Are Commander Unbans the New Normal? | The Future of the Ban List | 726

Greetings, humans. You have entered the Command Zone, your destination for all aspects of Elder Dragon Highlander. Enjoy your stay. Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Command Zone podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Weeks. How's it? It's Josh Lee Kwi. And today we are reacting to the big news that happened on Monday. Of course, Wizards released an article with announcements for changes to the Commander format. We're going to go through everything in that article, what we think about it, and talk about some of the ramifications for Commander down the line and what we think it could mean for Commander as a format. Yeah, and of course, Rachel and I are both on the Commander format panel, so we were involved in discussions with Gavin and the rest of the people at Wizards and the other CFP members, leading up to this announcement. We will link the article by Gavin in the show notes, so if you want to check out that full article, you can find it there. Of course, we're going to refer to different parts of it here, but we're not going to read it in full or anything like that. Yeah, without further ado, should we just kind of start getting into it? Yeah, let's talk about what was in the article. We're going to do just a brief overview, so you know what we're going to be talking about today. Two cards were unbanned. Yeah. That's the big news. So we'll go through both of those. Two cards were added to the Game Changers list. Only one of those is a card that was unbanned. Interesting. Yeah, so one of them didn't get added to the Game Changer list. And a different one got added to the Game Changers. You'll see why. It's fine. Yeah. And then no changes were made to the brackets. They're giving it time to sort of settle. We haven't had a magic on since the major changes were happened last time. Yeah, there's some reasoning for why there's no changes to the brackets, which we'll get into. The big one that we're going to talk about right away is no changes to the hybrid manner rule for now or the foreseeable future. Yeah, a couple of months ago now, Wizards kind of floated the idea. We did a video about it too, about changing the hybrid manner rule so that it would work the way it does in other formats. Basically, if you had like a hybrid blue-red card, you could put it in decks that don't have blue, but have red. They'd floated the idea. I was like, hey, what does everybody think about this? And then kind of got their response back, and they've given their reasoning, but they're not making any changes to hybrid at this time. So yeah, that's kind of a big one. This is a big one. And this is definitely one that Wizards has advocated for in the past. They have been public about being like, look, this makes it easier for design. This makes it easier on their side. And the responses from the community that they asked for were so loud and so split that they basically didn't know, we're like, we don't have any real data on this. We know that people either really, really don't want this or really, really do want this. And it got to the point that they even did an official poll from Wizards. It is a survey. They sent out a survey. Yeah. And it was like a one to five, one being very negative, five being very positive in favor of changing the rule. And it came out super split. So that survey, the numbers came out like this, 25% were very positive for it. 19% were just positive for it, a four out on the scale. 19% were neutral. 17% were two negative, 21% were a one very negative, which is remarkably almost 50-50 in straight down the line. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it tips a little bit towards positively. By like a couple of percent. Yeah. That's it. That's a very fair error. And I think Wizards and Gavin say in the article, something along the lines of like, hey, it can't be a 50-50 for us to make a change like this. It has to be more concrete than that or more conclusive than that. And I like, you know, we, this is a really, I think a positive thing you can take away from this article, which is that we know for a fact that Wizards would like to make this change. And Rosewater in particular, who obviously carries a lot of weight around there, has been a big advocate that like, we designed Hybrid Man a certain way. It doesn't work this way in Commander. That's not right. That's not how it should be. And so the fact that they still looked at the response and the feedback, and it was close, but said, hey, it has to be more in favor than against it. You know, and they didn't, I don't think they gave any numbers, but I like this idea that like, 50-50 is not good enough to change something. 60-40 is probably not good enough. You got to be looking at 75, 80%, you know, where it's very clear, I think, before they change something. And for them to be able to do that, even on a thing where they clearly want once, you know, there's a, there's an outcome they would like here, I found to be like very encouraging and positive. I agree. I mean, it also says in the article that they really listened to the CFP on this one. And I will say after Mark's presentation, you can go back and listen to our opinions on Hybrid Mana. There's a couple episodes where we talk about it. There's the big one that we go into it, but we even talk about it in reaction to the initial article. You can see that we're like for Hybrid Mana a little bit, not like, you know, 80%, you should do it, but we're on the positive end of things. And that was where the majority of the CFP was coming out of those meetings, is we're like, yes, this is a tool that we think we can give wizards if they think that it'll make them be able to design more precisely. And then after listening to the community, the CFPs sort of note voice, tenor changed and so did wizards. Like we heard the population and it was enough that the members of the CFP and wizards recognized that this isn't a change that is easy to make and shouldn't be made lightly. And after that, the CFP sort of changed its tune. We were definitely more of like, you can't really make this change right now and not this response from the community and wizards listened to that and decided not to go forward. They even said like, basically this decision is shelved for the time being. Yeah. I mean, I think during that episode, I said that previously I'd been against Hybrid Mana Change and I put myself probably at like a two on this scale of one to five. I did a one to ten scale of my own with five still being in the middle and so I was like a three. And then after talking to the people at Wizards and them explaining their reason for why they wanted, I moved probably to like a six out of ten again on the scale. But then after we released our videos, a lot of other people did videos too and we saw the community talking, I, you know, when in the CFP they were asking, hey, was everything I was like, I don't think you can change it. I personally think it's fine, but you know, I represent my constituents in some way and I didn't think it was clear cut enough to be able to be a change it. So yeah, even though I personally was like, I'm, you know, a little in favor of changing it, not a lot. I don't think that's what the community wants to happen here. So they listened. I think that's all we can ask for. And again, a very positive sign. Yeah, I agree. That means that they want to do what Commander Players want for the, for better or for worse, you are going to get a lot of mixed messages like this where you don't know exactly what Commander Players want. But to be able to hear that we're not on the same side, so you have to default to no change. It has to be clear, right? Like yeah, 50-50 is not enough, 55% is not enough. It has to be like very clear this is what people want for something like this. Yeah. So I like them setting that as like the standard. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the other thing that I really like here is something that we talked about at the end of the Hybrid Mana episode is you asked where, where I was at on this and I said, you know what, don't do anything right now. I want to see what they do with Hybrid Mana. We know that Hybrid Mana is getting designed more, it's getting printed more and used more. We've seen that with- What are they going to do in Lorwin because that time Lorwin wasn't out. Yeah. I want to see what's in Lorwin. I want to see what's in Turtles. I want to see what's down the line because we've seen more and more and more Hybrid Mana. We know this is a tool they're leaning on. So it's hard to know the consequences of this before we've actually seen the design shift. So I think now we get a little bit more information before even talking about this again. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So I see this as a pretty positive thing even though like I said I was slightly in favor of changing it but like, yeah, it's, it's commanders just fine. It's not going to definitely ruin anything to keep it like it is. Yeah. For sure. That's not a negative. Okay. Before we move on to the next topic here. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to just say that if you haven't heard, we are hiring here at the Command Zone. 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Now, the question was, was Kathleen Kennedy supporting us before she left Lucasfilm or this whole time or just was like, I'm retired now. I moved on and I'm going to support these guys. Well, regardless, you rock. Probably never heard that joke before, right Kathleen? Thanks for the support. Okay. All right. Let's talk about the unbanned. Yes, unbanned. Yes. It happened. Starting with, I don't know, the one that we've been asking for for absolutely years. We have finally unbanned Biorhythm. It has been discussed and discussed and discussed in every band and BNR announcement. Trust me, Biorhythm has been discussed as like, should we finally unbanned? Now the time. And trust me, I've been there for like 10 years going every single time. Yes, now is the time. Yes. Yes. And it finally happened. Let's read it for those who haven't had the pleasure. It's a six green green for a sorcery, eight man altogether. Each player's life total becomes the number of creatures they control. Yep. That's it. It's like a big green burn spell kind of. There's a couple of things to notice with Biorhythm. There's a couple of things to pick up on that aren't immediately obvious. If a player has no creatures at the time, they do die. Check you later. Oh no. If no players have creatures at the time, the games draw. Correct. Everyone dies. Most of the time, players aren't going to cast it in that situation. But if they do, they spend eight minutes to do it. And this is like a lot of spells when you cast it. It harms the player to the right of the caster the most. That was something that they brought up in the article, something that they were thinking about. When you cast it, the player who goes last after Biorhythm gets cast is most likely going to die. But that is true for goat effects. That is true for all sorts of big drain effects. Going later after big things happen is always going to be worse in multiplayer. Yeah. I think that's true of like most big sorceries. It is generally worse if you went later in turn order than the person casting the big sorcery. And it is just generally worse if you go later in turn order full stop. So yeah, I think this doesn't noticeably change that calculus. I agree. Yeah. I've been a huge advocate. I don't know where you've sat on this, Rachel. Maybe we should talk to you since I'm boring. Everybody knows where I stand on this thing and have for a long time. I like the Biorhythm Unban. This is one that I've kind of been cautiously for unbanning for a long time. I'm glad we took it easy. I'm glad we unban World Fire and Sway the Stars and Coalition Victory first and just to be like, are these fine? They are fine as predicted and now we get to Biorhythm, which is definitely more powerful than those three. Maybe not World Fire, but sure. Yeah. I mean, in terms of just like imbalance, like most likely to win you the game. World Fire is such a chaotic effect that like usually you're going to cast it in a situation where you can win the game after, but Biorhythm is more guaranteed to be that. I think this is a much more immediate like players can die when it resolves. Okay, sure. And it is harder to disrupt than something like Coalition Victory, which can be disrupted by a single removal spell. So I've been more cautious about it, but it's eight mana. It's a big splashy spell that wins the game and there's a lot of effects that are like this. I don't see how this is that different from an insurrection. I don't see how this is that different from a torment of Hillfire. I don't see how this is that different from even Craterhoff. I've been saying it for years. Yeah. Exappropriate time stretch. And once you get up to like eight, sometimes even seven mana, everything up there has pretty good chance to win the game or virtually. I mean, I approach it the second sun I'd put on that list. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been my argument since the beginning is like, yep, it does sometimes win the game. So it does a lot of stuff. So it does a lot of stuff. And I don't think the feel bads are particularly bad here. Like, yeah, you can die on the spot when a spell resolves, but that is the case already. So especially like it's starting as a game changer. I don't know if it will stay there, but like it is going to be relegated to higher power levels where I'm not even sure it is like good enough in those power levels. You don't play this in decks that are fours, right? You just don't. It's a it. This card is not a card in your hand until too late in the game for that to matter. The interesting thing is I have died many times to Shaman of Forgotten Ways. Because this used to be an old Joe Johnson favorite. He would run Shaman of Forgotten Ways all the time. And the thing about Shaman of Forgotten Ways is in the early game, this is a three man adork that gives you mana. And in the late game, it's a win con. In the early game, biorethim is nothing. And in the late game, it's a win con. Sometimes too, you do have to do work to make it the win con. It's a lot easier when your three man thing does that than when you're just holding this dead card the whole time. Yeah. So and like I've lost to Shaman of Forgotten Ways many times. It feels very much like a crater hoof where you cast it where you're head on board. And once everybody's life totals are low, you'd attack out with everything for that last bit of chip damage. That's usually how it plays. And I think biorethim will be the same. You cast it, lower all the life totals, you attack with the creatures that you have on board, you knock out a player or two and have a good advantage against the third. But it is risky. Like you do have to have a setup. It isn't something that you can just cast and win on the spot. Like it doesn't go in every deck. There's definitely going to be games won by biorethim, but I don't think they're going to feel much different to other green win cons. No. I think it's not the worst to if for cards to like win the game. Yeah. It's almost worse when they don't and you are stuck in a game that now is like kind of virtually over like World Fire, I think is worse in a lot of ways because it can just set the game to a state where it's like, well, it's not technically over, but like this sucks. Biorethim doesn't generally tend to do that. It tends to be like it's over or like everybody's almost dead, but we're close to over. Cool. We can shuffle up and play another game after that. It's not that bad. Yeah. I actually really like this card as a game changer because it sort of signifies like you cast one spell and it virtually ends the game. That's the kind of bracket that we're in. Bracket three is prepared for those kind of things. Like you can win all on one turn bracket to not necessarily, but if it's a game changer, then this is already very clear that game that play pattern is something that we're used to. Honestly, if I'm in bracket three and you're allowed three game changers in your deck, allowed is in quotes. Yeah. We expect three game changers in your deck. If I could force all my opponents to have a biorethim as one of those, so they only get two others, I would do it. Yeah, absolutely. Their decks are just going to be worse than almost every other game changer. Like it's like, instead of the fairest protection, you go buy with them. Yeah, your decks worse. Absolutely. Yeah. Like so. Yeah. I do think this is really funny with Scootsworm. I know you already win if you have like 200 Scootsworms, but it's really funny. Make your life total 200 and make everybody else's like three or whatever. Yeah. By the way, if you have more than 40 creatures, it could gain you life. Well, I guess you could be at 20 and have 40 creatures, but like you have 40 creatures. Like you're already winning the game. Yeah. But now I'm winning the game at like 200 life. Sure. That's even cooler. Yeah, that's way cooler. Yeah, so happy this finally came off. And my prediction is it will do exactly what World Fire Sway, the stars and coalition victory did when they were. But for years we heard like, oh, you don't know, you've never lost school in vision victory. It's so bad. People are going to do it all the time. It's going to suck the whole format. It's going to. And then what happened? Got him banned. What happened? Here's the sound we heard. Nothing happened. That's what's going to happen here. I think we'll see more play from by rhythm. I think this is an exciting effect. People have been looking forward to playing for a long time. So I think we'll see some amount of it. They're going to put in their decks and they're going to learn pretty bad in a lot of cases and they're going to take it out. And you'll see it once in a while. But my guess is like it is not going to make any kind of a difference. The other unbanned that I'm very excited about. They unbanned. This one's a little different to. Lutri the Spell Chaser. Yeah, people have been asking about this for a long time. So Lutri the Spell Chaser is this cute little otter. It is one and two hybrid is it. So three mana for a three, two elemental otter. It has companion. And that's the important part here, actually. It says each nonland card in your starting deck has a different name, which is just already the rules of commander, which is why it was banned. It also has flash and it says when Lutri enters, if you cast it, copy target, instant or sorcery spell you control, you may choose new targets for the copy. So it is just dual castor mage, basically. Yeah, it's like a worse dual castor. Yeah, exactly. It is the worst dual castor mage. And for years, people have been like, you know, for one thing, it's an otter, which mattered during Bloomberg, but also it's just like another effect. If you've got is it why is this banned? Because from a power level perspective, it certainly isn't. But the problem is in any decks that have blue and red, it just was a free companion. You could just for no cost in deck building, because commander already has that deck building restriction. You just have access to. And so it was just determined to be like every single deck that has blue and red. Well, just it is correct to just have a Lutri in your companion zone. So they banned it. So people have been asking for years. Well, why can't we just ban it as companion and then allow it in every other, you know, way to be useful? Yep. In your commands, command zone in the 99, especially as otters become popular. Lutri was also like one of the first playable otters where people were like, you made a legendary otter and then banned it from us. Are you kidding me? So yeah, that's exactly what happened. Lutri is now free in the 99. It's free in the command zone and you just can't play it as a companion. That's basically banned as companion. Right. This was more of a bookkeeping decision than a power level decision. It's like, are we willing to bear the weight of this line of text to free one card? Yeah. And the ultimate answer from the CFP and ultimately Wizards was, yeah. I don't think Wizards is going to experiment too much more with companions. It went pretty bad the first time. It went pretty bad. I don't think they're making companions again. I don't know where it is on Maro's storm scale, but it's got to be pretty high. It's called the companion scale now. We've gone back to storm. It was a mistake. There was a lot of banning and brokenness because of companions. So yeah, I agree. They're not going to do that again, so they won't have to do this again. This isn't like a list that's going to grow. This is a rule that was made to free a card to sort of... Honestly, it complicates the ban list a little bit. It says, look, you can't have this as a companion, obviously. But it takes it off of this blanket ban list that people are still... New players have to look at and understand. And if you look at this otter and you don't really know what companion is, you don't really get it, you're like, what is it about this otter? So I think this actually clarifies the ban list a little bit, in a way that's like, okay, I do understand why this card is banned, because it said look at the companion thing, so now it's there. And it just gets a card off that people are excited about and people want to play with. I think people have been asking to free the otter for a long time. The otter is now free. Here they are. Oh, it's important to mention that adding a band as a companion list does not indicate a band as a commander list. It doesn't indicate that that's something that we're talking about. It doesn't indicate that that's the future that we intend. It is also not the future that Josh and I like. We did an entire episode about band as a commander and what that list looks like, what it serves. Go watch that episode. I thought it was a really great discussion. So we'll link it in the show notes. Yeah, we'll link that and the Hybrid Manor video if you want to kind of... That is also interesting to go back and, you know, we've been doing this show for a long time and sort of see what we thought before and if those thoughts have evolved and changed. Because certainly some have. I've always said like if you meet a person and they think the same thing about everything that they did 10 years ago, like I kind of don't trust that person because it's like really no new information can ever come to you that you would be like, actually, okay, I used to think this and now I think that based on data and information. So I'm sure... It just means you're not consuming information. It just means, yeah, you're super stubborn and stuck in your ways and like you aren't actually digesting and thinking about things, right? So yeah, I think it's interesting to go back and look, although I think on these two particular issues we haven't changed because they were relatively recently. Yeah, it's actually pretty funny. In the Band as a Commander episode, you and I talk about band as a companion and we're like, I think I've talked myself into band as a companion and out of band as a commander. I think we come to that conclusion in that episode. That's awesome. So you can watch us talk about... Yeah, because I remember being kind of like, it's one card. Yeah. We probably shouldn't put a rule in there. And then, you know, I think maybe I just got wore down by enough people over the years being like, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And being like, okay, it feels like there's enough people that do want to play this one card and it feels like actually the cost is not as high as I would think, right? Yeah. And it is like a one-off rule that like, quote-unquote, new players, we always use new players as an excuse, which I think is kind of dumb. But whatever to face this criticism. But it kind of reminds me of extort as like another one-off rule that new players kind of have to learn that about it. And it's like, it's kind of a feature of magic that there are these cool little corners. It's like, you know, you know all this stuff and then it's like, but do you know how banding works? Let me show you the view what's behind this crazy door. Yeah. But do you know about the extort thing? It's nice that there's these little hidden like, you know, if you're a real expert, there's a couple of things. And Lutri is just like very low on that scale of like. Something that they mentioned that I think is smart is it's also like, if Lutri is the companion, it's right. You see it and you're like, oh, you're actually not allowed to have Lutri as your companion because it's free. And then they'll be like, oh, and it changes nothing about the deck. All they gotta do is take it and shuffle it in, right? Well, no, because it's 100 cards, your companion's extra. Well, if you really want it, you just take out one of the card, but you can still play it. It's just like shuffle it in there. And like it does it's different than band as a commander where like if you find out your commander is banned as a companion, you lose a whole deck. Yeah, you're like, oh, well, I can't play this at all. Well, this