<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rhystic Study|wot|71" href="#" target="_blank">Rhystic Study</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CFuzichoco%E2%80%9D&amp;unique=art" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fuzichoco</a> </em></p>
<p>Finals that last eleven hours; games that are decided by word of mouth - not cards in play; and format-warping staples with no chance of being banned. cEDH has it all. Why? Because cEDH is <em>not</em> a format, no matter how much we pretend it is.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rhystic Study|j22|114"></div></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>No sane multiplayer tournament-format would keep this card.</em></p>
<h2>Commander Is the Format</h2>
<p>Taking a step back, what defines a format? Is it the spirit of the players? How about the metagame - the pool of decks that players expect to see when they show up to play? These two things are often cited as the defining characteristics of cEDH: the competitive nature of games and the rich, standardized set of decks that routinely dominate tables.</p>
<p>The cold truth of the matter, however, is that neither of these qualities constitute a format. Rather, formats are defined entirely by the deckbuilding restrictions in place, from which all other qualities emerge.</p>
<p>Looking at cEDH this way, the truth of its existence is readily laid bare: cEDH isn't a format, but Commander certainly is.</p>
<p>Commander has rules for deck construction and a regulated banlist. Competitive Commander, meanwhile, doesn't have any strict augmentations to distinguish it from the rest of Commander. Certainly, some cards are powercrept out of the metagame and others take on new lives as auto-includes, but that doesn't mean there's actually any rules enforcing that difference.</p>
<p>Looking to the newly-developed bracket system for Commander, we can see that <em>Wizards of the Coast</em> has actually doubled down on this Commander-cEDH linkage in recent time; there is no difference to the <a href="https://edhrec.com/top/game-changers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Game Changer</a> inclusion number, nor any other distinguishing guidance, between Bracket 4 - colloquially called "High Power" - and Bracket 5, cEDH.</p>
<p>Speaking of brackets, Commander is certainly an odd format with divisions within it, make no mistake about that. However, a play-pattern division is fundamentally different from a format-cleaving structural division, the likes of which comprise the separation between formats such as Legacy and Modern.</p>
<p>Commander's bracket system is advisory, flexible, and designed to ease in communication across play environments all the while maintaining the overall spirit of Commander, that is, a multiplayer experience full of politicking and player self-expression.</p>
<h2>cEDH and Commander's Baggage</h2>
<p>So, now that we've established that cEDH and Commander are one and the same, what does that mean in terms of format execution? To start, let's go back to Commander's earliest days and trace the format through to the modern day.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nicol Bolas"></div></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Putting the "Elder Dragon" in "Elder Dragon Highlander" since Day 1.</em></p>
<p>By and large, Commander has been a casual format since its very beginning. Initially dreamed up by a group of judges as a way to play <em>Magic</em> as a group in between competitive events, Commander was the format where garbage rares and fan-favorites could mix and mingle, with inordinately broken cards primarily being permitted thanks to the randomness inherent in a 100-card, singleton format.</p>
<p>The goal of Commander wasn't to win fast or decisively - it was to serve as a social exercise.</p>
<p>This mindset - prioritizing fun above competitive reasonableness - also serves as the guiding philosophy for the Commander banlist. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Shahrazad" href="#" target="_blank">Shahrazad</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> isn't a powerful card, but it is miserable to play against. The Moxen, meanwhile, might not be miserable in and of themselves, but they would be so ubiquitous that they'd encroach upon the individuality that Commander seeks to spearhead.</p>
<p>One <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcane Signet" href="#" target="_blank">Arcane Signet</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> has already been decried as a design mistake by <em>Wizards</em>, so it's easy to see how some of the game's most devoted players would have felt similarly about <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mox Pearl" href="#" target="_blank">Mox Pearl</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and the like all those years ago.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sol Ring"></div></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>At least Sol Ring is accessible...right?</em></p>
<p>Looking at the contemporary banlist for Commander, we can see that this focus on fun continues to dominate. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grand Arbiter Augustin IV" href="#" target="_blank">Grand Arbiter Augustin IV</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, for example, isn't a particularly powerful card; believe me, I spent years trying to make it work in cEDH. However, it is an <em>incredibly</em> unfun card.</p>
<p>Resolving good ol' GAAIV means that you get to play more <em>Magic</em> and your opponents get to play less. The result? It may not have been banned, but by putting GAAIV on the Game Changers list it has effectively been locked behind the gates of probable playability: not powerful enough for the upper brackets, and too miserable for the lower.</p>
