#Wizards of the Coast instructions Commander now
Wizards of the Coast now has full management over their card recreation’s hottest format. Some may be shocked to study that Magic: The Gathering‘s hottest and beloved format, Commander, was not already overseen by the cardboard recreation’s homeowners. The reply, briefly, is that the format wasn’t for Wizards. Commander is for everybody.
Commander was born from Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) format on an air drive base in Alaska. A Magic Decide named Sheldon Menery began to form this format within the early 2000s across the thought of a social, player-driven philosophy. Sheldon based the Commander Guidelines Committee (RC) to assist information the format down these hopeful paths. The intention of the RC has all the time been to encourage the social, informal nature of Commander, relatively than implement strict rulesets. Menery outlined this merely, in an interview from September 2022, saying “Commander is a social format first, and a mechanical one second.”
To most individuals, Commander is the format that you just play with a gaggle of mates over drinks and snacks whereas speaking about no matter and sometimes realizing that you just’re shedding the sport. That simplicity is what made Commander the preferred strategy to play, and infrequently the principle method individuals enter into Magic: The Gathering as a passion. Balancing this social philosophy with ban lists is a troublesome factor, however the upside is that the RC was run outdoors of Wizards of the Coast. The RC had been members of the Magic group, accessible and approachable individuals who may instantly deal with the critiques of a rising participant base. When the group grew and the viewpoints of the RC weren’t sufficient, the Commander Advisory Group (CAG) was established, inviting high-profile members of the group to be rallying factors for gamers and new voices to affect RC selections.
In the identical interview from 2022, Menery defined, “We don’t have arduous knowledge, metrics, like an organization would possibly for its choice factors. We don’t have revenue sheets… that’s liberating.” That was the distinction. The format’s management cared about individuals and inspiring camaraderie; an organization cares about promoting cardboard. When Wizards began designing playing cards particularly for Commander, a brand new function for the RC and CAG turned to evaluate how these playing cards impacted gamers and determine methods to deal with them.
Whereas the cooperation between Wizards and the RC was mutually helpful, the design objectives for Wizards’ codecs and Commander are fully completely different. The RC is, technically, not an official rules-making physique. Their selections would possibly impact the aggressive scene of Commander, however the format is designed for flexibility in how every play group will play the sport. These strains can blur and change into harder as Wizards prints playing cards with Commander as a focus for design. Menery defined in an article in 2015, “There’s a international, centralized imaginative and prescient for the format. It’s as much as you to determine how your private imaginative and prescient meshes with that or doesn’t, however our imaginative and prescient consists of the concept yours doesn’t completely line up with ours.”
The RC’s strategy to Commander has lengthy been pretty hands-off, a part of the aim to permit gamers a way of freedom and expression by way of deck constructing and play. This continued as Commander pushed onward within the aftermath of Sheldon Menery’s passing in September 2023. His declare that the private imaginative and prescient of some gamers might not completely align with the objectives of the RC turned prophetic a number of days in the past.
On September 23, the RC banned 4 playing cards: Mana Crypt, Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Nadu, Winged Knowledge. Nadu had already been faraway from different codecs, and most didn’t miss it. The opposite playing cards had been banned due to their skill to ramp up the pace of video games, the power to accrue “quick mana” and leap into the mid-game by your first or second flip. The playing cards had been format-warping, however individuals had been fast to level out the unusual inconsistencies within the banning philosophy whereas evaluating which playing cards had been and weren’t banned. Then, issues escalated.
In keeping with some members of the CAG, the RC made these selections with out consulting the CAG in any respect. Criticism was lobbied on the RC initially, however that took a flip too. The banning of those playing cards was thought of an financial hit for card traders promoting on the secondary market. Costs for a number of of those playing cards had reached between $80 and $800, Mana Crypt specifically. The drop in costs on a line graph had been stark and vertical. The vitriolic threats that had been fired round are literally finest captured in a submit from Wizards of the Coast within the aftermath. They stated, “we’ve seen gamers and followers share a various vary of passionate opinions—far too a lot of which had been dangerous or malicious” and “it’s by no means applicable to threaten anyone… we won’t hesitate to take motion in opposition to people who threaten to hurt group members or workers.”
The RC posted a doc describing their causes for the bans in query, why they didn’t alert the group these playing cards had been being monitored, and why the CAG was not knowledgeable of those selections. When threats at Committee members, notably focusing on Olivia Gobert-Hicks, continued, Jim LaPage went to social media to defend Olivia, breaking the RC’s confidentiality voting in a transparent try to mitigate the anger. LaPage’s X account went non-public quickly after. Some CAG members tweeted resignations amidst all this for causes which might be nonetheless unknown on the time of reporting. For the reason that listing went up, in line with all sources from the Magic group, Commander format management, and Wizards themselves, nothing stemmed the tide.
On September 30, Wizards of the Coast introduced that management over the Commander format now belonged to them. Social media posts from RC and CAG members quickly adopted.
Right now, it’s too quickly to say for sure what the results of this shift from a volunteer drive to Wizards will likely be. Wizards has indicated that “the imaginative and prescient for a social format won’t change.” In a livestream on October 1, Wizards tackled the very problem of constructing selections with revenue sheets. Aaron Forsythe responded, “Sure, Hasbro desires issues. Sure, my boss desires issues… I’ve plenty of freedom to execute as I see match… Our aim is to make this factor final ceaselessly… making the sport enjoyable as doable for as many individuals as doable is how we’re gonna make our cash.” In addition they supplied some feedback on the character of their proposed “bracket” system and the brand new Committee that principally quantities to no actual solutions for gamers till one thing extra official is launched.
Discussing the banned playing cards on the heart of all this, Wizards designers revealed they imagine the playing cards to be “errors” that they “wouldn’t wish to make by right this moment’s requirements.” Whereas the implication is that these playing cards will stay banned, there was no affirmation that they are going to keep that method. All we all know for now could be that Wizards is “evaluating” the ban listing and making no adjustments at the moment.
In a 2019 article by Sheldon Menery discussing the historical past of Commander, he concludes with, “The historical past of Commander has been an extended, unusual, and sudden journey. How we bought here’s a compelling story, but it surely’s extra necessary to concentrate on the place we’re and the place we’re going.” Greater than ever, the story of Magic‘s hottest format feels adrift in unknown waters. Wizards of the Coast produces recreation items for his or her official codecs and fortunately uplifts their secondary market with restrictive reprint insurance policies. Commander is now an official format too.
Nonetheless, it’s higher for anger to be focused at a faceless company than particular person volunteers. The admin for the official Commander Discord server posted an announcement that included this commentary, “You’ll by no means once more get the privilege of one-on-one communication with a call maker of the format. There’s little question that the individuals who will likely be taking up managing Commander will likely be stored principally nameless for their very own security, given what simply occurred to the Guidelines Committee.”
What’s going to change into of the social format is anybody’s guess. Within the ultimate sentence of his historical past article, Sheldon Menery takes an optimistic strategy towards the long run. He wrote, “From the place I sit, the sky is the restrict.”
Within the quick aftermath of Wizards taking management of Commander, listed costs of Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus began to rise.
