Atraxa, Grand UnifierAtraxa, Grand Unifier | Art by Marta Nael

The problem with eternal formats is that they're, well, eternal. Outside of bans for cards that break the format, as soon as a Magic card is printed, you can play it in Commander. And you can play that card in Commander forever.

Now this is of course one of the appeals of the format. There are many beloved cards that have lost their playability as they've been rotated out of Standard or power crept out of longer formats like Modern. And those cards are special to a lot of players. They're filled with joyful memories of pro tour victories or janky decks brought to weeklies that punched above their weight.

It's great that these deckless cards can find a home in the game's most popular format. And that also goes for all those super cool designs that just didn't quite make a splash in more competitive formats.

Super flavorful bombs that were just a bit too expensive. Super niche strategies that didn't have enough of a payoff in their environments. They can all find a purpose at the helm of a Commander deck. Or in their 99.

But eternal formats are eternal. And cards never go out of rotation. For every fun and flavorful include you want to slot into your deck, there's an outrageously powerful alternative. Staples that just outperform their peers in almost every situation. Cards that are just begging to be played and may never be topped. And, save for a ban, they won't ever leave the format.

Ubiquitous Commanders

There's a similar situation with the commanders that helm a good chunk of the decks in the format.

Legendary creatures can be popular as a commander for a multitude of reasons. It could be that they're a really flavorful champion for your favorite creature type. They could be the only option for certain archetypes in the color identity you want to play.

But let's be honest. Most of the top 100 commanders on EDHREC are there because of their overwhelming strength.

You only need to look at the current top three to see just how powerful the most popular commanders are. The Ur-DragonThe Ur-Dragon, Atraxa, Praetors' VoiceAtraxa, Praetors' Voice, and Edgar MarkovEdgar Markov might as well be the boogie-men of the entire format. Two of them are sporting eminence, one of the most busted keywords ever printed on a legendary creature.

Tantalizing Power

The fact is, players are drawn to powerful decks. They want the cards in their hand to do as much as possible for as little investment as possible. And the same obviously goes for the creature leading your deck. There's nothing inherently wrong with that fact, of course. If you want to play high power games, there's no reason you shouldn't.

The problem lies with the homogenization of the format as a result. I'm sure we've all seen Magic's most recent top eight where every deck present was one of two versions of playing Monstrous RageMonstrous Rage. It's an overwhelmingly powerful card and it almost demands you play it. As a result, it made up half of the decks present at the tournament, and the entirety of the top eight.

I'm sure we've also heard the same protestations from an opponent at our table that cries, "No don't worry, this isn't like other Atraxa decks! I promise!"

From Commanders to Legends

So what would happen in a world where the top 100 commanders of the format were banned from play? What if when a commander became too ubiquitous, it was removed from the format? It might seem a little far fetched, but there is actually already a precedent in one of Magic's competitors.

In Flesh and Blood, there's a Commander-like hero system in play in all formats. In the fiction of the game, you aren't controlling legions of soldiers and dragons, but instead a single character. Which means no matter if it's competitive or casual, you'll have a commander at the helm of your deck. And of course, some of these characters are stronger than others.

But the system in which Flesh and Blood deals with that is an interesting counterpart to Magic due to something called the Living Legend system. The long and short of it is, whenever a hero receives a competitive victory at an official tournament, they receive points. Winning their World Championship with one hero for example, would net that hero 100 points. And that's for everyone playing that hero, it doesn't matter who wins with them.

Once a hero hits the threshold of 1000 points, they'll reach what's called Living Legend status. Essentially, they'll be immortalized as being really bloody good and then removed entirely from standard competitive play.

So What About Commander?

So would a feature like this work in Commander? If a deck became too heavily played we either shelved the commander or put them into a separate format? But most importantly, what would happen to the format if that were the case? Would it be a change for the better? Or go against everything Commander stands for?

For one, the players of the most powerful decks would need to find an alternative. If their commander is no longer legal, they'll have to find a replacement or switch decks entirely.

One positive of this fantasy world we're imagining is that typal decks, one of the most popular archetypes in Commander where you build around a single creature type, might get a good shakeup. A lot of the creature types in Magic have a default best option to lead their charge.

Driving Players Nuts

It shouldn't be hard to figure out which type Chatterfang, Squirrel GeneralChatterfang, Squirrel General is often played at the helm of. But it is quite hard to justify anyone else in his place as he gives you so much value for playing Squirrel-based strategies. At the time of writing there's just under 20k Chatterfang decks registered on EDHREC.

But despite coming from a set released last year that dedicated a fifth of its card collection to Squirrel typal, Bloomburrow commander Camellia, the SeedmiserCamellia, the Seedmiser sees only 3.5k players.

You do have to wonder how many people might have built her, or some of the other Squirrel options, if Chatterfang weren't such an obvious, go-to option.

Scaling Impossible Odds

By far the most popular creature type in all of Magic is the fantasy staple of Dragons. There's a whopping 65,322 Dragon Commander decks on this website at the time of writing. But half of those decks play the same two commanders:

And both of those commanders are in the top 100 across the format. Imagine the increase in diversity of Commander decks as a whole if all those players started branching out into different commanders because we all just admitted that maybe The Ur-DragonThe Ur-Dragon has been figured out already.

And imagine all of the cool commanders that don't see much play which might get a second chance?

Goblin' Up the Competition

Krenko, Mob BossKrenko, Mob Boss is another big offender in this region. And he represents a double problem as not just a Goblin commander but also propping up pretty much any strategy that asks for token spamming. He's just one of the most efficient ways in the format to dump a load of creatures on the board.

Looking at Goblin commanders specifically, Krenko is a ridiculous 16k decks ahead of the second place commander. If a new legendary Goblin is printed into the card pool, unless it can serve in Krenko's 99, it basically doesn't ever get a look in.

Gone But Not Forgotten

It's worth pointing out that Flesh and Blood heroes aren't just dead forever as soon as they become too powerful. They're essentially moved to a different format where players can continue to battle with and against the most powerful heroes of all time. I'm not much of a Flesh and Blood player myself, but I assume it's sort of like playing Vintage in MTG. A format full of crazy powerful cards with massive amounts of history and prestige.

One of the potential, less disruptive, paths for a move like this from Wizards of the Coast would be to consider adding overplayed and overpowered commanders to the Game Changers list. In fact, three of the top 100 most popular commanders are already on the list: Urza, Lord High ArtificerUrza, Lord High Artificer, Kinnan, Bonder ProdigyKinnan, Bonder Prodigy, and Yuriko, the Tiger's ShadowYuriko, the Tiger's Shadow.

These cards can have an absolutely devastating effect on the balance of a Commander game when they're piloted correctly. Sometimes more suited to cEDH than regular old Commander, they've been rightfully added to the list. But you have to wonder how many other legends in the top 100 could arguably be given the same treatment.

Is AtraxaAtraxa a Game Changer? How about MagdaMagda? She's one of the most popular commanders in cEDH!

We Can But Dream

This is all of course, speculation. And I'm not even sure I would want commanders to be banned outright. EDH is the format of choice of course, and a healthy discussion at the table can lead to a wonderful world where everyone gets to play Magic in the way they want.

But I do think it's an interesting thing to imagine, and something we could maybe find a healthy middle ground for in the future. If the top 100 commanders in the format were banned tomorrow, how many of your decks would go missing? Or would you be safe?

And if you had to replace your affected commanders, what legends would you reach for instead?

We often talk about the health of other formats ad nauseam, but how often do you consider the "health" of EDH?

Regardless, whoever you have sat in the command zone, there's nothing like a little self reflection. Let me know your thoughts on this hypothetical in the comments below!