<p>By prioritizing casual fun over competitive reasonableness, Commander enshrined in its construction a clear trade off, one which continues to plague competitive circles: in exchange for players having maximal freedom to play as they like, players are required to police themselves.</p>
<p>In the case of cEDH - the constituency of Commander which tosses self-regulation to the wind and hyper-fixates on emulating the competitive experience - this means that players are forced into the awkward situation of playing cards which undoubtedly increase their win-rate while simultaneously enshrining a miserable play experience.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nadu, Winged Wisdom"></div></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Remember me?</em></p>
<p>In truly competitive formats - Standard, Modern, Legacy, etc. - <em>Wizards of the Coast</em> takes an active role in maintaining format health through the proactive banning of cards. Rarely, if ever, does such a thing happen in Commander; cards often have to be both oppressive and miserable in order for any sort of supervision to be effectuated.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tymna the Weaver" href="#" target="_blank">Tymna the Weaver</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, for example, perfectly displays this issue. In casual Commander, this card is an uninspiring creature which occasionally serves as a Commander for go-wide multicolor strategies. The partner mechanic was certainly problematic, but there's nothing oppressive or miserable about this card which would cause <em>Wizards</em> to care about its role across the majority of Commander.</p>
<p>In cEDH, however, Tymna is everywhere. The card has served as one of the premier commanders since it was printed, cementing the role of Orzhov+ strategies as among cEDH's best. It's simply too easy, too ubiquitous, and too consuming.</p>
<p>A competitive banlist would have at least been skeptical of keeping Tymna around for as long as cEDH has, but Commander - at its very foundations - doesn't run a competitive banlist.</p>
<h2>Politics and Competition</h2>
<p>Moving away from the banlist, Commander also brought with it something no other format contains - politics. By structuring games as a everyone-vs-everyone else, rather than the two-vs-two structure of Two-Headed Giant, Commander further randomized the outcomes of its games by allowing for persuasion, coordination, lying, and punting.</p>
<p>Ask any cEDH veteran - there will be plenty of games you lose not because you couldn't win, but because the table couldn't sufficiently coordinate a response to some other threat.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Telepathy"></div></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>I've lost count of the number of times showing my hand has actually won me a game.</em></p>
<p>This social experience is the hallmark of Commander - even more so than its deckbuilding restrictions - but it's also terribly difficult to regulate in any sort of constructive manner.</p>
<p>There's no rules against a salty player making a spite play, and the best a tournament organizer can do to try and reign in heated debate is throw a warning at a player should they become vulgar or abusive. Nowhere else in <em>Magic</em> is the outcome of a game so closely tied to sportsmanship. When not appreciated properly - be it through a Multiplayer Rules Addendum or proper tournament organizer supervision - this hallmark can quickly become a stain.</p>
<p>As cEDH tournaments become more and more popular, so too do the number of incidents of strained politicking. Players have gotten ejected from tournaments because their debate turns into bullying mid-match. Even worse, sometimes players <em>aren't</em> given punitive measures for such behavior, and buffaloing fellow players becomes a rewarded strategy.</p>
<p>Commander has always been known for its long games, but that legacy is no justification for matches lasting eleven hours because players can't stop arguing over how to take a game action.</p>
<h2>Wrapping Up and Moving Forward</h2>
<p>If cEDH players really want to play a healthy, invigorating, and safe tournament format, then we need to be honest with ourselves about how the structural linkage to the umbrella format of Commander is doing more harm than good. Alternatively, if players prefer the current anarchic structure of cEDH which Commander bestows upon it, then we need to recognize that not all of our tournament wishes can be fully realized.</p>
<p>I enjoy playing broken cards as much as the next person; the explosivity of a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rhystic Study" href="#" target="_blank">Rhystic Study</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> in the same turn truly is unmatched. At the same time, however, you don't have to be a format expert to recognize that Rhystic Study is probably doing more harm than good.</p>
<p>Similarly, table talk is a wonderful part of Commander that I don't want to lose, but we absolutely need better regulations put into place about how players can interact with each other.</p>
<p>Commander is a wonderful format, and cEDH is full of enjoyable opportunities and exciting moments. There's a reason it's so many players' favorite way to play not just Commander, but <em>Magic</em> as a whole.</p>
<p>However, by cleaving cEDH from Commander, working towards more proactive banlist management, and instituting greater tournament regulation, then cEDH can truly flourish not just as a Commander-offshoot, but as its own fully-fledged format.</p>


