streamlining in terms of teaching people the format and reducing gotcha moments while still preserving the essential flavor of Commander.
Prophet of Kruphix:
This was challenging. Prophet is not a traditionally obvious problem card for Commander, so we chose to take a conservative approach and see if casual groups could adapt. In the past, we've seen unpopular cards generate a lot of outcry, but be handled reasonably well. Powerful cards existing is OK and exploring them responsibly is an essential part of Commander.
This didn't happen with Prophet. Casual groups haven't been able to work around it and problematic play has not dropped off in hoped-for ways. Instead, the primary approach has been to steal it, clone it, run it yourself, or get run over. Ultimately, it seems the card is too perfect - it does everything U/G Commander players want to be doing and it does it in a way that makes counterplay difficult. With traditional boogeymen such as Consecrated Sphinx, you're forced to expend a lot of your mana to cast it and will have a challenge protecting it as the turn goes around the table. With Prophet, it has virtual protection built in, negating that disadvantage almost immediately.
Prophet becomes only the second multicolored card on the banlist (after the structurally-problematic Coalition Victory). It's telling just how pervasive Prophet is despite such a restriction. Yes, U/G is the most popular color combination in Commander, but we've reached the point where Prophet is driving U/G deck choice, rather than vice-versa. That's centralizing in ways we can't ignore, so it's time for Prophet to take a break.
Whenever we decide to ban a card, we take a long look at the current list to see if any cards can come off, as we believe a casual format is better served by a minimalist banlist. After extensive discussion, however, we concluded that everything on the list served a purpose, so we won't be unbanning anything. It's been two years since the last (non-consolidation) card got banned, which is an acceptable growth rate!
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057
There seems to be some confusion about what the removal of Commander Rule #4 means, so here is some clarification.
The normal Commander rules regarding Colour Identity still apply. You may only include Spells, Artifacts, Planeswalkers, Creatures and Lands in your deck that match your commander's Colour Identity. The ONLY exception is with cards where mana symbols show up in reminder text which explain a mechanic, for example, cards with the "Extort" mechanic. Crypt Ghast is an example of a card that is purely Black, even though there is a 
symbol in the reminder text that explains how the "Extort" mechanic works.
Your commander's Colour Identity is determined by each and every COLOUR of mana symbol, printed anywhere on it (Again, with the exception of reminder text).
Cards with the mechanic of "Devoid" are colourless, but still fall under the normal rules in Commander when determining its legality for your deck. Want to play Transgress the Mind, but your commander is Green? Sorry, you can't. Transgress the Mind may be colourless, but it has a Black Colour Identity when you are determining if you can legally include it in your deck because it has 
in its casting cost.
What the removal of Commander Rule #4 means is that lands like Forbidden Orchard, Mana Confluence, City of Brass, and cards like Birds of Paradise can now legally make you mana of ANY colour (
), regardless of your Commander's Colour Identity. In the past, if something caused a mana of a colour that wasn't part of your Commander's Colour Identity to be added to your mana pool, it INSTEAD added that many 
to your mana pool.
Oh, and IS NOT A COLOUR. Got it?
So what about Command Tower? Can it create any colour of mana now? NOPE. Because of the wording on Command Tower, it will still only create 1 mana of any colour IN YOUR COMMANDER'S COLOUR IDENTITY
I hope that this helps clarify things for anyone who might be confused.
Ender666666 says... #3
Summary:
Vancouver Mulligan is the "Officially" supported and suggested mulligan
You can now produce off-colour mana. Rule 4 was "A deck may not generate mana outside its colours. If an effect would generate mana of an illegal colour, it generates colourless mana instead" and is now eliminated
Prophet of Kruphix is now BANNED
January 18, 2016 11:46 a.m.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Prophet! How will my tribal nostalgia deck even function anymore!?!
January 18, 2016 11:47 a.m.
...I actually kinda like these changes. Prophet was extremely strong (maybe not quite banworthy, but w/e, I can see why), removing rule 4 gets rid of the anti-off color fetchland discussion and mulligans needed to be reworked.