whole thing is garbage. Like losing Lutri as a companion is just one card versus 100 cards. So it's a lot easier to actually stomach long term and it's easier to spread by word of mouth like you mentioned. Yeah, that's a really good point. So enjoy the otter, enjoy bio rhythm, copy bio rhythm with Lutri. There you go. Well, you have more than no. It increases your life. No, it doesn't because Lutri is in play by the time the first one resolves also. So it doesn't do anything. But you can do it now. You could. Yeah, exactly. You can. In this article, they talk about several cards that we discussed to be unbanned. We are going to talk about those in those in this episode, but we're going to get to it a little bit later. We just want to go through all of the things that are actually happening before we get to the hypotheticals. So stick around for that and let us know what you think about these unbanned. There's going to be a lot of discussion you can get in the comments below and let us know. We do read those. Yeah, we're also going to talk about the brackets, which didn't change, but there's a bunch of reasoning behind that. And the fact that as you alluded to earlier, there are two new game changers, but only one of them is one of the unbanned cards we just talked about. You'll probably be able to guess which one. But if you don't want to guess, you can stick around. We're going to talk about that in just a second. But right now we're going to take a quick break in here and message from our sponsors. We'll be right back. Don't you think it's cool how some cards are so iconic that their artwork is still how we recognize them even to this day, even from Alpha? Oh, like Birds of Paradise. One of the arts I love is the Library of Alexandria. Oh, I think we all know my favorite. What is this? What is it? Are you throwing something? I don't understand. Oh, it's Counterspell! Yeah! Exactly. And all of that artwork, that is by Mark Poole. Oh, he's the best. 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Yeah, just click the link in the description or use the QR code on screen to make your pledge before it's too late. Oh, I'm going to get one for the mind games alone. You do not need to blue open if they're just looking at Counterspell the whole time. Okay, spooky. Go to tinyurl.com slash markpool.om a to grab your playmat or art print before time runs out. Support one of the most iconic magic artists and show your love of the game. That's tinyurl.com slash mark P O O L E O M A or click the link in the description below. And then I'm going to flash out a looser ambusher. I will bolt it to draw three cards. I will sneak attack out Triska Deca file. I'm going to go to my upkeep and I will win the game. That was your first time playing the deck. Yeah, well, I mean, first time in paper. I've already goldfished it like a hundred times on architect. Their play tester is super user friendly. Playing cards just takes one click and you can mulligan, tutor and move through your turns with the press of a key. There are simple menus with counters and copies and you can take notes on cards as you play them. Architect is the best place to browse, brew and play test commander decks. Just go to architect.com slash command zone to get started. That's A R C H I D E K T dot com slash command zone. Welcome back, everybody. We are talking about the announcement that just came out on Monday. We just talked about the unbanned. It's time to talk about the rest of the article. Technically, I think there were two separate articles, but we're talking about them as one. It's fine. There's links in the top. The rest of the announcement. The announcement. There you go. That's it. All right, let's talk about the brackets. There was a big wave of changes in the last announcement from Wizards. This is the one that changed a lot of wording. It added the turn stamps at the bottom. It added arrows, clarified some confusion, and it seems like those changes were positive is what the article said. It seems like we have moved in a net positive direction, but we haven't really tested them in a way that we can measure super well, because there hasn't been a magic on since then. So we're going to hold off on making any future changes until we have a little bit more data from the players and from direct observation of the community at large. I think that's a wise decision. Yeah, I also think like I didn't hear a ton of direct criticism of the changes to the brackets, but I did hear a decent amount of frustration with like, we're changing the, it's just change again. People being like, I don't know, it's a lot of changes. Yes. Yeah, I just learned the last stuff and now I'm being asked to learn this stuff. And so I think taking the approach of like, let's slow down, let's let this like soak in, you know, for a while before we even think about changing things again. So I don't know if that's an actual thing they said in the article or not, but that. They talk about the toll of changes and how a lot of this spreads by word of mouth. And the more you confuse the people that are spreading with word of mouth, the more telephone you play, the worse the result is. Yeah, exactly. Because now you have some people that are still like, the message hasn't filtered to them. They're over here doing it the old way and then you've got the new ways and then people get confused between the two. And it's like, if you change it a third time, can you imagine that game of telephone that's going to happen? Like I'm on the second person telling me the story and I'm pretty close to the original, but the 10th person down is like getting a totally different message. So yeah, I think just slowing down, this is smart. I really like this decision to just be like, yeah, there's no, there's no urgency here really. Yeah. So let's just let it soak in and then we can, you know, a while from now, months and months from now, probably like step back, look and be like, are there any changes we want to make now that it feels like things have settled? Yeah, I mean, it mentions in the article that they're pretty happy with the performance of the brackets right now, giving it time to settle, get people to understand it. And then they said there's even a possibility of later in the year removing the beta tag or making some final tweaks. But I do think that we're getting to a point where the brackets aren't going to change in a major way anytime soon. And the reality is, there's, unless you make big sweeping changes, which doesn't feel like are warranted, there's little to be gained now from like small tweaks. Like what are you going to do? Improve the average commander players experience by 0.01% by like, you know, moving one card on or off the bracket or like adding one line of text to like what bracket two is or something like, at a certain point, the change is not worth the cost of like the message having to be disseminated. So I think we're pretty close to that point right now. Yeah. Yeah. So another thing I like about this announcement, no changes to the brackets. No changes to the brackets. They're like three for three. There were some small tweaks to the game changers list. Currently the list is at 51 after the changes on Monday. We are up to 53 cards on the game changer list. And something they mentioned is sort of like the brackets. They don't want to make any more sweeping changes to the game changers. Yeah. We've like added 10 and cut five and changed theory and. Let's let it settle. And at this point we're like, maybe a card comes on or off, but we're going to try and let the list simmer for a little bit after these two small changes. One of them is relatively obvious. Biarrhythm, which was banned, is now moved to the game changers list as is tradition. Yeah. And I think that's a good precedent to set for the most part. Obviously, Lutri is a bit of a corner case because it wasn't banned for power level reasons really at all. As far as power level of what the card does. Right. So yeah, I like this idea that like it feels a lot safer to try and unban things because there is still some guardrails on it. Right. Yeah. And like I said, I do think that almost every deck is worse if biarrhythm is one of your three game changers than if it's, you know, one of the actual good cards. Mm-hmm. Like, Field of the Dead is way better in almost every deck that biarrhythm is. Yeah. I don't even think that should be a game changer, but that's fine. Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing about biarrhythm on the game changer list is we do talk about it as these like big sort of end of game haymakers like Insurrection and Tournament of Hellfire and none of those. None of those are game changers. Game changers. Game changers have sort of, with the exception of the cards that were unbanned, really have stayed away from wind conditions. It's more been enablers, it's been engines, it's been... Stuff that feels hard to interact with or makes fun games. Unfun games, that kind of thing. Yeah. It's less about how the game ends. So biarrhythm is a bit of a different looking card on the game changer list right now. Yeah, that's an interesting question. Yeah. Before we get to what the other game changer, what new card got the game changer tech or not a new card, but what card was added? Yeah. Do you think biarrhythm is going to stay as a game changer long term or do you think it eventually comes off? I think it eventually comes off just based on the cards that it rhymes with. I also think like Coalition Victory will fall off. I think that wind conditions aren't necessarily something that we're in the market of policing. It's more of like how the wind condition comes to be, which is handled by the brackets in a very specific way. Where it's like, if it's incremental, you're okay for bracket two and if it happens all at once, that's what you're in bracket three. And most of these big spell game-enders are going to be bracket three type of things naturally, which feel like game changers but don't necessarily have to be on the list. Yeah. So I think ultimately biarrhythm can fall off. Yeah, I agree. I 100% agree. Okay. So what's the other card that they added to the game changer list? This has been one that has been talked about since the game changer list was born. They've added Farewell. Farewell, Farewell. Farewell. Fare thee well. Like, you're still around. You're still around. We wish you well. Do we? Farewell, of course, is four-way white for a sorcery. Choose one or more. Exile all artifacts, exile all creatures, exile all enchantments, and exile all graveyards. A modal exile board wipe for Sixmana. The article talks about Farewell as a reset. This is the type of card that adds a... ignores basically what has happened in the game so far and starts you back at zero in a way that a lot of players don't enjoy playing against. It adds a lot of time to games. It's a powerful board wipe that is played a lot that tends to lengthen games. They also said that in the last one we said we were trying to move away from big expensive cards on the game changer list. We got rid of some of the top end that was there before. Farewell has been talked about at length to get to the status that it is on the game changer list. Sort of an exception to the rule that we talked about, the last article that came out. That being said, what do we think about this card on the game changer list? Yeah, so full disclosure, they do a little vote within the CFP. We have discussions and the vote's not like... It's not a democratic thing where if the more people vote for it than against it, it's for sure getting banned or unbanned or game changer or not. But just to get... I think after the discussion, just to get a clear view of what does everybody actually think. And I voted against adding it to the game changer list. I did as well. Yeah, I think it's fine. It's a powerful card. I get why people don't like it. I just think the reason they don't like it is a necessary part of the game. We need to be able to play some things that wipe the board because there are enough cards that create too much advantage all by themselves that if you don't have equal cards on the other side that erase that amount of advantage, then the game starts to get out of whack. And I feel like Farewell is well within the lines of what is reasonable within those expectations of the game. Yeah. I think Farewell is just so symmetrical that it's like there's a lot of cards that just destroy all permanence or exile all non-land permanence and they're not on the list. The reason Farewell is six mana and it's modal, but I just don't think that this really meets the standard of the kind of card that I expect to be on the game changer list. A lot of the ways that we've talked about game changers is these are cards that I wouldn't put in my deck below a certain power threshold. And Farewell is not necessarily a card I don't play for those reasons. I just don't love the play pattern, but that's for me. I like using my graveyard. I like being proactive. So I don't play it for personal reasons, but I don't know. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's like, I don't like its vibe, so it's a game changer. Yeah. I haven't put this into the same category that, you know, here's another one of our videos that we can throw back to that we talked about a long time ago, which is like cards that change the power level of your deck. We talk about, I think for me, Jessica's will was the emblematic card where I was like, that's the line where I said I'm going to limit the amount of cards of Jessica's will's power level or above that I am going to put into decks that I want to play with certain, this is before Brackets existed, we did that video. And I would put Farewell below the Jessica's will line. So I would be fine playing it in a Bracket 2 deck up till now obviously because, you know, they've come from on high and said don't do that, which is fine. Because again, I think in Bracket 2 games, it's mostly just the same as most board wipes. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel about it. I like, I wouldn't, most game changers I expect to be told ahead of time that you're playing this card and I think it would be weird if somebody told me they were playing Farewell. Like, I don't know. Maybe that's like, okay, yeah, we're going to tell me about your austere commands. Yeah, that's, I think of it on that level and I understand it's more powerful than austere command, but like, but it's not that much more and also like, especially at lower power where your decks are not as finely tuned to be like, I'm literally playing this because I don't put any creatures in my deck or something. Like, that's just unlikely to be the case. Yeah, I was looking into this a little bit and Farewell is very high on the salt score rating for EDA Trek, much higher than I expected it to be. It has this, roughly the same rating as Daferi's Protection and Blood Moon. Yeah, insane. Which is wild to me, but that comes from the community. They vote on what cards like are more salt inducing than others and that's coming from a lot of players. So maybe my perceptions of Farewell aren't necessarily like, maybe it's more of a Turgurage card than I think of it as like, I don't think this is on the level of Cyclonic Rift and that's the other board wipe that's on the game changers list. Yeah, but Cyclonic Rift does feel unfair in that. Yeah. Like that makes sense to me. I don't, I'm not arguing about Cyclonic Rift. No. It is extraordinarily powerful, but the things that make it powerful have nothing to do with the things that make Farewell powerful. Yeah, it's instant speed, it's one-sided. Exactly, exactly. You don't have to do any work to make it one-sided. It is one-sided. It says opponents on it. Yeah. Yeah, and it's instant speed. Farewell doesn't mean either of those criteria. Yeah, I think this is weird on the game changer list for me. It's powerful and maybe it's a little bit grown inducing, but it's grown inducing in the same way that a late game board wipe is. Yeah, exactly. It's how I feel about it. It does need to exist. And honestly, like, I don't like saying this, but I think we should be playing more of them these days. It feels like there are just more and more games where single target removal is not going to take care, because singular cards are creating like 20 rectangles. And it's just like, yeah, I need a singular card that can get rid of 20 rectangles in order to balance those things. Well, I've also felt like I've been leaning more towards cheaper board wipes lately, because you need to answer the board earlier and Farewell is so late game that like, it's not there in time. I was going to say, I have allowed myself mentally. I haven't held myself back or limited myself from playing Farewell from a power level standpoint, but I have not played it because I think Sixmana is too much for it. I have been like, the problem with Farewell is in this deck, I don't meet the criteria of like, I don't have any creatures or I don't, you know, I'm going to cast this and save this part of my board by not doing that. And then I'm not going to be able to rebuild first after this because it costs Sixmana. So I've literally not played it for mana value reasons more than I've not played it because I think it's too powerful to be played in this pod or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I remember when Undo Inversion was printed, I know it's different, but this is either a land or a blow up all non-land permanence, it's like eight mana or something like that. And I was like, it's a board wipe, that's a land, you put that in every deck. And then every time I look at it, I'm like, I don't want to cast Undo Inversion, I'd rather die than cast Undo Inversion and make this game longer. And that's how I feel about Farewell is like, I would rather just lose the game than completely reset it at the time that I can cast Farewell. But obviously that isn't the case for everybody. Farewell sees a lot of play and it does reset the game more than other board wipes. And obviously we were outvoted on this one, like the CFP, there was definitely people who felt strongly about Farewell and we're just not one of them. In particular, in the comments for this video, to hear all your thoughts about Farewell specifically, do you think that it should be on the Game Changer list or not? Just a little bit of a poll, a little survey, a little bit of scientific data. Is that a DHX Hallscore thing? Is that real? I don't know. I don't know how they collect that data, although I know Don really well. He's like a professional data analyst, so they probably did the right way. You go in, you vote, you can do it forever. I voted on Hallscore stuff. Alright, so those are the changes to the Game Changers, the Game Changer changes, if you will. Just added those two cards, but I do want to talk about where we think the Game Changer list is at, if there's anything we think could be added at this moment. Yes. Yeah, and we can talk about other things that were... Oh no, no, okay, yeah, we'll talk about the considered other unbanned. So there's a bunch of other cards that were close to kind of being unbanned, which we'll get to. Yeah. Sorry, teasing a thing. That's what they teach you in media school. Okay, any additions to the Game Changer list that you think are... There's a few that I think are close. We've talked about Managarin in the past. I still think Managarin is above the level. I think it should probably be a Game Changer. I put it above Jessica's Will level, for sure. Yeah, I think... I don't like adding things to lists, but yeah. It's a fast mana and a counterspell. I think Managarin just is powerful enough to be on that list. It also leads to countering just a random big spell to turn into an explosive turn. Of course, if they... Do you just like, is that 5CMC or more? Yeah, I'll count that. Yeah, I'll count that, sure. Yeah, I don't care necessarily what it does. You did cast my 10 drop next time. Yeah. So I think Managarin is probably a card that could be added to the Game Changer list. The other ones that have gotten mentioned are like VV is a possibility. Sure. But there's a few legendary creatures we've been cautious with in the past. But there's a few on there. But yeah, there's a few. Usually they tend to be on there for power level and salt reasons, is like kind of the most recent thoughts on legendary creatures, as opposed to just power. And I think VV's kind of just power. You don't think VV's salt inducing? Not really. I know, it's good. I mean, is it different than like Kenan? No. Like, I don't get salty with Kenan. It's powerful, but like Kenan's off the list now. Yeah, yeah, was for a second, but it's off now. I think VV's like in that realm where it's like, yeah, it's a very powerful magic card. But it's so narrow. I'm fine with no legendary creatures being on the Game Changers list, because you see them in the command zone. So if you don't want to play against it, you already have an out. You're just like, oh. Or at the very least, you can be like, oh, let me get my really good deck. But like, yeah, it's hard for them to like get the drop on you with their commander. You see it. Yeah. There's a couple of legends that are still Game Changers, but most of them are salt based. So I didn't vote for VV to get it added. The other one that I think we haven't done a ton of talking about is Mystic Remora. Yeah. And I think Mystic Remora is pretty close. Hmm. I think it's, for me, it's pretty far. Yeah. But I would like to hear your argument. I mean, this is the kind of spell that comes down and disrupts the early game. It can easily be one mana draw four cards, or one mana set all my opponents back two turns. Usually two mana you'll pay to keep it around a turn rotation or two. And it's just the second most powerful draw engine in blue. I think it's like right behind Ristik's study. And, you know, it draws you a ton of cards. It's not optional in terms of like nobody pays the four for Mystic Remora. But maybe it's not that salt inducing because you don't have that option not to pay. Yeah. Let me give you my argument and see if I get them from on to anything here. So the Game Changer list philosophically is to filter the right power level cards towards the right power level pods, correct? Right. Mystic Remora not generally very good or used in lower level pods because they don't tend to be super mana efficient. They probably play more creatures. People don't want to play the Cumulus above keep. You just don't tend to run or run into Mystic Remora at lower level because it's just less good down there. So I think it's already getting filtered by just like natural power level. Natural what it sort of the way it behaves in a game and the decks it's good against in different ways. And I think Ristic is a little bit different because it doesn't tend to be like people are chaining together a lot of spells in a turn in low power games. But Ristic still works when you're only playing one spell per turn. Whereas Mystic Remora is just way less good in that and people can avoid it in decks where like, I'm already not incredibly mana efficient. Also I have a lot of creatures and stuff in my deck. And that's what I think you see with Mystic Remora when you play it at lower level pods as you cast it and a lot of times they're like, cool, creature, creature, creature. Do I want to pay for this thing? That can definitely happen. I mean I've run Mystic Remora at lower power tables and it still triggers off of signets and ramp spells. It triggers off of like equipment decks and enchantress decks. There's very common archetypes that are solely based around non-creatures. So it can draw you a fair amount of cards. It's probably like it's worse. It's like carpet of flowers or something like that. We're just a little more hit and miss down there. Sure. It's definitely higher variance. And maybe that's sort of secretly why I'm not playing it at lower power levels, but it's definitely not a card that I consider in like my most casual decks because I'm like, it's one mana, it'll draw me four cards. And it has the same, does it have the same reaction as Rhystic Study? No, I guess it doesn't. Rhystic Sixer, I mean I love Rhystic and I'm not making an argument that it should be banned or anything. It's already on the game changer list. But it's Sixer Round the entirety of the game and you know, you got to ask people and like ask every play, but Mr. Grimora is more like a two turn thing. You definitely don't pay for it the second time and it's like, it's limited. They can play around it a little bit. You'll draw some cards, but often I think there is a natural downside to Mr. Grimora, especially at lower level tables that just kind of doesn't exist for Rhystic. Sure. I think that is fair. Yeah, the only one that I'm more solidly interested in looking at for the game changer list is Mana Drain. Yeah, that makes sense to me and when I do think about it in my mind of where my imaginary level is, where Jessica's will is, I don't play Mana Drain in my lower powered decks. I just choose not to, not because any rule is telling me not to. There are a couple of cuts that we could consider to the game changer list. That's the next big discussion point, which is like, would we take anything