I started playing Magic back when Odyssey came out (yeah I’m old) so Upheaval has a special place in my heart. I ordered it on my very first Commander card order! Imagine my surprise when I found out it was banned! Oh well after playing Commander for a while I understand why. No one wants to just start the game over. Or let the single player that played it float mana and cast a big threat before passing the turn.

The other cards I have bought that are banned have large effects that are definitely too powerful! Biorhythm is bonkers and can just delete everyone’s life totals after a board wipe. Primeval Titan can fetch up too many good lands to be allowed in Commander and Recurring Nightmare is a reanimation engine on a single card!

So I agree that those cards should be banned and the rest of this blog post will be a quick look at the rest of the Commander ban list. There are cards that are banned for racist art or because they have weird mechanics that no one likes and you can read about those if you follow the link above but I won’t be talking about those. I’m doing this so maybe I’ll remember which cards are banned in my one and only format and stop wasting my money!

Let’s dive in!

Well there they are! Commander bans are not common due to use of rule zero in most playgroups. But if I had to guess about any future bans (based on the dislike of wheels being used as hand denial) Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils might be on the chopping block soon. (Update from the future: Hullbreacher did get banned)

I wish you many good non banned cards at your local game shop this week!

-marksquare