Good work on this one, RC.
January 18, 2016 11:48 a.m.
Ender666666 says... #6
I feel like Chromatic Lantern will get more play and might go up in price.
And I agree, I like this update too. Still salty over the tuck rule change though...
January 18, 2016 11:53 a.m.
PROPHET IS BANNED! YAY!
Rule 4 being gone is...interesting. I may want to build a deck to abuse this. Just for fun.
And I was anticipating the new mulligan to be as is. Exactly as I predicted. Question though: Do you Scry only once or once for each time you mulligan (once you go to 6 cards or less)?
January 18, 2016 11:54 a.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #8
Huh. Not really feeling anything about these changes. Off-color mana is very nice. Prophet is a bit more contestable but it's not a format-breaking change either. I like it.
January 18, 2016 11:54 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #9
I guess they changed rule 4 because of the eldrazi. You could just run urborg in a deck and have as much colorless mana as you wanted (as an example).
January 18, 2016 11:55 a.m.
Ender666666 says... #10
EpicFreddi Exactly. I think a lot of people were expecting to abuse that already. This solves it nicely.
January 18, 2016 11:58 a.m.
I understand...it's just....I loved Prophet of Kruphix...and I loved Sylvan Primordial. I am a sad Spooty today.
January 18, 2016 noon
lemmingllama says... #12
Overall, i'm extremely pleased with these changes. I do plan on moving forward using the modified gi's mulligan.
I'm glad the RC listened to the players.
January 18, 2016 12:01 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #13
There there Spooty.. There there * pat pat pat * It'll be ok. You still have Seedborn Muse... (Until that get's banned)
January 18, 2016 12:02 p.m. Edited.
canterlotguardian says... #14
Good job, RC. Ya fucked it up again. So Seedborn Muse isn't broken but Prophet of Kruphix is? And the whole "race to kill or steal" argument again? Fucking lame.
Rule 4 being gone, I'm ok with. Especially as someone who runs a clone/steal/copy deck. Perfectly ok with this. The mulligan rule? Our playgroup will probably just ignore it. It's stupid anyways. We'll just use Partial Paris mulligans as normal.
January 18, 2016 12:04 p.m.
What's rule 4? I really don't understand these changes....
January 18, 2016 12:07 p.m.
SpringingTiger says... #17
Phaetion, you only scry once, and only after you've decided to keep your hand (on six or fewer cards).
The_Raven, this is rule 4: "A deck may not generate mana outside its colours. If an effect would generate mana of an illegal colour, it generates colourless mana instead."
January 18, 2016 12:14 p.m.
I'm ok with all of this except Rule 4 removal; while it might open up some sneaky plays, it just doesn't feel in EDH flavour for me.
January 18, 2016 12:18 p.m.
Yeah, unfortunately I didn't own Seedborn Muse yet, but I just picked one up. I ...don't want to risk it doubling in price underneath me.
As for muse being broken versus Prophet, the obvious difference is one doesn't give your creatures flash. I think the effect is alright without that clause. It close, yes, but that's certainly the tipping point.
January 18, 2016 12:19 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #20
Agreed. All your land mana every turn and flash on creatures can really escalate quickly.
January 18, 2016 12:27 p.m.
canterlotguardian says... #21
So does that mean Leyline of Anticipation is going to get the axe next because it gives all your nonland permanents flash and you can potentially start the game T0 with it on the battlefield? What's next?
January 18, 2016 12:27 p.m.
hyperlocke says... #22
The difference between Prophet of Kruphix and Seedborn Muse is that the Prophet lets you play extra turns in your opponent's turn all by herself. The Muse needs another card like Leyline of Anticipation, Yeva, Nature's Herald or Vedalken Orrery
January 18, 2016 12:38 p.m.
canterlotguardian The difference is pretty obvious. Prophet of Kruphix is a huge upgrade to Seedborn Muse. Effects that give your creatures flash aren't cheap (see Leyline of Anticipation, Aluren, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir). Prophet combined two 4- or 5-mana effects onto a 5-mana creature.