cEDH Has a Fatal Flaw

Brewing Terra, Magical Adept for cEDH

Final Fantasy: A cEDH Set Review

<p>The long-awaited <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/commander-bracket-system-updates-and-unbans-april-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Commander format update has arrived</a>! Gavin Verhey posted <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/commander-bans-and-restrictions-april-22-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>two</em></a> <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/commander-brackets-beta-update-april-22-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">articles</a>, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P38DsBMs6vA&amp;pp=ygUSZ29vZCBtb3JuaW5nIG1hZ2lj" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good Morning Magic video</a>, and also appeared on an hour-long Weekly MTG stream on Tuesday, going through unbans, new Game Changers, what they considered, what they didn’t, which cards were unbanned, how they’re changing Brackets, and more.</p>
<p>We've gotten a lot of information to go through. However, I’m interested in just one thing: how do these new changes impact Bracket 5 - my beloved Competitive EDH (cEDH)?</p>
<p>The new Game Changers don’t matter much - we’re in a realm that doesn’t care about them, so I’ll keep my commentary on those to another venue. Still, there was a lot we learned this week about the present, so I’m going to do my best to break down what matters and what doesn’t - and what the future may hold.</p>
<h2>Cards Unbanned in Commander</h2>
<p>First, the overview. The following cards have been unbanned:</p>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Cabal Minion" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Cabal Minion</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></li>
<li aria-level="1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panoptic Mirror" href="#" target="_blank">Panoptic Mirror</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></li>
<li aria-level="1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sway of the Stars" href="#" target="_blank">Sway of the Stars</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></li>
<li aria-level="1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Coalition Victory" href="#" target="_blank">Coalition Victory</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></li>
<li aria-level="1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gifts Ungiven" href="#" target="_blank">Gifts Ungiven</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Braids, Cabal Minion"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gifts Ungiven"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Coalition Victory"></div></div>
<p>In short - this feels a little bit safe. Four of the five are almost certainly not going to have an impact on the Competitive EDH format - and even more so I would guess that they won’t see much play in normal Commander either. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panoptic Mirror" href="#" target="_blank">Panoptic Mirror</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sway of the Stars" href="#" target="_blank">Sway of the Stars</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Coalition Victory" href="#" target="_blank">Coalition Victory</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> are all bits of cardboard that people have asked to come off of the ban list for years now - saying they feel a bit less egregious than in years past. These changes are a bit of safe banlist trimming that’ll also make the crowd at home happy and test the whole “unban to game changers” pipeline thing. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Cabal Minion" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Cabal Minion</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is slightly more of a danger for taking off the ban list, just because it can be a pretty miserable experience in casual games if it resolves.</p>
<p>The <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gifts Ungiven" href="#" target="_blank">Gifts Ungiven</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> unban though - now that is interesting! Gifts is a situationally better, situationally worse version of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Intuition" href="#" target="_blank">Intuition</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (which is why I’ve always been confused as to why it was banned when we had Intuition, etc.) that seems best suited to inclusion in the likes of Blue Farm and other decks that make heavy use of the graveyard. The sidegrade tech of being able to only search up two cards - forcing both to go to your graveyard - could be relevant depending on what you have in hand, but in most situations you'd rather spend one more mana to end up with one more card in hand. If you can get to the said four mana, that’s a pretty good trade.</p>
<p>Also, the most obvious use case of this one is someone who wants a draw searching up four counterspells, targeting the other player who really wants a draw. That ain’t that fun. More about that later, though.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Panoptic Mirror"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sway of the Stars"></div></div>
<h2>The Rest of the Year for Brackets and Bans</h2>
<p>The biggest impact on cEDH from this update, besides what they <i>didn’t </i>unban (more about that in a bit too), was announcing their plans for the rest of the year: a focus on letting the bracket system settle in, a continual refinement of both it and the Game Changer list, and similar before formally taking both out of beta in 2026.</p>
<p>To help settle the waters as they work on that aim, they said there would be no more unbannings or bannings this year - unless there was a “Nadu situation” necessitating a sort of emergency ban. With this knowledge, it starts to become more clear why this unban was on the safer side. If they aren’t wanting to fiddle with the banlist for the next eight months, this instead becomes a test of a theory. Does unbanning something and transitioning it into a Game Changer, even with a more risky card like Braids or Gifts, work out well? Is it a path they can continue going down?</p>
<p>This thought processes and reticence makes some sense to me, and I do think that Brackets and Game Changer tweaks have way more potential to effect the average invested EDH player than straight up banlist changes. But I'm still a bit frustrated that they are committing to no action this far out. There are still plenty of cards that could come off the banlist, and slow rolling the process, while it doesn’t exactly hurt anyone, would keep momentum moving towards a more meaningfully shaken up format. I get it though; stability is king!</p>
<h2>The Elephants in the Room - Dockside, Mana Crypt &amp; Jeweled Lotus</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dockside Extortionist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mana Crypt"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jeweled Lotus"></div></div>
