ASK THE COMMITTEE: MISCELLANEOUS GAME TOPICS

Your question:

"Are there plans or discussions about regularly revising the B&R list, especially on cards that have been banned for a long time, so it can be tested against the current metagame?"

Our answer:

Every time, all the time, the Committee keeps looking at what's restricted, banned and legal. Though not all the ~30.000 Magic The Gathering cards can be reexamined, a very close pool of famous ones are watched. What is in the B&R is of course part of this analysis and almost every announcement has one of these cards questionned and raised as a topic at least.

Your question:

"Hello,

I have 2 questions:

 - as a new comer to format, once I want to go from mono-coloured decks to (at least) two-coloured decks, the cards are starting to become really expensive (dual lands, FoW, aluren,... basically all reserved list cards?). Are there any considerations to make the format more budget-friendly but still competitive?

 - there are many cards that are closing the game by making it impossible for oppononents to cast spells: Contamination, Armaggeddon, Winter Orb among many others. These cards a giving one chance on 99 to have a free win, which, in my point of view, is not going towards an interaction between 2 players. Are there any considerations for banning this kind of cards?

Best Regards.

Thanks for your efforts so far ;)"

Our answer:

Your first question regarding budget is not linked to Duel Commander, but rather linked to Magic The Gathering. Event without taking the Reprint Policy into account, most decks will still represent a certain amount of money. Therefore, we can't solve Magic The Gathering economy ourselves. We are an independent game that doesn't change nor outdate its material (card pool) over time, which shares the top winning decks' 500 cards as being played over 1.5% of the time, which is pretty acceptable. And one of the promise of our format is to use the eternal-based card pool, which we can't reduce or alter according to economy. What we do take into account, sometimes, is the rarity of certain cards which can't be found too easily, even when lent by trusting people. Also: you're mixing a lot of topics into one: Force Of Will or Aluren have nothing to do with the number of colours in your deck colour identity, and actually share very very little common gameplay considerations.

Your second question is asking if there would be a way to remove subjectively labeled "unfair" cards. First, not all of them do make perfect wins, and not all of them can't be recovered from. But all of them are decent Magic The Gathering eternal-based cards. Some cards similar to the ones you mention here are already banned in DC. We keep observing the other ones as well, which we think are perfectly fine and part of games so far. Most of the time, a better built deck is a better solution than calling the police. Not all problems players face are meant to be legally handled: most of them are actually simply metagame and card natural selection drawn from competition. Which, in the end is what we do firmly believe in and foster: competitive deck building.

Note: we addressed a lot of economic aspects of the game in our 2022 and 2024 panels.

Your question:

"What are the qualifications for banning a card in Duel Commander?"

Our answer:

This question was mostly addressed in our 2023 Panel through the "Player Experience" section. The answer is complex and suffers no exhaustive list of criteria.