So to answer you question, yes. Prophet is broken and Muse is not.
January 18, 2016 12:45 p.m.
Onion_duck says... #24
I feel like you may have jumped the gun too quickly about the Rule 4 change. Currently there are 9 cards requiring Colorless mana to cast. And 20 cards with Colorless activation cost/additional cost with 1 overlap. Most of these cards aren't very good anyways. So in my opinion giving players the ability to produce any Color mana will create far more shenanigans than allowing players to use a loophole to produce colorless mana. The best course of action may have been to wait and see if this loophole really would have been a problem in the first place.
January 18, 2016 12:47 p.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #25
Have the people complaining about the prophet ban ever resolved one? It's fantastic, but it's also busted as hell. As soon as a copy hits the field the game completely changes. I loved her, but she deserved to be banned.
January 18, 2016 12:49 p.m.
Why the hell hasn't deadeye navigator been banned yet? Lame.
January 18, 2016 12:51 p.m.
canterlotguardian says... #27
mande they addressed this at a convention a few years back. DEN isn't banned because "it requires other cards to be broken".
January 18, 2016 1:02 p.m.
so...with rule 4 gone, they have even less reason to potentially axe off-color fetches. I used Mycosynth Lattice to cheat rule 4 anyways, so whatever.
So, Prophet of Kruphix is causing people to play U/G? News to me.
January 18, 2016 1:02 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #29
mande true. In all honesty, I'm a little surprised that they didn't ban Deadeye Navigator too.
January 18, 2016 1:04 p.m.
canterlotguardian same for Prophet of Kruphix technically...
January 18, 2016 1:18 p.m.
I would have expected Shivan Harvest to be banned in either the Commander or French rules before Seedborn Muse but I am glad it happened.
January 18, 2016 1:26 p.m.
Skelasoldier says... #32
Where can I find "Rule 4"? Is that the one that says you can only produce mana based on your commander's colors?
January 18, 2016 1:27 p.m.
Ender666666 says... #33
Skelasoldier see post #2
kengiczar Seedborn Muse is not banned. Prophet of Kruphix is. And why on earth would Shivan Harvest ever be banned? It's a good card and a personal favourite, but nowhere near OP
January 18, 2016 1:35 p.m. Edited.
So the new mulligan rule is what Constructed uses, except the first is free?
January 18, 2016 1:37 p.m.
@ Ender666666 My mistake I did read the whole article I don't know why I wrote Seedborne Muse.
At least where I play most decks have 12-15 nonbasics with a few running closer to 70% nonbasics. Decks like Oloro especially need tons and tons of non basic lands if the want to be able to curve something scary like T2 Bitterblossom T3 Stasis Snare T4 Cryptic Command. is notorious for needing very color specific mana and is a close second.
I like Shivan Harvest a lot too, but I'm not going to lie. People are going to cry once I put it into my Shattergang Brothers deck. Currently the only thing it doesn't do is blow up lands but with all my token making creatures and Vampiric Tutor / Demonic Tutor I will make it happen.
January 18, 2016 1:43 p.m.
4 player free for all, I support Partials.
1v1, I support Vancouver.
I do not really think the use of off-color or illegal mana is healthy, this is something I will give into testing for at least to see what happens. I do expect Bribery-style decks to do better. It would be acceptable to me if the mana either still become colorless or if 'generic' mana was enacted to ensure healthfulness.
Prophet of Kruphix ban to me is acceptable, I'll be sad to see her go, but it's obvious how powerful it is.
What confuses me is the lack of bans of other more powerful cards before Prophet came about.
I lost faith in capabilities of the EDH Rules Committee a long time ago, and would very much love to have a comprehensive list of more competitve style rules simply to just set higher more sturdy standards. I believe with higher standards in place that newer players, players with less money to spend on the game, veteran players, and players with a lot of money to spend on the game can all have a more even playing ground where all the rules makes sense.
January 18, 2016 1:51 p.m.
If Blood Moon and Armageddon are still legal, then Shivan Harvest is safe.