<p>Look, I’m not really going to be jumping around moralizing anything here. The Commander Format Panel can unban or keep these cards banned as they see fit. Do I think the specter of <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/the-end-of-edh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">what happened surrounding their banning</a> will pretty much forever taint them? Aaaabsolutely!</p>
<p>Regardless, we did get a bit more clarity on the three cards that were basically banned straight out of cEDH top tables several months ago. The light shed on them did point where I expected: we can expect to probably never see <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mana Crypt" href="#" target="_blank">Mana Crypt</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dockside Extortionist" href="#" target="_blank">Dockside Extortionist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> again. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jeweled Lotus" href="#" target="_blank">Jeweled Lotus</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, however, was given an olive branch of hope, with Gavin saying that it resonated more because it shares a kind of iconic design with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Black Lotus" href="#" target="_blank">Black Lotus</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>This feels like a weird argument to make; you can just say that WotC likes the card being legal and they enjoy the effects it has on the format. This, independent of my frustrations re: Dockside being banned removing the best non-blue-centric game winning option from the cEDH cardpool, does make some level of sense to me. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jeweled Lotus" href="#" target="_blank">Jeweled Lotus</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is the “safest” of the bunch, given it only speeds up Commander casting (in the format called Commander) rather than providing more widely usable explosive mana production. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dockside Extortionist" href="#" target="_blank">Dockside Extortionist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> itself was on and off the radar of the Rules Committee for some time; it was known as an amount of problematic and therefore not that surprising when it was banned. It does strike me as a card that could fall in line with other Game Changers. While the door is closed, I think a window could open.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mana Crypt" href="#" target="_blank">Mana Crypt</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will remain the sticking point that frustrates people for years to come, and reasonably so. It’s never going to be easy to ban a very expensive card. It’s not easy to unban it either; creating two huge waves of bad feels from one card is not great. I can’t imagine a path to this one coming back.</p>
<h2>The Commander Format Panel Probably Can’t Fully Fix cEDH’s Problems</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rhystic Study"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Quick Draw"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Valley Floodcaller"></div></div>
<p>cEDH has a few different prominent problems currently - the peak of which are currently the “midrange hell” meta we find ourselves in, focused around <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rhystic Study" href="#" target="_blank">Rhystic Study</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mystic Remora" href="#" target="_blank">Mystic Remora</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and more. People sit behind their value engines and angle towards forcing a draw, for some reason. I ran into this behavior for the first time ever at the TopDeck Open in 2023 - and since then it’s really taken off to an obnoxious extent.</p>
<p>A lot of people point to the latest bans as a reason for this - and they <i>may</i> have contributed. However, I’m more of the opinion that these play patterns were always prevalent beforehand; players already loved to <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Demonic Tutor" href="#" target="_blank">Demonic Tutor</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> for their <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rhystic Study" href="#" target="_blank">Rhystic Study</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and then watched someone Thoracle Combo them with one piece of backup. Playing safe is naturally attractive. People love to not take risks, and risks in cEDH can end up blowing up spectacularly. Turtling up isn’t risky - that’s why people are so biased towards this play pattern. The printing of more flash enablers has obviously also helped - making it even more attractive to sit back and wait rather than taking definitive action at the (perceived) risk of being stopped (and then losing). A single ban or unban won’t fix this; they won’t change a dang thing if people don’t stop convincing themselves that refusing to play the game until they have 15 green lights to win is the easiest way to equity. Just win.</p>
<p><i>Still</i>, players will continue to do this no matter how much I rant about it. <i>And</i> cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rhystic Study" href="#" target="_blank">Rhystic Study</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> &amp; <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Valley Floodcaller" href="#" target="_blank">Valley Floodcaller</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> do help enable the problem in the first place as well. A ban of such a card (or an unban to re-Turbo things slightly) would definitely tilt the scale and make it easier for players to, well, <i>play</i> to their outs. That’s something the panel could do to help. But I would, as ever, continue to not expect it as a rule; the focus always will remain on where the vast majority of players live, which is realistically Bracket 2-4.</p>
<p>However, there is some hope. During the Weekly MTG Stream, Gavin answered a question about the format and said they're very aware of where cEDH is and what its players think, referencing the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Flash" href="#" target="_blank">Flash</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> ban as a precedent to taking action that will help Bracket 5 (wink) without affecting the rest of the format much.</p>
<p>I have a hunch that a relatively surgical ban (e.g., <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mystic Remora" href="#" target="_blank">Mystic Remora</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, which isn't as egregious as Rhystic Study, but still part of the problem and played <em>much</em> less in casual circles) could be the easiest solution.</p>


competitive commander

cEDH Has a Fatal Flaw

Brewing Terra, Magical Adept for cEDH

Final Fantasy: A cEDH Set Review

How Does the Commander Update Affect cEDH?