Duel Commander Banlist: Commanders and Why They Were Banned

We've already reviewed every non-commander card that is banned in Duel Commander in this article. Now, let's discuss the other banned cards, that is, the banned commanders!

About These Cards

Duel Commander is incredibly diverse. The main cards in the format are all quite new and extremely "synergistic". We often joke that all cards that are playable in Duel Commander were super broken in 1998 or were reprinted after 2019.

Obviously, this is just an exaggeration, but it's actually quite accurate. Recently, power creep made the 99 cards in each Commander deck a lot better than the commanders themselves, which matter less and less each day. The banned commanders are really quite strong and completely change the way each match is played. So, it makes sense they're banned because being able to play these cards in every match is simply too strong.

We separated these banned cards into some categories:

1. Design Mistakes

Some commanders were simply designed with a different MTG in mind. A game with more players and 40 HP. In Duel Commander, these cards simply don't work.

2. Mana Cost and Power Level

Some commanders break MTG's mana system. Some are more powerful, some are less, and some could even eventually leave this banned list, as Tasigur did.

3. Combo Pieces

Many of these commanders are part of combos and take advantage of them. When these combos are too consistent, fast, or anything like that, they're often banned.

4. Broken / Game Warping

Some commanders are simply too good, and that's it. They prevent other decks from existing simply because they're "worse" versions of them, or something like it.

5. Mystery Reasons

Ok, calling these mystery reasons is sort of clickbait-y. But some commanders were banned in the past and could be unbanned today without further issues. At least that's what I believe.

Design Mistakes

Oh, Eminence. This mechanic, by definition, only exists in Commander matches - so it was designed for more players and 40 HP. In these conditions, Arahbo and Edgar seem extremely fair.

In 1v1 matches with 20 HP, however, these commanders are too explosive and often uncontrollable. Please note that some Eminence cards are available in this format, like Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, but this card in particular doesn't affect the battlefield.

Oloro is the opposite, but let's be honest, aggro lists can't beat a lifegain card they can't interact with and that is active from turn 1 onward.

Verdict: Banned, and they should be for all time.

Mana Cost / Power Level

Commanders are always available in the command zone, and, so being, any commander that lets you cheat out mana is highly criticized.

Yuriko and her Commander Ninjutsu are simply a mistake. I even considered adding this card to the category above.

Eris and Hogaak are different. These commanders seem (and are!) scary, but they're not that different from Tasigur. I even thought it would be a mistake to unban Tasigur before Hogaak, considering Hogaak needs a lot more sacrifices than Tasigur, but, after it was unbanned as one of the 99 cards, it didn't see play anywhere.

Eris is quite different in terms of play pattern. Some cards, like Dead // Gone (and there are several spells like this), Magma Opus, and Lorien Revealed, make Eris consistently cost 2 mana and practically give it an ETB ability. All you need to do to get a Dragon is use a cantrip.

Rograhk cheats out mana in a different way. It centers a lot more on increasing the Storm count and enabling things that are just wrong, like Culling the Weak and Infernal Plunge. Rograhk seems fair, but it repeatedly broke the format in a way we must all admit was quite unfair. I reckon there is no way to use it fairly.

Verdict: Yuriko, Eris, and Rograhk are banned and should stay banned.

Hogaak could be unbanned.

Combo Pieces

All of these cards were banned because they were part of a specific combo. Let's go through each of them.

This combo needs two pieces to work, but Flicker can be in your graveyard. The biggest problem is that, when you're not playing the combo, you're putting big creatures in the graveyard and also getting 4 treasures (which is almost the best Ritual in the world).

Explaining the entire combo is a lot of work, but a Spellseeker and are all you need to win the game. This deck is too strong and certainly can't exist. I doubt it would be this incredible without Spellseeker, but the truth is that Eminence is a design mistake, so it's not even worth it to mess around with other things.

This is the combo. Reanimate Ooze and win the game. This deck also played Trazyn the Infinite, and, when both were banned, Hoarding Broodlord started seeing play. Eventually, we all realized that the most broken part of the combo is really Stickfingers.

Prime Speaker Vannifar was banned quite suddenly. Basically, in a short amount of time, this deck won the game by activating Vannifar once. Just like Nadu (which isn't here because it is also banned as one of the 99 cards), it was banned way before it was properly refined.

Verdict: all of these cards were banned with good reason and should never see the light of day again.

Broken / Game Warping

This section includes 13 commanders. For this reason, I'll break it down even further into more sections.

5c Aggro

These commanders see play in 5-color good stuff lists but are also incredibly strong creatures. The lists themselves are quite unpredictable: you don't know if they'll lean more towards tempo or just be super aggressive. They can also ignore their color identity and effectively splash other support colors. So, these cards had to be banned. If you want to play 5-color lists, you'll have to use worse commanders, like Kyodai or Jenson Carthalion.

