While Zur the Enchanter is still a strong and very oppressive commander, we think that his glory days are gone, and with new commanders claiming the board Zur will loose some of his supremacy status. Let’s see how he works out unbanned – will he once again be unbeatable ?

The most cards which are newly banned like Skull Storm are abusing the 2HG / Team Commander format (the fact that you have 2 enemies): these cards are too powerful in the format, so a Skull Storm can deal 2x half the life of a team = instant death if no creatures can be sacrificed. Same goes for Loyal Subordinate and Gonti’s Machinations  which deal too much damage in 2HG for thir mana cost, and especially Chandra, Awakened Inferno’s Emblems, which are sheer unremovable and unevitable. Raiders‘ Wake is in the same line like Megrim – with Wheel of Fortune they are insane n 2HG. As we allow theese Wheel-Effects (as red has already few card draws), the Megrim-Effects and the Alms Collector / Leovold combos therefore need bannings.

We still try to ban as few cards as possible (though you may not believe it when you see our list)… we don’t ban all combo cards ! Yes, some players still do not agree with our philosophy and ask us to ban more combocards, but we are fine with them right now: as long as a combo isn’t archieved too easily and too early in a game, but instead is a late-game-win or needs several cards, we are okay with that. Also, it’s sheer impossible to ban all cards which have a combo potential.

We also can’t ban all card combinations which could possibly lead to a mask discard situation – we are fine that discard can be a viable option, but discard as a mechanism is limited due too high mana costs and the cards itself so that it neither happens too early in a game and seldom that the complete hand of an opponent can be discarded (regularly). Sadistic Hypnotist can be one possibility to do so, so we banned it before it gets abused too often.

The last banned card needs a bit of explanation, as it might not be too obvious: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might seem strange, but it has a great impact: it slows down Cabal Coffers a bit. There are other coffer-like cards, and we don’t want to remove this quite fast mana option from Team Commander, but by banning Urborg, the amount of Mana you get is reduced a bit, the speed of getting fast mana is reduced, and the speed and availability is removed: now coffers is more likely to be played in mono black, and the coffers are slower, as you can’t splice them into other colored Decks easily, and therefore can’t benefit from immense ramp of green.