off the list right now if it were up to us, which clearly it is not. Yeah. There's a few cards I would take off the list. I mentioned one earlier. We've talked about a few of them already in past episodes like this, but we'll mention them again. I still think Field of the Dead is not powerful enough and not universally powerful enough to be on the game changer list. I think it's like, it only goes in land decks really and even in those decks it makes like five or six zombies. It's a good card. It's a strong card. I play it. Yeah. There's relatively few games where I feel like Field of the Dead wins or loses me the game. I feel like it contributes. Yeah. And then there's specific decks where definitely I've died to it, but like those are decks built around specific things that are taking advantage of that effect. And there's tons of stuff that works in that manner. For me, it's like, it's so synergistic and powerful that you have to build around it for it to be good. It reminds me of something like a perforose, which is not even close to being on the game changer list. It's a powerful card that you build around that can win you the game. That's how I feel about Field of the Dead. I just don't think it's on the power level or on the salt level that it should be on this list. The next one on the possible cut list, I would cut Consecrated Sphinx. Yep. Cards are good once again. I just don't think it's even close to needing to be a game changer. No. I think it's fun. I think Consecrated Sphinx is what top end blue cards should look like. I think there's lots of big, big blue creatures that are... Pretty effective at giving you a lot of value. Yeah. And this is one of the cooler ones. So it's actually a bummer to me that this is still on the game changer list. Yep. Panoptic Mirror the next one. Yep. I think that's still in the process of coming down, but I just don't see it. This is from the old days as a head scratcher. It's going to be like, you know, World Fire, Sway the Stars, Painter Servants. Yeah. I mean, if anybody's using it, they're going to use it to do dumb stuff and they shouldn't have to spend a game changer slot on it. Yeah, exactly. And if they use it to cast infinite extra turns, good for you, you bummer. Yeah. It's a lot of mana to do that first of all. So yeah, exactly. And chaining extra turns is already limited to certain brackets. So I just don't think it's necessary to be on the game changer list. Yep. We've mentioned Coalition Victory could also drop off the list. I don't think it's the game changer. It's certainly not a game changer. There's no world under which Coalition Victory is a game changer. It's been free for a long time now. No one's playing it. You know why? Because it's bad. It's bad. Yeah. It's been bad for years and years and years. This card is, it should never have been, well, maybe not never. Maybe there was a time before I was born where it was, should have been on there. But like ever since I've existed in the Commander World, this is no, makes no sense. Before you were Commander-born. Let's take it off the game changer list and you know what will happen? No one will talk about Coalition Victory ever again. Yeah. It will not be on, it'll just be a asterisk side note on a historical, you know, nostalgic trip down memory lane of remember when, but no one will talk about it in connection with the format because it just is not a good card. I agree. Take it off the list and it'll see less play than it does right now. The other two that are on there are sort of the bottom end of the tutors. It's like crop rotation and gamble are question marks. For me, I like that we've removed the tutor restrictions from the brackets entirely and we're game-changing the ones that are sort of the most powerful and the most formative. And honestly, I think I'm comfortable leaving crop rotation and gamble on for the time being as game changers to be like, look, these are tutors, they're very powerful and we're restricting them in this way rather than having them be on the brackets themselves. Yeah. I think crop rotation specifically I would take off because at lower power levels, again, the brackets and the game changers are meant to funnel people in the right direction. They don't have a good land to go get with it. They're not getting guys cradle, right? Yeah. Those aren't in twos. So, and if you want to use one of your, I guess if you don't in threes, is it a problem? But I still don't think guys cradle exists in the seven there. Maybe I guess. You can in threes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just don't think that like this is broken enough and it's really connection with certain cards, you know, which are mostly restricted on their own also, right? You know, the ancient tombs and the guys crales and the what Nick those cabal coffers or Bork. It's kind of the list, you know. It's to go get those top end mana cards or, you know, your field of the dead right now. Crop rotation just sort of means that if you want to play one of the powerful lands on the game changer list, it takes up two of your slots in bracket three, which I think is okay. Why should that be the case though? Because they are some of the more powerful, more free options is an argument. Yeah. But is ancient tomb or I don't know if you're crop rotating for ancient tomb. Yeah. This guy is cradle. Yeah. I just mean, is it twice as powerful? Does it need to be game changer twice? I think if you're going to reliably have it, that's fair. Like it's effectively a second copy of your guys cradle. It's a second copy of your serosanctum. So it's like expedition map or something like. Yeah, but that one costs three mana. Yeah. I don't know. To me, it's like, if it's on the game changer list and we're worried that you might go get a card on the game changer list, we already game changer that card. So it already has a guardrail on it. Do we need a second guardrail for it? Yeah. It's interesting. I think these are the two that are closest, but right now I am on the side of keeping them on the list. Okay. Let's talk about other cards that felt kind of close to getting unbanned. Yes. These are all listed in the article, the big ones that we're going to talk about, and then we'll talk about some other ones just for fun. Because it's fun. Because it's fun. Everybody likes being our stuff. Yeah. Everybody does. What's the R for these days? It used to be banned and restricted, but we don't restrict stuff. We restricted loot tree to not the companions. Sure. But restricted used to mean you could only have one copy of it, but that's our whole format. Yeah. But I guess it'd be weird if it was like, let's talk about the B list. B and GC. B and GC. That's the game changer. Yeah. Let's talk about one of the first considered unbanned. This is a big one. It's Sundering Titan. This is an eight-man artifact creature golem when it enters the battlefield or leaves the battlefield, choose a land of each basic land type, then destroy those lands. So I'll pick your forest, your island, your mountain and swamp, and I guess I have to hit my planes. You almost never have to hit your own thing, but once in a while, one of the five. Yeah. Yeah. So that happens every time it enters, every time it leaves. Yeah. So you can reanimate it, destroy all the lands. And then it becomes a one-sided, very fancy Armageddon. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So there's a few things about Sundering Titan that could potentially make it unbanned. This card is not a fun card. It's very like, it's busted once it's on the battlefield. Hypothetically, if it was unbanned, it would be limited to Bracket 4 because it is certainly mass land destruction. And so it is in that bucket. We cannot assume that everyone's playing with the Brackets. We know that there's lots of people that are playing in their Playgroup that completely ignore the Brackets entirely, so that restriction can't be something that we lean on to unbanned cards. Right. Basically, every card that has been unbanned in the last few years has fallen off of the Game Changer list, with the exception of like the, like, braids and gifts. And of it, well, we're assuming the other ones are going to fall off, I guess. Coalition victory, which I will. Yeah, which I will. We're assuming. But like, unbanned Sundering Titan is putting a lot of pressure on the Brackets to actually keep that in the right spot. Whereas right now, we're guaranteed that people aren't playing against Sundering Titan. I find it really funny that Gavin mentioned in the article that like, well, back in the day, people would be like Sundering Titan with Dead Eye Navigator, and I was like, well, now we've got freaking Displacer Kitten, Gavin. Way worse than Dead Eye. So much better. Do you remember the days when people were like, Dead Eye needs to be banned? That was crazy. And now we're like, what if there was a foreman? We're like, when's the last time you saw a Dead Eye Navigator? Never. Yeah, but Displacer Kitten is the real deal. It is the real deal. And could definitely be used with a Sundering Titan in too great effect, if that's what somebody wanted to do. So there's like, there's reasons to unban it that I think are, it's limited, it's really expensive, and it's already sort of held in social guardrails by Don't Blow Up Everybody's Lance. But there's reasons not to in that it's one-sided, which makes it a little bit more tempting to play as opposed to like an Armageddon, which you have to make one-sided. And if you're playing against a Sundering Titan, you are guaranteed to be having a very tough time. Yeah, for sure. It's a brutal card. Yeah, I was on the fence about this when I was pretty close. I don't actually remember how I voted. It could have gone either way. I think I voted to have it remain banned. And I have a trouble with these cards that sit in this class, which is I wouldn't ban it if it was currently unbanned. But also, I don't understand why I would unban it because it doesn't like add anything cool that we want. The only thing it does is get a card off the list, which does have some value. I don't want to downplay that too much. But I think there's just not a lot of play patterns with Sundering Titan that are like, that made for a sweet game that was really cool, right? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think there's going to not going to be a ton of games where you're like, well, I enjoyed having my lands repeatedly blown up. It's also worth noting that like this is this is a rude card to play. So a lot of people won't play it, but we just can't guarantee that there aren't players who want to play it and blow up everybody's lands at the game store. And like, they'll find a rude card. They will. There's a lot of rude cards. They can just play winner or like, they'll basically, that's worse, honestly. And then guys eight mana. I mean, getting this thing into play is because it's an artifact and a creature, there's sort of a million ways to cheat this into play. But you do have to set it up a little. You do have to set it up a little bit. Where I voted on with Sundering Titan is I think ultimately this card can be unbanned. I would like to see how the brackets settle a little bit. I would like to see, I want to give that more time before we start unbanding cards that we know are going to be. Let the telephone calls make it to every, as many corners as we can get it to. I agree. That's a smart way to think about it. I think like, I think there is a world where Sundering Titan can be unbanned and it will be a, it will be in the right place. But I don't think today is that day. And I don't think a lot of people are like, unbanned Sundering Titan. Yeah, exactly. Even me, I'm the most like unbanned everything guy. And I was like, Sundering Titan, I think it's safe for now. But I think that's a really smart way to think about it. That seems super reasonable to me. It's like, yeah, maybe it can, not right now. Yeah. And I do want to point out that like, while we've been very gung-ho about unbanding big expensive sorceries and big expensive instance, those are a lot harder to cheat into play than creatures. Especially artifact creatures. Especially artifact creatures. There's a million reducers. You could get this thing onto the battlefield. Or you know, you can also just discard and reanimate. Well, you can reanimate it. You can sneak attack it. You can like, there's a thousand ways to get this thing into play. That's less than eight mana. Whereas like coalition victory, there's much fewer and they require way more setup. So we're a lot more cautious about big expensive creatures. All right. Well, speaking of big expensive creatures, the next one on the list is another even bigger, more expensive creature. Uh-huh. It's Iona Shield of Amiria. Mm-hmm. So this is six white, white, white, so nine mana for a seven, seven flying legendary angel as it enters, you choose a color and then your opponents can't cast spells of the chosen color. She's so fun. What a fun gal. I mean, we play, yeah, we played in the form of a long time before this got banned. So I've played against it a lot back in the old days. I remember when it was banned, a lot of people were like, were people playing that? Yeah. And it was like, not a lot. They would play it sometimes though. I have my famous story of like, you know, the, the GP I played out where the guy really want to play against me. And then I was playing a mono color deck and he just played Iona name green. And I was like, oh, you were playing a mono green deck. It was mono something. I forget what it was. The times have changed. Yeah. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, you win. Why'd you wait so long to play? Yeah. If you're just going to like make it so I can't play. But okay. Yeah. But it was fine. I was like, okay, cool. You, yeah, I'm dead. I can see spells. Yeah, I'll check you later. Yeah. Yeah. We both said on the show that we think this card could be unbanned and game changed and it would be fine. This is not a fun magic card. It's not. It can be a hard lock with painter servant like when favorite painter servant was unbanned, Iona serve was banned because you can play painter servant and lock all your opponents out of spells. Yeah. Then you win the game. Yeah, exactly. The game is over. It's fine. You played two cards, one of them a nine man of three, including three white spell to cast that was a combo. There are many two card commos in the format. And by the way, you have to put painter servant into your deck and Iona. Yeah. Those are bad by themselves, right? Like, yeah. So I don't, that argument, I think sucks. The painter servant argument, they always bring it up. I don't understand that argument at all. So what? Yeah, fine. Do that. That is, you're exactly right. The game ends. I deal. I would also say that like Iona is not alone in terms of cards that prevent you from playing the game. Like we're talking, we've talked a lot about Jin Kataxi as core auger. That makes all your opponents discard their hand. Like that knocks people out of the game. I guess they could hypothetically draw a spell and cast that spell. Blight still colossus can kill people in one shot and it does all the time. Void winner says you can't cast what, which one's odd. Eat. No, you can't cast. You can't cast even mana value spells and you can't block with even mana value creatures like that. That eliminates just as many cards as Iona most, if not more, more, more. That's the other thing about Iona that people don't realize as a person who played during that era has played with and against Iona is a lot of times it doesn't do a lot. Yeah. Because you're looking around being like, okay, I turn off half of that deck and or I use this other color and do half of those other two decks or a third of that deck and half of this deck. And it's like, there's still a lot of colors available to them. And it's like mildly annoying. But like then they kill it with one of their other colors a lot of the time. But it is not always very good. That's the thing is like this assumption is like you play it, then no one can do anything. And it's like actually only 10% of the time. If that is that the case. Most of the time you play it and people can still do stuff and they're mad at you. Yeah. Now you've played a mean card and the table is going to kill you. Exactly. It's not. It's a very un-rachel card. You would never play this card. All it's going to do is like make people mad at you without actually shutting them down or winning. You're like, okay, I discard two cards and murder you. Yeah, exactly. Like not discard, but you know what I mean? I like, I just think there's a lot of mean seven to 12 mana creatures to have in play and Iona isn't that different than a Toxrill. Like I feel way worse when a Toxrill hits the battlefield than Iona. And I play a lot of monocolor decks. Yeah. Like half. Honestly, I played in a lot of games back in that era where people would play the Iona and not name the monocolor because they're like, well, that's mean. Yeah. I'm not trying to lock you out of the whole game. I'm trying to do something. People can self-regulate in those situations. So I think Iona is definitely a hundred percent a card that could get unbanned and like it'll see a little bit of play and it'll be fine. And like, yeah, 2% of the time it'll cause the mass frustration people are thinking of. Yes. I am fully in the camp of Iona. All right. This next one is pretty interesting. Yeah. Whoa, what? We talked about this for a while. Yeah. I'm actually in favor of unbanding it. I love this. I know it's powerful. I understand. People will be like, you don't understand. No, I understand. Hang on, hang on, hang on. They don't know yet. It's Gristlebrand. What? But this card's awesome. This card's awesome. It's one of the more awesome cards that's ever been made. It is extraordinarily powerful. But like this card is the reason we play magic, right? Yeah. Did you read a card and you're like, holy crap. Yeah. Like, and honestly, it's not that bad as a commander. It's bad actually in the 99 because hard casting, it's not even close to as good as like reanimating it. So let me read Gristlebrand real quick. It's four black, black, black, black eight man altogether. Very seven, seven flying life link. It says pay seven life colon draw seven cards. Woo, pay 14 life draw 14 cards. Pay 21 life draw 21 cards. Yes. Yes, please. Sign me up. Yeah. Look, I couldn't when we were having this conversation at the CFP, I could not believe we were having this conversation and I could not believe that I was like, it sounds awesome. I want to do that. I want to do that. Cool. I want to do that. Yeah. I want to do that. I mean, Gristlebrand is so cool that I have never played. I like I've played against it in Canadian Highlander and AD and I were like, we should name our dog Gristlebrand. Like he's awesome. Gristlebrand is one of the most awesome cards ever made. It's so cool. Okay. Gristlebrand is extremely powerful. When you play Gristlebrand, you draw your whole deck and you try and cast a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah. You're going to have one of those boluses Citadel turns, except for it's a lot harder to whiff because it doesn't matter if you hit lands, that's fine. But it is sort of, it has rough equivalence in the format. It has like other things that you can look at to be like, well, Nause is in the format or Necropotence is in the format. Ad Nause is better than this card. It just is. I asked the CEDH people when we were having the discussion, I said, listen, because I think the only argument that I would, that would, you know, sort of make me back up here is, do you think Gristlebrand will immediately become the most powerful CEDH deck? Yeah. Or decks with Gristlebrand in it. Like it's become the most powerful thing that's possible to do. Yeah, and to reanimate Gristlebrand. Yeah. And they didn't think so. Yeah. They thought it would be powerful and would have a spot in their format. And I'm like, okay, then let us play with the awesome card because it's not the most powerful thing that can be done. Yeah. I mean, the reason that I could see that Gristlebrand should stay banned is for time reasons in terms of like, when Gristlebrand hits the battlefield, you're going to have a big crazy turn. Like you could, you're going to draw a whole bunch of your deck. You're going to go off in these ways. But I don't think it is more time consuming than a lot of cards that are legal. And there are a fair amount of comps and you cast Peer into the Abyss or Enter the Infinite and draw your entire deck. Like those are spells which are harder to cheat out, which we just talked about. You could hypothetically have a Gristlebrand on turn two with the nut draw. But. But lower power decks are not going to do that. No. It's a great game changer. And lower power decks won't actually win the turn they play this. They'll draw like 14, but they won't have the crazy cards you need to be able to draw off of that to continue going. They're fair decks. So they're going to be like, I got this out somehow. I don't have a lot of mana. I draw seven or 14. Honestly, at lower power, they'll draw fewer cards. They just won't be willing to do, you know, the thing that is quote unquote correct and draw 28 or whatever. But they'll be maybe right to do it because they don't have the other pieces that they can chain together to keep it going. So they'll just get seven cards worth of value and hope they untap with it. And that'll be at lower power tables, like how it how it plays out most of the time. So it's really like threes that you're a little bit worried about. And then fours, I think, well, you're playing at four. And if you can't tell me it's the most powerful thing to do, then it's just among the more powerful things to do. And it's just another one on the list. That's why I ultimately was like, I think we should let it go. And one of the reasons we play magic is to do awesome things. This is not a. I agree. There's an aspect of like, hey, it can make turns take a long time, but I don't think it's going to do that all that often, except for in really powerful situations where like you're already games are going to take a long time because a lot of people are doing things like that. You're playing a lot of fast man, a lot of rituals. Dorming off and like, you know, all the good, the stack gets crazy with all these, you know, you can see counter wars and stacks take hours, you know, 11 hour games or whatever, because, and that's without Grisly brand. So I think, yeah, I don't know. I think it would be just be fun to have it be alive in the format and it'd be a game changer. I mean, I was a proponent of like, let's just see. Let's game change it and see what happens. It would be so sick. Yeah. So I think about grizzly brand and I think about like when modern got back faithless looting and everybody was like, whoa, like we got back faithless looting. And like, let's see how it goes. And it went fine. Oh, yeah, it was fine. Yeah. It is cool. And people like that card. So I do think that there's like, oh, world where grizzly brand could be unbanned. And I think it would be immediately crazy expensive and so exciting for so many players, which I think is like a good thing. It makes me nervous because I know how powerful this card is. And I know that we're at 40 life and this card was banned pretty quickly after it was printed. And that is something that I think about a little bit when I think about cards that were banned is how long were they legal? So it was like two seconds. Not very long. Fast band's ever. Oh, this card is broken. Yeah. Whoa. So it got banned very quickly. And so its role in the format wasn't necessarily measured other than like, but that was a long time ago. So I'm curious about grizzly brand. I don't know if I'm like, I don't think I voted for it at the time. I don't remember, but I definitely remember being like, well, that piece is really cool. That to me is worth it. Like if you, because a lot of these cards, you're like, how bad will it be? Sundering Titan, Iona, these are not cards where you think like, boy, it'd be really fun to cast this. Right. Yeah. You think of the person on the receiving end of those and being like, how bad is that? But grizzly brand is the other side of that coin. It is like, yeah, how cool would it be to do that? And it doesn't actually hurt your opponents that much. It's not like it stops them from doing stuff. So it's just, I think that's what Commander in Magic is about. Like we want to do the cool things. So I would, I want to release the cool card out into the world and be like, yeah, have fun with the cool thing. And we can chant full send and they can die. Yeah, exactly. They're like, what are you a coward? You can draw seven more lightning bolts. You'll be a two. You're fine. Grizzle brand. I'm curious to see what people think about that. That's another one with farewell. Just let me know if you think I'm crazy about grizzly, grizzly brand. I think it's a little crazy, but I'm also like, understand the excitement and I'm like, so close. I'm very likely games to be excited about doing cool things. And the grizzly brand gives me that feeling. So it's like, I want it. I did want to mention that it's very similar to a