SEPTEMBER 2022 RULES - BANNED/RESTRICTED UPDATE
After this delicate summer, full of weather instabilities but full of tournaments as well, it seems that playing Duel Commander is quite stable and yet a dynamic experience at the moment, which is something we all like.
This is now a pretty calm moment, which is why we took an opportunity to test something we have never tested with Duel Commander.
Overall, the Duel Commander metagame has appeared to be quite stable for the last few months, with some of the most popular and efficient "blue-white" based decks. While combo decks remain diverse, aggressive decks, on the other hand, seem to struggle a bit. That’s why we want to try and give a new tool for aggressive decks by trying an experimental change.
CHANGES:
🔘 RULES CHANGES
No changes.
🔘INDIVIDUAL CARD CHANGES
No changes.
🔘 EXPERIMENTAL CHANGES
Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful is now legal.
🔘 OTHER CHANGES
No changes.
👉 Don’t forget to check out our Banned and Restricted page for a recap of all the currently banned/restricted cards.
👉 You can still contact us on our Facebook Page page and our Discord server. The next announcement will be published on November 28, 2022.
Until then, we wish you all many good games! :)
FURTHER INDIVIDUAL EXPLANATIONS
During the marketing period of cards from Kamigama: Neon Dynasty and Neon Dynasty Commander in February, we had the proof that new Magic The Gathering cards could be printed as one-zone-two-commanders at any time, now, being pushed from time to time. This greatly made us move into winter announcements, which changed everything. For those reasons and because of those coincidences, Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful bore a very specific history: it was never legal on the day it was released, while being also a valid commander.
Despite the new rules we added since then, it never was really tried by people, who didn't have the opportunity to play it. We believe it is worth giving it a try, and, as this situation is really singular, this change is an experimental one.
A few things that make Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful a good candidate for this experiment:
First, as mentioned earlier, it promotes an aggressive gameplan, something we like to see in the format as it’s an interactive and interesting gameplay, and we hope it would let the archetype be on a par with the rest of the format.
Second, it has never been available since our winter announcement. As it would be overpowered for sure under the older rules, it could now be in line with the power level of the format.
Third, there are numerous ways to build this general, with choices ranging from choosing colors, to establishing the good ratio of synergic spells, etc. Which means this is something we could not test, even with a seasoned team of playtesters, and the best way to evaluate the card is to let you all, the community, work on it.