Unbeatable by Aggro

In totally different ways, these commanders are unbeatable against aggressive decks. Ajani simply disables the combat phase because aggro lists simply can't beat it when it is transformed. You can also transform it yourself with a Fury or similar.

As for Omnath, it simply gains a lot of life constantly, has an ETB effect, and you can use 4 colors with it. It also buys you some time when you have a fetchland, but, though this might be strong, it wasn't the reason why it was banned.

Incredibly Strong Strategies

All of these commanders are stronger than the alternative, each in their own way. Obviously, no card "wins the game by itself". After all, you can still counter a Shorikai, remove a Tamiyo/Winota multiple times, etc... But, if you don't do this, all of these archetypes are just too efficient. Nothing else in the game comes close to them.

There is not much we can say... Just read these cards. Some of them stand out when they're one of the 99 cards in decks that can play them (like Minsc and Boo and Raffine), others don't make sense as one of the 99 cards because their archetypes need specific setups (like Edric, which uses cards like Flying Men).

???

Derevi was banned in 2014 and is still banned. It has been so long that we can hardly imagine how it would see play today. A few problems include the fact that we can't interact with it with counters, we can play it in the commander zone without further issues, and it interacts really well with cards like Winter Orb.

I can't think of any interesting or fun lists with Derevi. It seems quite strong if you use it to force the opponent to interact with you. For instance, you can play it as you pass, tap a land, attack, and tap another land. Even if the opponent destroys it, they'll have to use mana to do it, and, once they invest their resources, you can just put another strong threat in play, like a Teferi.

Urza, on the other side, takes advantage of Winter Orb as well and is incredibly powerful... Which makes sense, considering this is a very iconic character.

Verdict: Most of these cards should really stay banned. Omnath, Vial Smasher, and Urza are the most honest ones, and frankly, I'd really like to see Vial Smasher in the format again. But the meta is probably better without them.

Mystery Reasons

Ok, this title is a bit of an exaggeration, but hear me out on these 3 cards...

Geist is a great commander. It has hexproof, which means it can defend itself against most spot removals. It attacks for 6 every turn, which is a lot. The last Geist lists used something between 6 and 10 creatures, all of them with Flash or useful effects, and were something between Control and Voltron.

But Geist was banned in 2017. Since then, many great creatures were released, and blocking Geist became easier than ever. Force of Will, Balance, Lotus Petal, and Wasteland were banned (and they were all excellent in this list).

I don't believe Geist would be irrelevant in the meta, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a tier-2 list or even worse (it could be a tier-1 list, but it certainly won't be oppressive).

Why not unban it?

Emry is a complicated case. Defending any card that has artifact affinity is just asking to be stoned later...

The question is Emry kind of doesn't do anything. The best it can do is draw a few cards with Baubles or other recursive cards, but this effect is quite weak. When it was banned in 2019, they mentioned it was banned because it ignored the commander tax, just like Tasigur. If Tasigur could be unbanned, I'm certain Emry could be released as well, and might not even see any play.

Krark was banned in 2021 alongside countless other cheap commanders with Partner. All of the banned commanders at the time have since been unbanned (Keleth, Ardenn, Ludovic, Reyhan, and Rograhk - which ended up banned again recently).

Krark is a fun option that buys value with time. Any card in your hand effectively represents 2 of them as long as you pay for its cost more than once. It is very interesting with heroic.

I believe Krark's biggest problem is that it can be really great and people could get frustrated if they lost to it in quite literally a coin flip. Considering how repetitive this effect is (and would be), it is no longer a "coin flip", but rather an RNG effect that is less relevant than the card you draw each turn (unlike Invert Polarity, for instance, which actually ends game with a single coin flip).

Verdict: These commanders were truly banned for mystery reasons, but they could all get another shot in the current meta.

What about commanders that could be banned?

I believe these are the only actual commanders that could be banned. Aragorn dominated the meta as a "blue aggro" (tempo) list for a long time. It was almost defeated by Spiderman, which is actually the most popular deck right now.

That being said, I don't believe these two will be banned. They are consistent and strong, but they're not a lot more powerful than other strategies. We also have "simple" ways to beat them, and even decks that weren't designed to beat them can compete with them quite fairly.

Other commanders that were once strong are even less likely to be banned...

I believe some pieces in these decks can eventually be banned (like Glacial Chasm or strong tempo pieces, like Fury), but these commanders will remain.

Many commanders are banned in Duel Commander, and most for a good reason. I believe a few of them deserve another shot after so long, but, the shorter the banlist is, the better it is for this format.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!