January 18, 2016 1:53 p.m.
I'm bummed Prophet of Kruphix got the chop, but I get it
I run Animar, Soul of Elements, and two friends run Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Roon of the Hidden Realm. Once any of us dropped prophet, all other strategies came to a halt until prophet was dealt with
With tasigur it was broken. He could just dink around w his graveyard during everyone's turns and it really did make the game take longer
January 18, 2016 1:56 p.m.
From a high-level perspective, Prophet wasn't even worth running. For 5 mana, you want effects like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. It's pretty rare that this thing even pops up in my meta and we're not even at the very highest end of the competitiveness spectrum. The card represents a significant investment and requires additional resources to churn out value. I'm not saying the card isn't problematic at lower levels of play, but it's pretty mediocre once you go past a certain point.
January 18, 2016 2 p.m.
canterlotguardian says... #44
Sugnid so that's what they're basing their ban decisions off of now? how cheap a card is compared to its power level? that is the single most hare-brained, idiotic, moronic, fuck-assed thing I have ever heard in my life. Fuck the RC. Even if that isn't what is the case.
January 18, 2016 2 p.m.
Whelp, there goes competitive EDH. Time to start upping land counts in all 15+ decks I own.
January 18, 2016 2:01 p.m.
Prophet was my way to ensure comboing with Momir Vig, Simic Visionary. You can basically play her and search for the next piece of your combo with momir vig and then you'll simply use Momir in your opponents turns. "Oh you want to resolve that, well let me flash in Patron Wizard and counter it." The next turns you can simply lock your opponent and tutor for any answer in instant speed... Winter Orb, Arcane Laboratory all make Prophet even crazier than he is anyways...
January 18, 2016 2:03 p.m.
Dorotheus: It would probably be more unhealthy to allow any deck to easily create mass amounts of colorless mana with no real drawback (i.e. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in a non-black deck) than it would be to allow access to other people using your creatures abilities...sometimes.
At first I thought to myself "why not just change the act of making it colorless to making it generic?", but then I remembered the fact that generic mana is not something that can exist in a mana pool now. There would be no way to do such a thing, and so this does feel like the next best option.
January 18, 2016 2:03 p.m.
canterlotguardian: They based this decision on the fact that Prophet was of SUCH a high power level with such immediate warping effects -- not just because it combined effects of two or more cards. Prophet allows one to create huge amounts of mana advantage, enables many different combos due to untapping permanents, and the value can be gained in almost any way since it gives creatures flash. I'm not sure why you aren't okay with such a powerful card seeing a ban. Why are you so upset?
January 18, 2016 2:09 p.m.
@JA14732, Mostly just Deadeye Navigator is the most decided card that needs a ban. There are about 4 others I think need a ban and 2 or 3 that should be unbanned, but I'm only between 70-90% sure on those and not willing to share.
@Spootyone, hence why enacting a 'generic mana rule' to ensure working-as-intended. I believe the thought here is to just remove possible confusion, which I disagree with.
January 18, 2016 2:13 p.m.
nobu_the_bard says... #50
Deadeye Navigator's built-in protection is more limited than Prophet of Kruphix. He needs to successfully soulbond for his to work, and he's vulnerable while the trigger for that is on the stack or in the event he's otherwise prevented from using it. Even if he survives, he needs another creature worth flickering to ALSO survive. He's really not that bad.
Prophet of Kruphix is pretty brutal if it gets away with anything. I don't see it accomplish this much anymore; most people were either bored of it or hated on so hard and fast for trying to play it, it became too hot to use. However it builds the momentum fast once it gets going, and sometimes everyone just copies/steals the damn thing instead of killing it (something DEN doesn't have happen so much). I have seen people playing green/blue mostly just so they can run Prophet.
Though I still think going up against two black decks both running every damned version of Grave Pact is still way more annoying...
EDIT: Oh yeah. Rule 4. I'll miss it but I get their reasoning.
EpicFreddi says... #2
Get your Seedborn Muse now, before she explodes.
January 18, 2016 11:46 a.m.