Pauper Duel Commander: Committee Creation, Bans and Updates

In Pauper Commander (PDH), we have the version of Duels, that is, one against one.

A Duel Committee was recently formed, as the need to take a closer look at the variant was crucial to its health.

Commander Hit Points and Damage Change

Because of this, some things have changed, and the ones that have had the most impact on the format since the creation of the Committee was the amount of life points that went from 30 to 25.

Another thing that had a direct impact on the games and how decks are built was the change in commander damage, which was previously 16, now it is 21.

Note that these changes are only for the Duel variant, Pauper EDH in its multiplayer format is not affected by this change.

With the aforementioned changes, deckbuilders would be expected to make major changes to their decks around the new numbers. As a result, in order to ensure proper functioning and how these changes would impact the games, the Committee spent time analyzing data from the most active communities, reaching the conclusion that it would be healthier for the format to banish two cards that appear in the zone of command.

As of February 1st, the cards below are banned from the Pauper Duel Commander format.

This Commander makes Mono-Red very fast and lethal. He makes tokens in all combats, and that they can attack, because they have momentum. The creature costs two mana and also has haste, which makes it overwhelming from the first turns.

Most players in the format were building Mono Red using it, regardless of the chosen strategy, and its combination with other cards that interact with chips makes it even better.

This card is a background-type enchantment, which came as a new type to change the format directions a bit. What happened is that in Duel, Agent of the Shadow Thieves impacted so much that it became a difficult problem to deal with.

He, together with the Wilson, Refined Grizzly, made the deck unfair to interact against, and putting +1/+1 and indestructible every turn made the game more difficult. Even destroying the background, it costs little and is worth putting back in the field, even paying its extra fees.

For the health of the format, these changes should be enough. However, if after these Bans, other cards become overwhelming and leave the format stagnant, the Committee may intervene again.