card, Yagamas bargain, which is on the ban list currently. Yagamas bargain is a skip your draw set step, pay one life draw card. And it's on a six mana enchantment. There's a couple differences between grizzly brand and Yagmas bargain. The main one being Yagmas bargain is on the reserved list. So this is a card that would explode in price and immediately not be accessible to most commander players. So that one is just sort of not even something that like feels good to release because like it's it's already that expensive. Yeah. But in some ways, not as powerful as a grizzly brand because it's harder to cheat it out. Yes. Grizzles, you know, not that hard. Yeah. I mean, it's you have to mill it or discard it. And then, but for one man, you can get on the battlefield. Yeah. Harder to do with Yagmas bargain for sure. Yeah. But it's also pay one life to draw one card and that makes a very big difference. You have to draw seven or zero. You can't draw two. Yeah. That incremental differences is does make it play. Your loss doesn't give you seven life back though. If it lives, you know, that's true. That's true. I don't know why grizzly brand got lifelink. You put bellow on the battlefield. You attack with your Yagmas bargain. Give it lifelink. There you go. All right. We're cooking. It's possible. Okay. So there is a few other cards in the ban list that we spent some amount of time talking about, but Nessus didn't reach the threshold of the cards we talked about as the ones that are mentioned in the article. So I wanted to talk about a couple of them. We don't have to talk about all of these, but if one sparks joy, let's talk about a couple of other cards that are still in the ban list that we think could be considered. They're in the mix for future possible unbans and this is probably far away at this point. But, you know, they're being discussed and I don't think there's a feeling on these next cards that absolutely they could never be unbanned. Yeah. Um, I think a couple of ones that are along the lines of what we've been talking about today is like Sylvan Primordial and even Amricul the Eon's Torn. And just in terms of just like, these are big kind of rude cards. And that's in the same vein as Sundering Titan, it's in the same vein as Iona. And can be sort of discussed in that realm. Yep. Prime time is also in the mix there. Look, if we're talking about Grizzle Brand, we better be talking about Prime Time. Prime Prime is awesome and cool. Yeah. And the power level is so different in terms of like Prime Evil Titans, a very powerful card, but is not as powerful as Grizzle Brand. Yeah. I'm for unbanned and Prime Time let people have some fun with it. It is pretty cool card. It is a tutor. It is, you know, but as a game changer, I think the game changer list, I think, makes a lot of things possible and a lot safer than they would have been. So yeah, I think Amricul, I'm a little bit more on the fence. It's more Sundering Titan Iona. Yeah. I don't know. Where are you out in those three? I think Sylvan Primordial could be unbanned when Sundering Titan gets unbanned. I think those cards are pretty married or not when, but if and when at that same time. Yeah, they're two sides of a coin. Yeah. They're ETB, they blow up some lands, they get you some lands back, but they're also both enters or in Sundering Titan's case, leaves. They're not attack triggers. Once they enter, that's it. So they're just not as good as a lot of big creatures and they're certainly not as like fun and dynamic. So I think Sundering, Sylvan Primordial will be safe once we're sure that the game changer list is more stable and more accepted or perhaps the brackets. But Sylvan Primordial is like pretty close to terrestrial in terms of like what it does to the battlefield. Like obviously it gives you the lands instead of the elephants, but and we don't play that much terrestrial anymore. So I think that's worth thinking about. Emmy is interesting. And I've gone back and forth on Emmerichael, but I do think Emmerichael is like a very popular character. It's a very popular card. Like this is very iconic magic card and sort of along the lines of Grislyle Brand in terms of like, this is like the Emmerichael. This is the one. And yes, there's a lot of ways to cheat this thing into play. There's a lot of ways to cast it for free. And when you cast it, you take an extra turn and it's basically impossible to remove on top of the annihilator six. Six is a lot. You're dead if you had a taxi. Yeah. You're going back maybe if you're a token deck, but. But I think about some of the threats that we have today in terms of like what they can do. Like I always go back to old Nobone in terms of like, if you hit with an old Nobone, the game is over. So how bad is Emmerichael? So how bad is Emmerichael? I don't know is the answer. I haven't, I haven't played in the context of multiplayer with any like I played in cube and you die in 20, 20 life. You die to have or something. Is it you sack all your lands and take 15 you lose. I think Emmerichael is worth a shot at some point. Nice. But I do think it's down the line and I do think that it's like this is going with. For me, I've been thinking about the game changer, the ban list in terms of a categories and like what categories we currently have on the ban list and what cards I think are worth it in those categories. And I've been thinking about it in terms of a couple of categories in terms of too much too fast. And this is a lot of the fast mana type stuff, Tinker even a flash, those kind of things. Fast bond. Fast bond, definitely. Just too much advantage too early in the game. And then highly disruptive. So this is like the Caracas's and the balances and like the limited resources, that kind of thing. And this is sort of where a lot of these have lived, like the Sylvan Primordials and the Sundering Titans. And then few players dominate the chess clock in terms of this is a upheaval or profit of Crufix, Paradox Engine, Nadoo. It's possession time. You go, God, just yeah, it's just you control too much of the game. And then finally is not accessible for most players combined with powerful. So that's usually that's like Ancestral Recalls. That's the library of Alexandria. That's, yeah, it could be, could be moxing. Moxing are also too much too fast. Yeah. And if they are in multiple categories, then it makes a ton of sense. So those are the four categories that I've been thinking of these things in. And Emmy doesn't fit into any of those. And so it's like, the more I look at those categories, the more I'm like, what is this? What is, why is Emerald Cool here other than it being a big scary thing? And we've got a lot of big scary things. So I just like that outlier is strange to me. I like everything you're saying here. I think you're, I'm getting like overconfident about the unbanned because they've gone so well up till now. And they keep unbanned things and nothing happens. And I'm like, we should be unbanned more and Emerald Cool, I'm in. I'm a cool letter, letter out. Let the spaghetti monster out. I think there's this wave of cards that like, like if we look at Sylvan Primordial, Primeval Titan, Emerald Cool, Grizzle Brand, like those four cards, those are all sort of in the same, in Sundering Titan, I guess, sort of go in the same like big scary stuff. And that isn't enough for me to really ban a card is it's big and scary. So it may be this overconfidence and I like genuinely leave your comments below. But yeah, the other, the other outlier is, is Gullos. Oh, Gullos is so dumb. It's so stupid. It was the most popular commander. There's no reason. Oh God, don't get me started on Gullos. What are we doing? But I'm not ready to unban Gullos yet. I don't get that at all. All right. Anyway, that's that's why I've been thinking about the ban list lately. I've been thinking about doing an episode that's like in a perfect world. This is like in my perfect world, but that's so that's silly. Anyway, you can do it. You have the outlet. That's fine. Camera and we can turn it on any time. Turn it on any time. All right. So we've got a couple of cards that were mentioned in the articles that we did talk about as potential bans. Oh yeah. The ones that may maybe narrowly miss getting banned. Yeah, they were not banned, but we're going to talk about what we think about that and we're going to get into it in a few minutes. But we talked about a lot of cards today. Yeah, some of them banned, some of them not. We talked about two cards that you can now play and you can pick those up. You want to buy your bio rhythms, bio rhythms, buy bio, bio, bio, bio, if you want to loot, you want to loot your lootries. Buy your bio, your lootries. Terrible. Go to cardkingdom.com slash your man. Card Kingdom has a huge selection of singles and sealed product. If that is your jam, if you want to add some of these cards to your deck, go get them. And you know that they're going to have the printing that you're looking for. They know that you're going to have the condition that you're looking for. And they'll ship it to you in one package. Plus, we still have a cool Lauren Eclipsed cards. If you're like me and haven't updated your deck, so you still need to pick up a couple of cards. Go to card Kingdom. You can add those all at one time. And you know they're going to get them to your safely ship them nice in a plastic box with a packing peanut and a cool token for your trouble. And you're supporting the show when you do so. Whoop, add cardkingdom.com slash command. It's also getting to be rainy season. So one thing I love about card Kingdom is like they are first of all, they're from Seattle, so they know how to handle rain, but they're also professional. So, you know, you order from other places. I've definitely gotten cards that are just in an envelope and just soaked when I get them. That doesn't happen with card game. They're pros. And of course, once you get those cards and you take them out of that nice package from card Kingdom, you want to keep them protected. Ultra Pro is the game accessories brand. We trust our own collections to earth command zone. If you go to ultra pro dot com slash command, you can find all of their cool products. We like the mana eight line a lot around here. Magic con season is coming right up. Mana eights are perfect for magic cons because they're awesome, sturdy. They'll protect all your all your decks and all your cards. They also look really classy and nice and they're perfect to sign. So if you want to have anybody sign anything magic cons, whether that's people you meet like friends from the command zone or I've seen a lot of people just having everybody they play with out of magic on sign the play mat. So again, man eight stuff, apex sleeves, ultra pro, the best there is you collect. We protect. Also, we're hiring. Oh, yes. We have a number of roles posted on our jobs page, which is again, command zone dot com slash jobs. If you don't see a job that necessarily fits exactly your description, but you think you have skills that are valuable for the command zone, reach out. You can send an email to jobs at command zone dot com with a cover letter and resume and just let us know why you think you'd be valuable for the team. Yeah, we're growing. We have a couple of roles we know we want to fill, but then we have a couple of spots that it's just like, hey, we're just looking for talented, ambitious, hardworking, passionate about magic folks. And if you think that's you, definitely shoot your shot for sure. Yeah, I think we created actually a really cool little video that's just talking to all the people that work at the command zone, kind of talking about what it's like. And I think we could play that for everybody here. Yeah. But don't worry, we'll be right back and we'll talk about those last two cards. But if you want to see what it's like working at the command zone, well, roll the clip. Hello, I'm Rachel Weeks. I am Eric Lund. My name is John Schneider. I'm Jordan Pridgen. I'm Becky. Eric Wilson. Karina Cruz. I'm Grav Galati. My name is Jake. I'm the director of production at command zone. I'm a video editor. I'm a writer producer. I'm a production assistant. Art director and graphic designer. Visual effects artists. I'm a senior video editor. And I also direct a lot of episodes of Game Nights. I come up with topics for the podcast. I primarily focus on our short form content. I move lights around, I set up cameras. I am a set designer. I am a set dresser. I create graphics. I do sound mixing. I make sure we don't run out of coffee. I'm constantly making social graphics and thumbnails. I create animations for game nights. I help with practical effects on set. I design, create and acquire props. I handle production builds, video engineering, hiring, casting, crew. I've composed music for some of our stuff. This is definitely a company where no one's above any particular task. One of my favorite things about this job is there's new problems, there's new challenges, there's new projects. It's not one of those corporate jobs where you sit down at a computer and you do the exact same thing every day. We're a pretty small company and we're trying to do a lot of big things. So a lot of people are gonna end up wearing a lot of hats. I think if you're the kind of person who enjoys variety, doesn't want each day to be the same as the next, this is a great fit for you. You need to be the person that thrives in the little bit of chaos. The Command Zone is really about raising the bar and being ambitious. We're all just trying to make something that we can be proud of. I'm extremely proud of everything we've made at the Command Zone. I think our core values are that we are always pushing ourselves. We put our heart and soul into every project that we take on. I think we do a really good job at pushing ourselves creatively, not being afraid to take creative risks, whether they pan out or not. Command Zone is big on innovation. We're always trying to do something cool that we haven't done before or maybe we have done before, but let's make it better. At Command Zone, we're all about answering the call. When we've decided as a team that we're doing something, we all commit to it and we charge in parallel toward our target together. The thing I like the most is the people, the team. This is the best, brightest group of people that I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They all love magic. They all love content creation. And how cool is it that we all get to work together to share our passion with the world? The type of person that would really succeed here at the Command Zone, someone who is really creative, someone who has a lot of ideas for things they want to see on screen, someone who's driven, someone that wants to work hard. Working here is fun and it's really cool, but it's not easy. Like, we put a lot of work into everything we do and we want to work with people who are willing to put that same amount of effort and commitment into it. I think the type of person that would succeed here is someone who's ambitious about wanting to make something that is awesome and maybe never even seen before. As long as you're open and coming into this ready to say, I'm willing to take on any challenge that you put in front of me, then I think that you would be really successful here. This is the best job I've ever had. I love my job. I absolutely love working at the Command Zone. It is easily the best job I've ever had. It is completely a dream job. It's a dream come true. That's literally my dream come true. I was a kid designing cards on custom card magic forms growing up and now creative magic the gathering stuff is what I get to do. It's like childhood me would be ecstatic. Adult me is also ecstatic. Prior to working here, I thought having a good job just met. I don't hate doing it. And now I really appreciate that it's like something that I actively enjoy. If you've never had a job that you truly liked, it's worth anything to pursue and put yourself into that position. Because the quality of life improvement is so high when you look forward to waking up and going to work every day. Starting as a fan of the Command Zone and then coming to work for it is a little bit surreal at first. You get Josh Lee Kwai's name in your phone. It's very strange. But I think the big thing that you get from Jimmy and Josh is they want to make it great. And that openness to trying new things and trying to do things a little bit better than we did yesterday is really what drives this company. And it just makes the job really exciting. Working with Jimmy and Josh has been really great for me as a creative. These guys have decades of experience in the industry. They push us and they challenge us. They set really high standards. It all comes out when people see the content and we can be proud of what we did. I've only been here about a year, but the amount of new things that I have learned is exponential. There's a lot of opportunity. When I first started here, I didn't know anything about editing. And now after eight years, I'm heading up one of the biggest shows that we make. I've worked here for about five years now. In my time here, I've gone through a lot of changes in my life. I've bought a house. I've had a child. I've gotten married. I've gone through all these changes. And the Command Zone has been here with support every step of the way. And I've really, really loved that. The type of person that's gonna be successful at the Command Zone is the type of person who is always trying to grow and become better and better at what they do and enjoy. I would say if you're thinking about applying, if you love magic, but you also really love sharing your love with magic with other people, if you love solving problems, using every facet of your brain, if you wanna hold yourself to a higher standard, I think you should do it. Very cute. Everyone's so cute. Yeah, it was so nice to see it. All the game nights live stuff is so exciting. It's a trip down memory lane that one. So yeah, you get to see Baby Rachel there. That was such a baby. Baby Rachel, with the skull clamp. Before I was gray. And withered. Okay, let's talk about the last two cards here, which were considered to be banned, but they didn't end up banning them. These were called shots as far as like the last time we heard from Gavin and Wizards on this subject. They mentioned, hey, we're looking at Hybrid Mana, and then we're also looking at a couple of cards. We wanna hear what you think about it. And the two cards were Thaustus Oracle and Ristic Study. Yeah, let's start with Thaustus Oracle. I think this one's a little bit clearer. Thaustus Oracle is really only seeing play at competitive tables in CEDH. So I think this question was really put out to the CEDH community. Where do you think it's at? Is it a flash level situation? It being game-changered, and I think just anecdotally, we're not seeing it at a ton of tables where it's... It's never seen casual play, really. I mean, I played against it a little bit, but I wouldn't say it is often outside of the demonic consultation Thaustus Oracle package. Especially these days. And that outcry just sort of wasn't there. There really wasn't the universal support from the CEDH community to back a ban for Thaustus Oracle. So it just isn't gonna be banned. There's not, well, at the time being, until there is more universal support from the community, I think, Thaustus Oracle is not really being looked at anymore. Yeah, I mean, the only reason you think about banning it is cut as a CEDH. And then if you ask a bunch of CEDH people, hey, do y'all think Thaustus Oracle should be banned? And they mostly go, no. Then like, why would you ban it? Because the other people aren't thinking it should be banned. I've never heard a casual be like, Thaustus Oracle sucks. Yeah, I mean, well, they think that, but they're like, I don't play against it all the time. Well, yeah, from experience. They just say that I've heard it sucks. Yeah, it's, it was like a 50-50 is my experience of what I've seen about banning Thaustus Oracle. It's like half the community is like, we should ban it. And the other half was like, we shouldn't. But if half the CEDH community is saying to ban it, it's a very, very small part. Yeah, I shouldn't say that nobody in CEDH said that. It's just like, it definitely wasn't like a clear cut. Like, oh, it's very clear that all most, I'm going to hyperbolically say all. Yeah. Yeah. But let's move on to the more contentious one. This is a rustic study. It's not banned. It's not banned. So I consider that a momentary victory, at least. I will say the CEDH community did want this one banned. This is a very clear sound from the CEDH community that they wanted rustic study banned. But this is a very different case than Thaustus Oracle. Because rustic study, of course, sees widespread play at casual levels. Yeah, it's one of the most popular cards on EHREC. One of the most popular blue cards. Expensive. It goes in a ton of decks. This would be a major ban for the commander format. And the responses that I saw that we saw and that we got from the CFP were mixed. Yeah. It was kind of like Hybrid Mana. I'd say it was close to 50-50. You could argue about whether it was one one side of the line or the other. But yeah, I don't think it was clear cut. And it's like we said about Hybrid Mana almost exactly, which is, I think, to make a change like this for a card that's this popular, it should be very clear. 75%, 80%. It feels like our in favor of it. And I don't think that case can be made. No. It really didn't seem like there was a lot of reasons that why it affects competitive commander. But those reasons were not big enough to be worth the catastrophic implications that they have for the much larger casual audience. And even among the casual audience, half the population is like, I don't know. I like my Ristik study. That's one of my favorite cards. Yeah, I think we hear a lot of rhetoric that is about, everybody hates this. And it's like, listen, when this number of people play it in their deck, it's not because they hate it. It's because they like it for the most part. Yeah, some people I'm sure feel like, oh, I have to put it in because it's at a certain power level. But it's commander, it's casual. Most people are playing cards that they like. I'm a person that loves Ristik study. I'm a person that doesn't love it. Yeah, and I acknowledge it's power level. But should we be taking away a card? It's like let people do the cool thing like with Grizzle Brand or whatever. I think it's sort of similar to me. It's like, I'm not discussing other bands that happened in the past, but it hasn't gone that well when we've chosen to take things out of people's hands that they like that aren't, can't from a like pure power level perspective be justified, which I think Ristik study falls into. Yeah, I would also say that like, while I don't love Ristik study and I don't play it, I also think it's very much a part of the commander culture. I think the meme of Ristik study that, oh no, Ristik study is commander and has been for a very long time. This is the kind of card that was bad in every other format until it got here and it suddenly busted. So for me, Ristik study is a big part of commander and banning a cultural cornerstone, or at least like a big brick on the outside. You need a widespread support and that just wasn't there. So you can let us know what you think about Ristik study. Well, imagine it's gonna be about half of you think it should be banned and the other half are looking at the ones in their deck and breathing a sigh of relief today. People don't like it, be loud. Yeah. Yeah, let's change it to 60, 40, come on, we can do it. So that's where, like that's not to say that these cards will never be banned. They are being talked about. They're certainly the closest to the line. All right, why you gotta just end it with that Rachel? Why you gotta like make your- Just keeping the doors open. Just keeping you on your toes. Gotta stand for the 40% or the 50%. All right, well until then, which I hope is a long time from now, we're gonna sign off. Thanks for sticking with us. Yeah, it's fun times for commander. I like what Wizards has done here. I like how they're responding to the community and listening. I think their decisions have been pretty good and measured. I mean, I do wish we'd unbanned more cards. I think that would be fine and safe, but they're taking, they're being careful and I think that's fine. Careful is good? Yep. All right, let's say thank you to our team for making this episode and all of our episodes possible. Thank you to Karina Cruz, Josh Diaz, John Schneider, Karob Galati, Jamie Block, Jordan Pridgen, Jake Boss, Becky Bell, Eric Lem, Manson Lung, Josh Murphy, Evan Limburger, Sam Waldo and of course, Jimmy Wong. All right everybody, thanks for watching. Bye. Peace. Rural Britain, you've suffered too long. Your days of sluggish broadband are over. We're connecting rural homes to full fiber with thousands more joining every month. T minus five. The gigaverse is expanding before my very eyes. Giga clear, faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds per month. We have lived off. T's and C's apply. 18 month contract, prices may rise during contract. Check availability at gigaclear.com.